3 sons. Has had poetry, reviews, and short stories published in anthologies and journals for twenty years. A middle-reader THE WILLOW-TREE GIRL in print, 2003.
Liz Fortini composes poetry in English and subsequently into Italian and French. She translates noted Italian and French poets as well as German poet Rainer Rilke into English. Poems and translations of hers have appeared in RB Viewpoint, Blue Unicorn and anthologies. She is publisher of www.languageandculture.net, on-linepoetry publication. Liz Fortini
is an award-winning author of This is the Place, Harkening and The Frugal Book Promoter.
Myth of Love
by Marie Delgado Travis
Your love, gift of the gods,
unchains my Prometheus.
Like Sisyphus, it carries my burden.
It catapults Icarus beyond my stars.
I am forged Phoenix in
your burning coals.
You guide my lost Ulysses.
And even Narcissus,
contemplating your reflection
in the water,
weeps when he sees
how much you love me.
Cursed with Ambition
By Patricia Wellingham-Jones
The cats lounge
like fur-bound lizards
on windowsill and bench
in my kitchen
and overlook the creek
Placid as drowsing reptiles
until a hummingbird passes
They make humming
noises in their throats
Think about leaping
yet remain stretched
full length in the summer heat
At ease
eyelids blink over glazed eyes
The cats don’t seem to be cursed
with human ambition
They take what’s offered
or don’t bother at all
and seldom get tense
I often think I’d like to be
one of the cats
Musk
By Patricia Wellingham-Jones
Cousin Linda brushes past, reaches
for her first cup of coffee.
My nose catches
the changed flavor of air. I ask
what she’s wearing today.
Musk, she says, smile coy
around the edges.
My mind bounces
from image to image:
Pulling open the sealed page
of a glossy magazine, the rush of perfume
that floods the room,
An ad with sleek woman stretched
almost-clad on a leopard skin,
A tall man in jeans and leather vest
standing, legs spread, by a Jeep.
What I cannot picture is this sturdy woman
in her fifties, hair brown from a bottle,
her talk full of life on a Virginia farm.
I realize, with a smile at myself,
this is the perfect musk-woman—
one who handles animals
husky and dying, hunted and cleaned
for the pot, works with smells
of barnyard and birthing room,
the essence of musk.
Orthotics
By Patricia Wellingham-Jones
I listen to the young man’s spiel,
slip off my sling-backs,
place one nyloned foot
on his carbon paper. Then the other.
We ponder the dark smudges,
faint rims, overall pattern.
From the back of the store he returns
with a box of plastic forms, rubber
foot-shaped mats, New Zealand chunky shoes.
I try things on, step here and there,
press hands against hands to show balance,
plod around the store in broad-toed
black shoes with strange high arches.
I picture x-rays showing bone worn away,
cartilage missing, yesterday’s walk full of pain.
In the end I choose comfort
over vanity.
END
Ode to Toilets
By Matthew Johnson
Toilets flush,
The water goes around,
Wastes disappear,
Else they overflow—
The plunge of the day,
Never forget to drop the lid,
Or there’ll be hell to pay.
That porcelain throne,
That conqueror’s chair,
For the lady to sit on—
It must smell of spring roses
And handle with care,
Or the lady will not be pleased,
It must recline like an easy chair.
The Japanese knew of this,
When they patented the throne
That makes toilets blush—
Its closet of crystal waters,
That no brave man would swim,
Those foul-smelling angels,
Singing their crystal hymn.
It flushes with jet-engine force,
Cleansing your backside,
No more need to kill trees,
A trip saved to the store,
A refreshing ending,
To a sit on the pot,
Me so sorry,
Mr. Scott.
Matthew Johnson hails from the little-known town of Millersville, MD. He is a journalism major at UMD. He is also a member of the Jimenez-Porter Writers' House at UMD. (U of Maryland at Colleg Park) He has written poetry since he can remember and was first published in the 8th grade. His inspiration comes from God, society, and boredom. Contact Matthew.
The Race
By Diane Dahlstrom
Running in the park
Pacing one step ahead of me
Your wavy blonde hair
Defies gravity.
Every few yards,
Your taunting glance
Rolls off your shoulder
Tangles my pants.
I siphon my energy
Into a single blast.
My legs shoot forth
Pounding faster than fast.
My toe strikes a pebble
Peeping out of the trail
Catapulting my stride.
My balance fails.
My yelps freeze your gait.
You eye my descent.
My pride and my hands
Melt into pavement.
You leap to the rescue
By licking my face.
My golden retriever
Applying first aid.
(Dedicated to my aging buddy, Dallas)
I’ve always wanted to write yet always found an excuse to put it off. A few years ago I decided go for it. I took a writing class through Longridge Writers Group where I was taught the basics of short story writing. I began attending their live online forums run by their web editor, the wonderful instructor/author Mary Rosenblum and recently joined a great critique group. I write poetry, short stories, and hope to start writing my first novel before the 2005 ends.
But now one loud-mouthed sun, one moon too precious,
announce, through smirks, your pilfered pedigree.
Your field is still a place of friendly fire.
It’s time to stir the weeds for enemy –
for one who’s read the rules of the Convention,
and knows to cut your heart out mercifully.
For all your noise and claims to high ambition,
it’s not your name we see on that marquee;
so take your time now strutting down the boardwalk,
the salt-air’s good for wounded vanity.
What’s left then is to find a real companion,
someone who knows from Skid Row-by-the-Sea,
who’ll lend to you his rounded bones as cushion,
and share with you the last of his good tea.
To find just one who knows life’s simple pleasures:
a wider bed; a mate of fair esprit;
a jug of wine that sometimes wants refilling;
and, yes – at end of day, fidelity.
Patricia Wellingham-Jones, a former psychology researcher and writer/editor, is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her work is published in numerous anthologies, journals, and Internet magazines, including Möbius, Red River Review, Rattlesnake Review, Phoebe, A Room of Her Own, Pebble Lake Review, Thunder Sandwich, Ibbetson Street Press and Niederngasse. Chapbooks include Don’t Turn Away: Poems About Breast Cancer (PWJ Publishing), Apple Blossoms at Eye Level (Poets Corner Press) and Voices on the Land (Rattlesnake Press). She has a 26-article series called “Getting Published” on A Long Story Short http://www.longstoryshort.us/ , has a monthly poetry column in East Valley Times and will be featured poet in that online journal and in Ink and Ashes(http://www.inkandashes.com/issue1/index.php) this summer. Patricia is also publisher of PWJ Publishing and edits and produces books by invitation. Her website is www.wellinghamjones.com.
Before Birdsong
By Carolyn Howard-Johnson
In the hills above LA
before the valley wakes.
steam swells, drifts
along a fire trail.
It lies silent against
the unrealized roll
of earth on its
illusory axis,
all the damp
that will ever go,
has ever gone
before.
Another day.
The same invisible treadmill
dew-washed before, above,
a moist shroud beneath,
a cocoon, cool,
gentle placenta.
Ahead hangs a silver dime,
radiant, still,
halo in the East.
I am invested
in the silence that came
before engine-hum,
crickets' buzz and birdsong.
Russell lives in Brooklyn, New York. His poems have been published on paper by: The American Dissident; The Blind Man’s Rainbow; The Lyric; The Barbaric Yawp; the International Journal of Erotica; and Wicked Hollow. An additional poem with appear in the International Journal of Erotica in the summer of 2005. On-line, his poetry can be found at: Quintessence-encouraging great writing; ken*again; Spillway Review; Erotica-readers; Edifice Wrecked; Ink-mag; Girls With Insurance; Thieves Jargon; Fireweed and Salome Magazine. An dditional poem will appear in June at Opium Magazine; in June, July, August, Sept. and Dec. at ALong Story Short; and in Sept. at Southern Hum. His prose can be found at: Satin Slippers; Ink-mag; GirlsWithInsurance; SkiveMagazine; Quintessence, encouraging great writing; Underground voices; Dead Mule; Pindeldyboz; Mannequin Envy; and the uncom.mon Yankee pot roast.org. Additional prose pieces will appear on paper in the Edgar Literary Magazine in April of 2005, and in The International Journal of Erotica in the summer. A third story will appear on the ‘Net at Southern Hum.com in September. Russell completed his first novel, 'Trompe-l’oeil,' in September of 2004. A second is underway.. Contact Russell.
FROM REMBRANDT'S WINDOW
By Patty Dickson Pieczka
Shuttered houses stand
knee-deep in exhaust.
Blades of a windmill move
in the distance.
Canal water swirls as women
dangle their legs from a boat
like butterflies tasting
nectar with their feet.
Beside the window
hangs a view
of the scene through
four-hundred-year-old eyes.
The homes have vanished.
Butterflies have flown.
All that remains are the creak
of the windmill
and the scent of green.
Behind the casement,
Rembrandt's ghost
studies the landscape
in solid flesh.
Patty Dickson Pieczka's chapbook, Word Paintings, was published in 2003 and her poems appear in several journals, including The Bitter Oleander, Blue Unicorn, California Quarterly, Cape Rock, Eureka Literary Magazine, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Halogen,Karamu, The Listening Eye, Midamerica Poetry Review, Rambunctious Review, Red Rock Review, Red Wheelbarroa, Sierra Nevada College Review, and Willow Review among others. Contact Patty. Contact Patty.
and the stars arrived in white coats at her doorstep;