Mt. Redoubt
Luke Johnson
Ash didn’t quite fill the sky, or even the frame,
six pages deep in
our first Summer.
From Clam Gulch, camped beneath
sandstone scarp
and light, horizon marked
by three peaks: Iliamna, Redoubt, Spurr.
Not dormant, but docile. We built end-stops
for desire—the length of jagged quiet
we watched across Cook Inlet—
a way for keeping ourselves from wanting
too much or too soon. Separate bags that night.
After the most recent eruption,
I still find her hair clinging to the winter
fleeces long in closets, see new pictures of her
on old friend’s walls: small forehead
and tight jaw, nostrils flaring if she’s angry
(she wasn’t much) or close to climax,
eyes and teeth, all smiling eyes and teeth.
My father, a man of God, told me to get mad
as if I had nothing to do with the ending.
Luke Johnson earned his MFA at Hollins University. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Crab Orchard Review, Greensboro Review, Passages North, and Best New Poets 2008. His manuscript, After the Ark, was recently named a semi-finalist for the 2010 Walt Whitman Award. He lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.
Life Imitates Art - John Rachel
Dangerous Jesus
Sheila Black
Dangerous Jesus is what happens when science
meets religion, his super power run amok
he turns the water in the blood to
wine. Some become too brave for their bodies,
leaping out as if they had become
swords; others fall flat like wheat ripe for threshing.
A few stumble onwards, choking the rivers and
streams, clocking in at over 900% percent the
legal limit, certified as “lethal weapons behind
the wheel of a car or any other piece of
machinery,” even ordinary household appliances,
exploding in their hands, perhaps from their sheer
proof. Dangerous Jesus who makes every
no a yes, who can open any door, even those, which
should stay locked. And don’t forget the fishes:
they spill from bathtubs and sinks, puddles and
drain-pipes, and yes, if not split and cooked
straight away, they stink to high heaven, which
is where Dangerous Jesus belongs, his hands
forming crosses for the pews of clouds, occasionally
stroking against the bolts of lightening, which
descend, as always, to split the sky.
Killing your darlings
Sheila Black
Who knew the silence would be so sweet
like the garden where the sparrow
has stopped for a moment its fine descant,
canyon bottom where the creek
cracks. October. Morning.
You walk out on a blue surface
still tender enough the water might swallow
you, but the new ice holds,
embracing you tenderly
as any snow mother. I would have to put
my own two hands around the throat.
squeeze until the voice was stilled,
stilled and yet emptied
strangely out into the air.
I had loved you so long and to no avail.
Now I could walk with my shadow,
a box that had been undone, the earth filling it—
those grains of soil, tiny umbrels
of watery flower.
The Various Grammars for Home
Sheila Black
This speech is whipped cream without sugar
white cloud spooned onto open lips
until we fall into a fat of silence. This declension
is the one that goes say something apparently
innocuous but, in truth, a silk purse lined
with the edges of razors, dark hole into which
any hand will ribbon. Here, the common
usage wherein he leans into the kitchen
doorway, says a few words, and she weeps
as if chopping an onion into a sink. This
speech is chicken broth strained of all the
good vegetables, thin and gassy, yet
golden, haunted by some sweet—place
where you learn the pleasure of disheartening
those who count on you or perhaps its
necessity, the need to activate any sentence
with a verb—in this case do not turn, do not
touch. This conjugation is the one which means
if only or I should have. It is the one you repeat
on your knees when no one is watching. Often
it expands into a long, blue hallway, doors ajar,
through which wink, in turn, a gesture of waves,
a sliver of moon, a picture of night.
A bed, a pillow, a place you might stretch out,
lie down, stop or stop trying so damn hard to get
it wrong or right.
DAVID AND SIGNORIA
Wendy Webb
Gold, like blushed aureole
dancing light on stone,
deep as Petra’s caves,
tall as a ghost city;
welcoming as Italy.
No treasure from a Wise Man
glows acceptance, future muscle.
No angel choirs to harp
or mark earth beside still waters.
Marble dances among warm scrolls
papyrus-rich with glowing verse.
Unroll the scroll and trace feint Hebrew script.
David welcomes, any way you look,
his piazza manhood streets ahead;
gleaming pure backdrop.
Sweet as rose water.
MADONNA OF THE FLOWER WELCOMES DAVID
Wendy Webb
Please rub my fancy, and again tonight,
to tighten to the throb of your desire,
a rising fleur-de-lys of burning fire.
I’ll open wide the mind of rare delight,
fair David’s innocent but marbled form
of peeling Campanile, firm and stout,
beside a Virgin domed into a pout.
Consume cool petals, pert before a storm.
All Florence aches to flower in such space:
flood’s artful Chantress, Neptuned wild with damp,
where ruination’s spent, a bloated tramp.
Then chanting Latin blood dulls into grace.
Bridge me to day, and days’ last night to night;
my fancy’s thrilled, full-blown in dazed delight.
POSITANO
Mike Berger
The quaint little village clung to the
mountain side. Cliffs hundreds of
feet tall butted up against the ocean.
Waves streamed in pounding the
enormous boulders below.
In the village, the brick homes
were crumbling. They had endured
the sea breezes far too long. There
were few tourist to interrupt the
village routines. Smiling people
leisurely went about daily tasks.
We found a bed and breakfast in town.
Rustic would be an understatement.
We strolled down the narrow canyons
called streets stopping to talk to the
villagers. They smiled at my Italian.
We found the outdoor market. The
smell of fresh flowers filled the air.
We bought some cheese without a
name and a loaf of focaccia bread.
We added a bottle of local red wine.
At the cliff side we dangle our feet
over the edge and ate our feast.
We threw bread crumbs to the birds.
They serenaded us in reply.
Italy is charming. We’ve been to
Rome and saw the Vatican. We’ve
walk the streets of Florence and marveled
at Michelangelo’s David. We floated the
canals of Venice. And we’ve seen the
Leaning Tower. This quaint little village
is head and shoulders above the all rest.
Mother, Edith, at 98
Michael Lee Johnson
Edith, in this nursing home
blinded with macular degeneration,
I come to you with your blurry
eyes, crystal sharp mind,
your countenance of grace-
as yesterday’s winds
I have chosen to consume you
and take you away.
“Oh, where did Jesus disappear
to”, she murmured,
over and over again,
in a low voice
dripping words
like a leaking faucet:
“Oh, there He is my
Angel of the coming.”
Michael Lee Johnson is a poet and freelance writer from Itasca, Illinois. His new poetry chapbook with pictures, titled From Which Place the Morning Rises, and his new photo version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom are available at: http://stores.lulu.com/promomanusa
