FIRST LITERARY REVIEW-EAST

MARCH 2011

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This issue is dedicated to my beloved brother, Rick Sostchen (1954-2009), who was born in March and died in March. He was not only my brother, but was also a big supporter of my poetry - - and, to quote Bob Dylan, "he was a friend of mine."  I carry him in my heart, and pine for him every day!     -Cindy Hochman

Only One

There is only one death,
one jolt of lightning strike
one that keeps happening
and each time the stomach
caves in the same
and each time it gets harder,
not the knowing there'll be another
but that one day, someone
a living creature we
shared breath with
will simply be gone

                                        -Linda Lerner

Linda Lerner was born and educated in New York City; her next full-length collection will be published by New York Quarterly Books in the spring, 2011. She's published thirteen collections of poetry. The most recent: Something Is Burning In Brooklyn (2009, Iniquity Press/ Vendetta Books), Living In Dangerous Times (Presa Press, 2007) and City Woman (March Street Press, Fall, 2006; the last two were Small Press Reviews' Picks). Her poems have recently been published in, or will be in, the following journals: the New York Quarterly, Onthebus, Louisiana Review, Paterson Literary Review,  Chiron Review, Tribes, Van Gogh's Ear, Home Planet News, and online in New Verse News & Rusty Truck, et al.

granulating glass/
     slashes paper-cut red/
          on innocent fingers

my heart in its cast-iron chambers/
     beats to the second-hand silence

my path is a sheet of winter-white/
     multi-tiered layers of loneliness

I will catalog life/
     under dirges of darkness/
and bury the death chill/
          of this thawing season.

                                                   -Cindy Hochman

Cindy Hochman is the editor-in-chief of this fine publication. And that's all you have to know!

Anniversary

                                -Suddenly my hands become cow ears
                          they turn into Pusan, the South Korean port.
                                                  Shinkichi Takahashi, FISH

I don't understand exactly
               or understand at all; and wanting more:
Is there light there? I ask,
my hands somehow turning into the Pusan port
of Takahashi's poem.

Is the body?
Missed? Is awareness?
I want to ask you
if you remember anything.

If you remember me.

Has my own mother forgotten me
in her death?

                                       -Karen Neuberg

Karen Neuberg is the associate editor of this fine publication.  And that's all you have to know!

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The sleep walker

          He dared not sleep, lest
          His heart stopped to bleed
          He purred, and whined in his sleep
          clenched his teeth, shook his knees
          pang, agony, fury and fatigue,
          were the shibboleth of the somnambulist

                                                                          -Ali Rahimi

Ali Rahimi obtained his Ph.D. degree in TEFL from Shiraz University, Iran in 2004.  He has published eight books on Critical Discourse Analysis, The Art of Communication, Globalization, Translation Theories, and Teaching Mythologies. He has published some articles and presented papers at both national and international conferences. He has also translated six books from English to Persian in the areas of General Linguistics, Pragmatics and Psycholinguistics.

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Portent of Indifference

Full and spilling light,
The moon of March,
At spring's approach
And all resurgences
That it will bring
Is a mild throbbing
In unobstructing sky,
Presence of heaven,
Stirrer of the blood
That seems to be its eye,
Nonetheless, it is blank and featureless,
And blazing like imagination's nothingness
Declares that I who feel it
Soon will wane and die.

                                                   -Michael Graves

Michael Graves is the author of two chapbooks, Outside St. Jude's (R.E.M. Press, 1990) and Illegal Border Crosser (Cervena Barva, 2008), and a full-length collection, Adam and Cain (Black Buzzard, 2006). A second full-length collection, In Fragility, is forthcoming from Black Buzzard this year. In 2004, he was awarded a grant from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation.

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Medium & Maker

Muscovy duck friend,
of a musky odor,
I amble through your travels,
as I too am sometimes considered a nuisance pest.
Dusk sees children shake your eggs,
and such a shaking renders them non-viable.

Though not indigenous to the dinner table,
we are all indigeneous to darkness.
So bathe and shake,

why not then, bathe and shake.
Quackless and heavy as we are.

                                                       -Melinda Wilson

Melinda Wilson is Managing Editor of Coldfront Magazine and VIDA: Women in Literary Arts. Her poems have appeared in magazines such as Diner, The Lumberyard, The Agriculture Reader, Arsenic Lobster, WOMB and Verse Daily. She is originally from New Hampshire , but she currently lives and teaches in New York.  Her chapbook, Amplexus, has recently been published by Dancing Girl Press.

Inside the wicked marrow
I race--vessel to artery
skin to skin
through bones;
my acrobatics
are unique.

So be good.
And even if you are
it doesn't matter.

                                       -Pamela L. Laskin

Pamela L. Laskin is an instructor of English at the City College, where she directs The Poetry Outreach Center. She is the published author of five picture books, two young adult novels, three poetry chapbooks and four books of poetry. VAN GOGH'S EAR, is the most recent book (Cervena Barva Press) and FERTILE GODESSES is the most recent chapbook (Pudding House Press).

"Good news," my friend, fresh from a respirator, says.
"God is dead," he says.
"I'm smoking like a chimney," he says.
"Boy are they mad."
Now, in the early morning hours of the morning, I sip at my coffee
And take measured puffs on a cigarette.
Am visited by mother's mocking rant, her "You'll never quit,
Mr. Big Shot. You don't have it in you to quit" rant.
Blossom Dearie sounds, sprightly Blossom.
I take up a fat free sour power straw, lemon.
Blossom, the cigarette and the sour power straw.
Exultation.
Purposeful, blissful abandonment.
Puffing mother away.

                                                   -Samuel Pirro

Sam Pirro lives on the upper West Side with his cat, Olive. In 2006, he published (in conjunction with The Blind Press, a literary journal) two related chapbooks - - one prose, one poetry - - titled Wooings. The following year he integrated and expanded this writing into a novella of the same title. He frequently revisits Dickens, and thinks Henry Gowan is the real hero of Little Dorrit - - and that Dickens knew and didn't know it. Sam is passionate about Henry James, especially The Wings of the Dove.

a grave digger turned into the subdivision before me
with his helper sitting in the back of the truck
where the pulley, shovels, and sandbags
take most of the free room and I knew. . .

the light held long enough for them to disappear
before the white hearse followed by one white family car
and a broken possession sped down main street

a quiet entombment just after breakfast
before the white summer heat
begins to bake the living
it's been a year and two days
since I 've been in a grave yard

you didn't want me there after the funeral
didn't want more tears
no more fresh flowers

"Give me my roses while I still live and can enjoy them"

it's been one year since the features of your face
were forced to forever live only in my memory
in my picture album

the rituals of death still fill
my throat with a thickness
that reminds me of the fresh
salt free peanut butter
we used to buy from the Whole Foods store
it came in a white and navy blue tub
I used to try eating it by the spoonful
it always had a small amount of oil on the surface
but still stuck to the roof of my mouth

I reach for my drink bottle-it's empty-
you would have poured me a glass of water
the only elixir for this fullness
that can't be-won't be-swallowed

                                                           -Georgia Ann Banks-Martin

Georgia Ann Banks-Martin is the author of the poetry collection, Rhapsody for Lessons Learned or Remembered, and is the current editor of New Mirage Journal. You may read more of her work by visiting either her Web site: http://georgiabanksmartin.com/. or her facebook. fanpage http://artist.to/georgiaannbanks-martin.

And at the end of time
All Hearts are judged
Fast as Mercury
Smooth as the edge and the wind
Where does all the time go?

It was a long drive
Annie didn't make it
She bled to death
Through fairytale wounds
A wind rustled her hair
And I closed her eyelids

Stone dead - some spirit
Another bird dream
A honey-child dream
Freedom and wings
Tears of Joy
Mary, I wish it could've been different
A little bit of immortal presence

I buried Annie beneath a tree
And drove on.

                                                      -Michael Reiss

Michael Reiss is a writer who grew up in the Mexican sun and never really left that spirit of Mayan magic and road freedom. For the time being, he lives and subverts in Brooklyn, New York,  planning for us all to be emancipated...one day, Gang, one day.

From whence comes that forceful wind,
The wind that is resistance against the status quo,
And briskly resonates resiliency steadily within,
As it breezes through things we might know?

For it is in the planting of the new seeds
Now, that we seek to cultivate a new idea,
One that will renew our future needs,
Silently, whistling forth from what is here.

As gently as warm winds caress a flower
It is in like manner, any question asked
Stalwartly, gives truth its poise and power
To stands tall, erect, and stately, steadfast.

It is these soft whispering winds of change
That causes our dreams to transcend to another plane.

                                                               -Jeffrey Perry

(Sonnet one, from The Three Wind Sonnets (Obedience to Poetry (2.0), by Jeffrey V. Perry, Harlem Book Fair Publishers/WordClay Publishers 2009.)

                                                                  -Leigh Harrison

Leigh Harrison is a writer, poet, singer/songwriter, and teacher of poetry and writing. Her CD's (Eclectic Chanteuse and Oh, Wow!) were released by SongCrew Music. Her books include Tour de Farce (Poet Tree Press) and Our Harps Upon the Willows (Cross-Cultural Literary Editions). Her book reviews have appeared in American Book Review and On The Bus; her poetry has appeared in numerous publications, in the US and internationally. She is the creator of the 20th century poetic form, the "pentina," and has taught writing at several schools, colleges, and universities. www.leighharrison.com.

THANK YOU TO ALL OF OUR CONTRIBUTORS!  AND THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO READ THIS ISSUE!  IF THERE ARE ANY POEMS HERE THAT YOU PARTICULARLY LIKE, PLEASE WRITE AND TELL US!