“Les Murs” by Thomas M. McDade

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

Mia says the name of the place,
l’Auberge-in, is a play on words.
She’ll tell in time, prix fix is 43 francs.
It’s empty and candle lit yet grotto dim.
Antique labor trappings adorn the walls.
Mia sits under a yoke. A couple from our hotel enters.
Their table’s by a sickle, a hammer not far off.
“They’re commies,” whispers Mia, out the side
of her mouth. “We are struggling farmers.”
She reveals the French for “eggplant” is the answer and we order
a dish featuring it with couscous that’s abundant and delicious.
As if constipated old field hand, I choose a prune yogurt dessert.
It’s a hit but doesn’t measure up to Mia’s vanilla flan.
As we are leaving, one of our neighbors is running his finger
over the sickle blade. His girlfriend is laughing.
Mia hopes they dream tonight of wheat not chaff.
We cross the Seine near la Tour d’Argent to the Ile St. Louis.
Strolling narrow streets we window shop
stop at a cozy restaurant that’s appealing.
Letters and book pages grace its walls.
“Tomorrow,” says Mia. “I’ll translate a couple
while we dine.”
Back across the river, a tipsy fellow bumps into her.
She punches him hard in the arm. He laughs and salutes her.
She’s the featherweight champ of la rue des Ecoles.
Next day, we stop for a drink at Harry’s
New York Bar where heavyweight Primo
Carnera’s boxing gloves hang on a wall.
Mia says they resemble mutant eggplants.
“Aubergine,” I brag.
She punches my arm, but softly.

 

 

Thomas M. McDade is a former programmer / analyst living in Fredericksburg, VA, previously CT & RI. He is a graduate of Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT. McDade is twice a U.S. Navy Veteran, serving ashore at the Fleet Anti-Air Warfare Training Center, Virginia Beach, VA, and at sea aboard the USS Mullinnix (DD-944) and USS Miller (DE / FF 1091). His poetry has most recently been published by The World of Myth, Local Train, Ariel Chart and Pinnacle Anthology. He also writes short fiction that has appeared in: Punk-Lit, Close To The Bone, Between These Shores Arts Anthology and Spank The Carp.

“Cold Lake” by Jason O’Toole

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ 1 Comment

Hold your bones against the wash
All your currents open
Chest deep, northern waters
Cold lake waves numb
Sunburned shoulders
& Black fly bites

Pebbles under toes
Painlessly smooth
Sparkle when wet
Gloomy once dried
Disappointingly so

The silent appearance of a loon
Come to claim the bream
Darting past your knees
Impossibly long she submerges
Reappearing beyond the dock

To the Iroquois she was a witch
Off limits to hunt
& besides,
They never had much of a taste
For gamey loon meat

Fearless of you
She shares her lake
Not that you gave her a choice
After sundown
She’ll share her voice
Beckoning her mate

Now is the silence
Before that long, forlorn note
That transforms sounds into music

Cold lake waves receive your bones
All your channels open

 

 

Jason O’Toole is the author of two collections of poetry, Soulless Heavens (2019) and Spear of Stars (2018), both from The Red Salon. His poems are included in An Anthology of Poems from The Red Salon (2018) and We’ve Seen the Same Horizon (2019). He has also been featured in Nixes Mate Review, The Scriblerus, Tigershark and countless underground fanzines dating back to the 1980s. He performs with Providence based composer-musician, Alec K. Redfearn.

“A Rockwell Thanksgiving” by Ken Gosse

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

’Twas the morn of Thanksgiving
and in their dark house
his wife was up early
(not waking her spouse),
to turn on the oven
at quarter past three
and roast a huge bird
for a large family.

The turkey, well stuffed,
had been basted with care
in hopes that the grandchildren
soon would be there,
when at the front door
there arose a great clatter!
They knew who’d arrived;
there was nothing the matter.

Straight into the kitchen
kids flew like young deer,
tore open the fridge
(which was loaded with beer).
The sodas and whipped cream,
cranberries and pies,
brought lusters of joy
to their bright, wondering eyes.

Then who else arrived
like the team of a sleigh
but the cats and the dogs
who’d been begging all day,
but knew they’d get naught
until hordes of kids came,
who’d tease them but feed them
and call them by name:

“Come Whiskers. Come Sasha,
Come, Felix and Vixen.
Here Pluto. Here Boxer.
Now play dead, ol’ Nixon.”
And soon, aunts and uncles
and cousins galore,
over rivers, through woods,
had arrived at their door.

No presents and packages
tied up in strings,
for today was a day to give thanks,
not give things.
The warmth, love, and hugs—
even Aunt Millie’s kisses—
these best gifts of all
are what everyone misses
once someone has moved far away,
or passed on,
and it’s times such as these,
when we realize they’re gone,
that we share our love deeper
than ever before;
all the more as each guest
brings a smile to the door.

They feast and they fancy,
they talk, laugh and sing;
share memories and hopes
for what this year may bring.
Though appetites fill
and the table gets cluttered,
they’ll stuff in desert
(and a cold roll, still buttered).

Too soon the eve ends
and it’s time to go home
(cousin Jeffy, again,
stole the old garden gnome).
Then off in gas coursers,
on Fall’s long, dark night,
they leave for their homesteads
’neath heaven’s soft light;
all full and quite sleepy,
as each looks above,
they’re thankful for family,
and family’s love.

 

 

Ken Gosse prefers writing short, rhymed verse with traditional meter, usually filled with whimsy and humor. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, his poems are also in The Offbeat, Pure Slush, Parody, Home Planet News Online, Eclectica, and other publications. Raised in the Chicago suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived in Mesa, AZ, over twenty years.

“Wax Bullets” by Nilotpal Sarmah

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

The terrain shimmers in a patriotic poltergeist.
Freedom’s arid limbo drives them
into this afterlife of yearning.
In wraith-like pulses they loom
like a searing hot mirage.
But this heat is not without its purpose.
Nothing left to do but to rejoice at this sight of
the freedom fighters storming the mind’s terrain.
The self-triggering rifle that is HISTORY
stands rooted in eternal aim at them.
Watch this nebulous multitude morph into shapes of
inspiration as history fires its wax bullets at them.

 

 

Nilotpal Sarmah resides in the city of Guwahati in Assam, India. Inspired by his home state’s landscapes, he turned poetry into his passion and hopes to have a published volume of his works some day.

“Disgruntled Thoughts After a Fruitless Summer of Job-Hunting” by Linda Ferguson

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ 2 Comments

2020 Pushcart Prize Nominee

My bitterness reveals itself – you see
it on my lips, my mouth a cold pinched fist.
This is not, of course, how I want to be –
like a fern, I long to unfurl in mist,
to blossom in fragrant night without sound –
or to transform from bud to vibrant peach
with a scarlet center – a zing – wrapped round
a core of impenetrability.
But no, I’m me – I spit, shuffle, choke, swat
when I want to buzz, skim, hover and wing
like a nectar-seeking bee, not the wasp,
with its lean stripes and its rapier sting –
turning with precision (a practiced art!)
I strike the tender flesh of my own heart.

 

Linda Ferguson is an award-winning, Pushcart-nominated writer of poetry, essays, and fiction. Her poetry chapbook, Baila Conmigo, was published by Dancing Girl Press. As a writing teacher, she has a passion for helping students find their voice and explore new territory.

Translations of Sappho by Michael R. Burch

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ 1 Comment

Sappho, fragment 58

Pain
drains
me
to
the
last
drop
.

–translation by Michael R. Burch

 

Sappho, fragment 155

A short revealing frock?
It’s just my luck
your lips were made to mock!

(Pollux wrote: “Sappho used the word beudos [Βεῦδοσ] for a woman’s dress, a kimbericon, a kind of short transparent frock.”)

–loose translation by Michael R. Burch

 

Sappho, fragment 156

She keeps her scents
in a dressing-case.
And her sense?
In some undiscoverable place.

(Phrynichus wrote: “Sappho calls a woman’s dressing-case, where she keeps her scents and such things, grutê [γρύτη].”)

–loose translation by Michael R. Burch

 

Sappho, fragment 47

Eros harrows my heart:
wild winds whipping desolate mountains,
uprooting oaks.

–loose translation by Michael R. Burch

 

Sappho, fragment 50

Eros, the limb-shatterer,
rattles me,
an irresistible
constrictor.

–loose translation by Michael R. Burch

 

Sappho, fragment 22

That enticing girl’s clinging dresses
leave me trembling, overcome by happiness,
as once, when I saw the Goddess in my prayers
eclipsing Cyprus.

–loose translation by Michael R. Burch

 

 

Michael R. Burch, founder of The HyperTexts, lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife Beth, their son Jeremy, and three outrageously spoiled puppies. His poems, epigrams, translations, essays, articles, reviews, short stories, puns, jokes and letters have appeared more than 5,000 times in publications which include TIME, USA Today, The Hindu, BBC Radio 3, CNN.com, Daily Kos, The Washington Post, Light Quarterly, The Lyric, Measure, Writer’s Digest—The Year’s Best Writing, The Best of the Eclectic Muse, Unlikely Stories and hundreds of other literary journals, websites and blogs. He has two published books, Violets for Beth (White Violet Press, 2012) and O, Terrible Angel (Ancient Cypress Press, 2013).

“Outer Coast Aubade” by Kersten Christianson

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ 1 Comment

From sea to sky
blue heron stretches,

pulls at the strings
of the harvest moon

tugs the night closed
like a shade.

Oh heron, stretch
and pluck wayward stars

Drop them in my clam
bucket, so they clang

like metal spoons,
so that I may take them home

and one by one bestow
my wishes in hushed

night tones. Spoon and
chowder and stars. Oh, heron,

promise me an open
window. Promise me the dawn.

 

 

Kersten Christianson is a raven-watching, moon-gazing Alaskan. When not exploring the summer lands and dark winter of the Yukon, she lives in Sitka, Alaska. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing (University of Alaska Anchorage).  Kersten is the author of two books of poetry:  What Caught Raven’s Eye (Petroglyph Press, 2018) and Something Yet to Be Named (Aldrich Press, 2017).  She is also the poetry editor of the quarterly journal, Alaska Women Speak.  www.kerstenchristianson.com

“Egg” by Nilotpal Sarmah

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

Drop the moon in the boiling sea of thoughts.
Let it harden in the bubbling fluid;
Allow its lore-blooded yolk to trickle
and thicken into nostalgic, silver streams.
Pour the fluid into the darkening horizon.
Leave the steaming egg to cool.
Pick it up with your dusty hands

and
Let the peeling begin.

Drool as its craterous surface gets speckled
with its solidified yolk, like fossilized memories.
Time to eat your breakfast, O dusk!
The shadowy meal is all set.
The digestive courtship of
silence and slumber is for dessert.

 

 

Nilotpal Sarmah resides in the city of Guwahati in Assam, India. Inspired by his home state’s landscapes, he turned poetry into his passion and hopes to have a published volume of his works some day.

“I Want to Speak Norwegian” by Linda Ferguson

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

For Gilbert Torgersen Grimes, who immigrated to Newberg, Oregon
from Søndre Land, Oppland, Norway

I want to speak Norwegian,
to conjure frost and salt and juicy pieces
of white fish – Great-grandfather and his brow
resting on folded hands, suspenders stretched
under the wide warmth of his wool plaid –
Great-grandfather who built his house out of vinegar
and apples, out of a mule’s breath and
weathered fence planks and buckets of splintered dew
he gathered from depths of morning grass –
Great-grandfather who grew love from the silence
of the deer’s hooves that stitched dainty trails
through the wood ferns and from the dusty maps
worn on cow’s backs –
Great-grandfather who traveled here in a boat woven with birch
and willow and oak, who sang to us of smooth milky rocks
that fit in our palms and of leaning gravestones
with chiseled names softened by raindrops, snow and moss
and of pointed brown beaks tapping tiny odes
into the grooves of pine trunks –
Great-grandfather who still swings his scythe and feeds us
bread and filberts with his fingers and teaches us
(without words or voice)
to embrace røyk, tillit and gnagsår
(smoke, faith and blisters)
even though ocean waves and a star’s light
separate our births from his last breath.

 

 

Linda Ferguson is an award-winning, Pushcart-nominated writer of poetry, essays, and fiction. Her poetry chapbook, Baila Conmigo, was published by Dancing Girl Press. As a writing teacher, she has a passion for helping students find their voice and explore new territory.

“self” by Stephen House

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

i had anticipated
my decline into poverty
would be worse than is

typhoon of failure
washing over me
could disintegrate ability
stifling me
into almost non-existence

fortunately
i have found the contrary

from my financial decimation
associated shame
abandonment by some deemed near
and messy complication of nil self-worth
the splendid has emerged

on this empty beach
sheltering from winter
in tent and car i now call home
acceptance
nurtures me more each day

i embrace it
aware
this unwelcome lesson
in letting go
is a disguised gift
to be cherished
forever

privileged man i am
in silent reflection
by endless sea

alone
with nature
and self

finally free
from whatever i was
before

 

This poem, “self,” was commended in The Eyre Writing Awards and published in The Lincoln Times newspaper.

 

Stephen House has won two Awgie Awards (Australian Writers Guild), the Rhonda Jancovic Poetry Award for Social Justice, and the Goolwa Poetry Cup. He’s been shortlisted for the Overland Fair Australia Fiction Prize, Patrick White Playwright, Queensland Premier’s Drama, Tom Collins Poetry & Greenroom Acting Awards and many other writing prizes. He’s received international literary residencies to Canada, Ireland and the USA, and an Asialink literature residency to India. He’s been published and performed often and widely. Stephen continues to tour his acclaimed monologues. His chapbook of poetry, real and unreal, was recently published by ICOE Press Australia.