Colin Dodds Featured in ArLiJo No. 102. No Apocalypse An angel beats a gold mare with a starry whip and lets her trumpet dangle The glass dome of the grand palace shrouds the sunset like an immense amoeba digesting a forest fire Late afternoon has the black taxis of Paris the men and women in black fall coats run together like blood on the boulevard actors in a plan abandoned but not replaced gracefully bereft of any desire for the world’s end Oxidized green spattered with pigeon shit the fountain Lucifer is merely annoyed at St. Michael and ready, already, to get back to what they were doing before the saint talked him into posing for statues Copyright © 2017 by Colin Dodds. About the Author Colin Dodds is an author, poet and screenwriter. His writing has appeared in more than 250 publications, been nominated and shortlisted for numerous prizes, and praised by luminaries including Norman Mailer and David Berman. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and daughter. See his work at thecolindodds.com. Gary Duehr Featured in ArLiJo Issue 102 Kremlin Watch Now is the time for elevators. Now is the time for elevator watchers. Everything depends upon Who it is (and whom they’re with) as they disembark from yon Black-windowed SUV, then wheel in the revolving door To relax in the marble foyer As 58 descends to One. What the boss upstsairs Is thinking, no one knows, his immaculate hairs In the shape of prayerful, folded hands Across his forehead. Die-hard fans Lean over concrete barriers lining Madison Ave. They’d like to have What he is having, all of it: the French-style mirrors, The chandeliers in 24K, the ex-supermodel wife—without the terrors Of being last or worst. Whoever goes up the elevator, first Must loiter there a decent amount Before they whoosh back down. Whom to annoint, Whom to exile, whom To quid pro quo is the talk of the room At the top. While TV crews at the bottom resume Their Kremlin watch of doom and gloom. Copyright © 2017 by Gary Duehr. Reality Check Nominated for a Pushcart Prize So what is false? How much is true? At the bottom of the TV screen, a scrolling chyron Checks for you. Everyone must try on Some new 3D glasses: the sky’s not really blue. Black is white, in some instances. Torturers know the first step to extract Any remaining resistance Is to get their subject to contradict a fact. Then it’s all downhill. How far have we slipped to date? Outside, the ground is sheathed in white. Which one of us will Vouch that it’s really snow? Is it too late Before all turns to mush? Sometimes just the day-to-day becomes too much, Never mind the nutcase with an AK-47 Who believes heaven Guides him to the back room of a pizza place To infiltrate a child-sex ring. Has everything been orchestrated to erase CNN’s fingerprints? How can anyone know what they know if in is Out and up is down? Send in The clowns, don’t bother they’re here. Fin. Copyright © 2017 by Gary Duehr. About the Author: Gary Duehr has taught poetry and writing for institutions including Boston University, Lesley University, and Tufts University. His MFA is from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. In 2001 he received an NEA Poetry Fellowship, and he has also received grants and fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the LEF Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Journals in which his poems have appeared include Agni, American Literary Review, Chiron Review, Cottonwood, Hawaii Review, Hotel Amerika, Iowa Review, North American Review, and Southern Poetry Review. His books of poetry include SORRY (Grisaille Press, 2012), In Passing (Grisaille Press, 2011), Potato Chips for Dinner (Cobble Hill Books, 2004), Beautiful Bullets (Cobble Hill Books, 2003),Winter Light (Four Way Books, 1999) and Where Everyone Is Going To (St. Andrews College Press, 1999). Laetitia Duler Featured in ArLiJo No. 102 images what stuns you what tears into you these images that make your eyes bleed i can’t imagine going through without having in my possession the sight of you on monday mornings your face open and floral, pressed into cotton every small death you have endured melting snow and my back turned away from you in bed, knowing what the light can do to you, mythologized creature, unforgiving thing silent night beneath contaminated skies pure story of your touch that is forever ungiving, too private and close to grief so i turn away from you, over again like dead leaves sinister rivers that flow incorrectly the grain of your voice like stones in the water images was previously published in The Blue and White, October 2016. Copyright © 2016 by Laetitia Duler. About the Author Laetitia Duler is currently at Barnard College studying poetry with Saskia Hamilton. She is French-American of French parents who live in the Bay Area. She attended the Lycee Français de San Francisco and graduated with a French OIB Baccalaureate. She started writing poetry in 7th grade when she saw the boy she was in love with kiss her friend. Sandra Fees Featured in ArLiJo No. 102. In Bevans Church the sparrow sweeps the outer pane as if testing. Glass can’t be trusted. You could break, like junco, its feet quivering then motionless. In Bevans Church the sparrow knows something about me: I’m the one who convenes the dead, heart weighed against a feather. This evening, your conscience, if you have one, is light as tea leaves. In Bevans Church the sparrow fans my hunger for glass. Copyright © 2017 by Sandra Fees. About the Author Sandra Fees is a poet and minister residing in Reading, Pennsylvania. Two of her collections of poems were published in 2017 The Temporary Vase of Hands (Finishing Line Press) and Moving, Being Moved (Five Oaks Press). Haley Wooning Featured in ArLiJo Issue No. 102. 1. white gulls cull and mull an insolent storm inconsolable fish fin thin and weaving way for each personal cyclone a strict and sacred skeletal arrangement Copyright © 2017 by Haley Wooning. 2. I wish I could be silent more often an ilex the waiting is essential spring of mute sadness. I miss so many things. swig of feathered wing. And collapse. there is unfoldable time and there is no way to make use of it Copyright © 2017 by Haley Wooning. 3. she is walking in the woods for something, alphabet, assumptions, residue of the blue I wanted to sit down and write a love poem, but empty turns to me and I give up days seem more and more congealed cataloged Copyright © 2017 by Haley Wooning. 1. yes, all is change. I blur. dim glow of words, like weakness it bridles the bloody hands the murder I lack myself sit saxifrage and wait for the memories humming down my limbs to end muddied, weighted body to damp red earth I go ossuary of blank despair Copyright © 2017 by Haley Wooning. 2. we, in our true forms remain otherwhere in reeds red sweet on coast foreign and home how time can blank you of me how my worry consumes and pushes itself into another monster Copyright © 2017 by Haley Wooning. 3. stone endures not simple or same earth heaves me forward shatters heavy thick silence red exhumed swallow-shaped living is a drugged and dreamless sleep Copyright © 2017 by Haley Wooning. 4. eros will derange you a condition no rhyme can cure how naked the pen feels in my hand, blackbile ink Copyright © 2017 by Haley Wooning. About the Author Haley Wooning lives in California, writes poetry. Thom Young Featured in ArLiJo Issue No. 102. Love love came back to haunt us with a gun in her hands we sat over a bowl of cold cereal and laughed at how the world used to be I never saw her again after that but sometimes I hurt for no reason at all. Copyright © 2017 by Thom Young. Monkey see the circus see the monkeys some in red, white, and blue a love that hates and disagrees monkey see monkey kill the glowing screen says yes we can a future to eat ice pops in the metal sun yes we can Copyright © 2017 by Thom Young. About the Author Thom Young is a writer from Texas. His work has been in 3am magazine, Thieves Jargon, Word Riot, The Legendary, 48th Street Press, The Zombie Logic Review, Commonline Journal, and many other places. |
||||||