ikleftiko poetry january 2015 issue...
TRANSCRIPT
Ikleftiko poetry January 2015
Issue 3
Ikleftiko
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Discharged Soldier
A wolf cowers in the corner of a pub.
The sudden uncloaking of camouflage,
Shaved pelt swept up in a pile, has left
Him arresting as a moon that hangs
In the light of a departing day, anticipating
The night, the dark remittance given
In kind. Empty pocketed, he skulks
Into the woods, the dunes, a Cliff-top. Anywhere
People aren’t.
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Keynote Opening
brushed aluminum ideas their broadcast fears
as if the whole world were hot metal for pressing
we tunnel view through an oblique five-inch aperture
watch teleprompt dialogs trip across wadi
after wadi to the fruit stall in the centre
of an apple target set on the head of a seller
then there is the worldwide keynote opening
of a global concerted effort again
facsimile sunday lunch to tune transmitters
till each seat sees the same thing there’s an open
box and the screen is off switch on
assemble to watch the little people’s chicken bones
break in an ultimate production box office
hit
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Pleye wyth chyild lyke a dogge
strong as naval chains that contain Christ hung like an afghan hound play with child like a dog lunchbox abundency left weeping lettuce stale bread they’re flung like little multicolour beanbags or open pencil cases complete a full triathlon baghdad kabul insert a third discipline here faces smeared with cob all men are walls
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Currents
The extremities
are beautiful as stained glass, green
as watered grass
and smells that take me over
a river, salted currents,
blooming with the long-bodied
seal, near curved mountain tops,
fresh mist, malleable fog. Humpback
dive. Cold summer winds,
oceans moving in, moving
the Blue whale, the Belugas,
the dark-fined Minkes.
On land, visualizing the underground rooted networks
that create lush densities of forests,
mountain geography, complex geometry
where fungi are conductors of communication
and legacies are passed down,
in spite of fires, droughts,
insect infestations. Places
enchanting children’s minds
with tales of fear and heroic
overcoming. Places
to wade in, walk through, hide in
and be exposed.
Huddled in unity,
a river pod in winding ebbs, a family
in sync, mastering the undertows.
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EPHEMERAL Not by some slow stretch of time To mark and measure rings in wood To proudly parade the years withstood, But with some passing, morning flower Beaming in some secret bower. Nor by some aging colossal shrine With words engraved in marble and stone Proud words for some king unknown, But ephemeral as a summer breeze My words shall reach across all seas.
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About the Lovers Using Sign Language On the Metro:
I wondered if they fell in love silently, their moonlit embrace stirring not even the moths did the darkness take their words away could one still feel the other’s soul with all-seeing orphan eyes adopted by tender digits a thing preternatural unexplainable to us those with sound with basic eyes simplistic fingers & is warmth something more do they treasure it as my skin never will can they breathe an emotion lungs filling with melancholy air blowing a tear on the nape of their brains as they shape themselves in twisted cadences ringed pouce prances, the ballad of an auriculaire… the world they respire, this realm of insurmountable hush is it really a handicapped fever dream an empty sequestration or an Eden guarded by angels with flaming lobes.
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WEDNESDAY MORNING #172
I wanted
to write poems
about absence,
but I couldn’t find
any reason
why I should.
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WEDNESDAY MORNING #173
Deep, welcoming
thunder,
release everything!
I want the rain,
the light, the energy
& what follows.
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WEDNESDAY MORNING #174
Dear actual
strength -
Brief
in my arms,
useless
there, find
weakness
as beauty,
hold on.
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The Trees
It’s an unspectacular view
the back window gives,
just a slope
with dry grass
where junipers
grow into the oaks
and jays
appear in the morning
when deer
come through the meeting point
of sky and earth,
occurring
where the trees
are close together
that were here
before there was a town
below them
and they’re here
now it’s gone,
holding to a world
without balance
or order
beyond what the rain
sends down
and the slender ones
dance
with only one pose.
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manus
ghosts attach hands |&|well
both theirs & theirs-again amid silence
interrogating hearsay of the nonbelieving majority
yet
or, yet-when the mother’s death
wraps scent and what a fingering paradigm presents as modified behavior
what rewards is what condemns a human’s incessant desiring choice
to create spatial
acuity
gaining
italics within those virtuous hands whose touch
recalls into mention hope
to revisit what has dissipated
travelling upon organic
revealing of supposed
uninterrupted
waving phantoms viewed through
transparence
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wander
butterfly mends its calligraphic unravel with
wing-weaves of
elaborate open-window entrances
a
seeking toward serenade and structure
toward voice and welcome of this angle’s
version of needing examination
as
virtue’s variance & attainable
reinvention
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A MORNING OF MORNING I put on my thinnest winter coat, although I haven’t checked the forecast. Not too long ago there was an ambitious project to undertake, though I forgot what it was— it disappeared like a great ocean liner into an orange horizon—making me happy as sad. *** I open the door and step into the bright, scrubbed hallway, into the rapids of a working world. Another morning that will never leave me alone.
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Adam Hampton is an undergraduate student of English Language and Creative Writing at Edge Hill University. A former Royal Marines Commando, some of his poems are identifiably influenced by his time serving in the armed forces. Winner of a scholarship for excellence in the creative arts, which was awarded for a series of poems, his work has been published on the blog of Robert Sheppard, Professor of Poetry and Poetics at Edge Hill. Adam's work has also been performed at The Bluecoat Arts Centre in Liverpool, for 'The Day of the Dead of Night exhibition'. He is currently writing a sonnet sequence exploring the application of the form to modern day warfare.
Allison Grayhurst is a full member of the League of Canadian Poets. She has over 400 poems published in more than 210 international journals and anthologies. Her book Somewhere Falling was published by Beach Holme Publishers in 1995. Since then she has published ten other books of poetry and four collections with Edge Unlimited Publishing. Prior to the publication of Somewhere Falling she had a poetry book published, Common Dream, and four chapbooks published by The Plowman. Her poetry chapbook The River is Blind was published by Ottawa publisher above/ground press in December 2012. More recently, her e-chapbook Surrogate Dharma was published by Kind of a Hurricane Press, Barometric Pressures Author Series in October 2014. She lives in Toronto with her family. She also sculpts, working with clay; www.allisongrayhurst.com
Clinton Inman was born in Walton-on-Thames, England in 1945. He graduated from San Diego State University in 1977 and has been an educator for most of his life. He is currently a high school teacher (planning to retire this year) in Tampa Bay where he lives with his wife, Elba.
Constant Williams is a freelance writer and poet. He grew up in Los Angeles, inspired to write by the enthralling work of local authors such as Diane Wakoski and Brendan Constantine. He now lives in Paris, France where he is working on his newest anthology,
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motivated by the local literary community and the odd day to day happenstances of a thought-provoking city.
David Chorlton was born in Spittal-an-der-Drau, grew up in Manchester, England, and lived for several years in Vienna before moving to Phoenix in 1978. His poems have appeared in many small press magazines, and chapbooks including The Lost River from Rain Mountain Press, and two Slipstream chapbook competition winners; also full length books, including A Normal Day Amazes Us from Kings Estate Press and Waiting for the Quetzal from March Street Press. His Selected Poems appeared in 2014 from FutureCycle Press. Darren C. Demaree is the author of "As We Refer to Our Bodies" (2013, 8th House), "Temporary Champions" (2014, Main Street Rag), and "Not For Art For Prayer" (2015, 8th House). He is the recipient of three Pushcart Prize nominations and a Best of the Net nomination. He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children. Dr. Ernest Williamson III has published poetry and visual art in over 500 national and international online and print journals. Professor Williamson has published poetry in journals such as The Oklahoma Review, Review Americana:A Creative Writing Journal, and The Copperfield Review. Some of his visual artwork has appeared in journals such as The Columbia Review, The GW Review, and Fiction Fix. Many of his works have been published in journals representing over 50 colleges and universities around the world. Dr. Williamson is an Assistant Professor of English at Allen University, self-taught pianist, editor, poet, singer, composer, social scientist, private tutor, and a self-taught painter. His poetry has been nominated three times for the Best of the Net Anthology. He holds a B.A. and an M.A. in English/Creative Writing/Literature from the University of Memphis and a PhD in Higher Education Leadership from Seton Hall University.
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Felino A. Soriano is a member of The Southern Collective Experience. He is the founding editor of the online endeavors Counterexample Poetics and Of/with; in addition, he is a contributing editor for the online journal, Sugar Mule. His writing finds foundation in created coöccurrences, predicated on his strong connection to various idioms of jazz music. His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Anthology, and appears in various online and print publications, with recent poetry collections including Mathematics (Nostrovia! Poetry, 2014), Espials (Fowlpox Press, 2014), and watching what invents perception (WISH Publications, 2013). He lives in California with his wife and family and is a director of supported living and independent living programs providing supports to adults with developmental disabilities. Links to his published and forthcoming poems, books, interviews, images, etc. can be found at www.felinoasoriano.info.
Tim Suermondt is the author of two full-length collections: TRYING TO HELP THE ELEPHANT MAN DANCE ( The Backwaters Press, 2007 ) and JUST BEAUTIFUL from New York Quarterly Books, 2010. He has published poems in Poetry, The Georgia Review, Blackbird, Able Muse, Prairie Schooner, PANK, Bellevue Literary Review, Stand Magazine (U.K.), and has poems forthcoming in December magazine, Plume Poetry Journal, North Dakota Quarterly and Ploughshares. After many years in Queens and Brooklyn, he has moved to Cambridge with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.