 Arlington Literary Journal an ejournal also known as ArLiJo, is located in Arlington, Virginia and is sponsored by Gival Press. The intent of ArLiJo is to feature a variety of authors/poets/artists from around the globe whose work provokes readers to contemplate issues, etc. The work chosen promotes understanding and sensitivity across borders, even if initially the work may cause one to take a double-take. Staff: Editor-in-Chief, Robert L. Giron Associate Editor, Sarah Fannon ArLiJo has reverted to a publication by invitation only. Any work published shall remain the property of the author/poet/artist and for any previously published work to appear the author/poet/artist must still retain the copyright of the work. Please note that ArLiJo is an ejournal. Payment for publication is a book from a selection of books published by Gival Press. |
D. Dina Friedman Featured on ArLiJo Issue No. 80 Eggs They are cold in my hand hard boiled. Stretch marks darken the shell nothing oozes out. My son feels the breeze under his belly as he lifts up off the floor When he was in my womb I could not look at eggs. Was it then everything reduced itself to a liquid state, a place where white is translucent, yellow is sunny, and I have overcooked, no longer the baby coddled in my mother’s eggy arms This is the paradox of eggs. No one dares squeeze until it’s too late The baby is walking now. He rolls out of my arms like an egg on the run Copyright © 2015 by D. Dina Friedman. View From the Other Side Facades of buildings sizzle in the sun, distraction blinking neon in all four corners of the roving eye: Chrysler, Woolworth, Citi— we pick them out of the skyline, as if they’re important. When did I realize they were named after corporations? As a child, these were just their names, normal as my own. Now I recognize their eerie power—precursor to some futuristic nightmare, worthy of any science fiction if it hasn’t already been done to death. In the park, humans are sleeping out of necessity, or as an act of protest, but this might also be a tale waiting to be told, a horror novel or hero story—the ending remains to be seen. Or perhaps some other weird Grade B where the buildings come to life stepping on the small humans beneath them the neon flashing a big yellow YES! GO CHRYSLER! GO CITI! This poem has gotten out of hand but then, you could argue, so have the buildings and the people that run them. How many kisses will it take to awaken the people sleeping in the park, and call them beautiful and powerful enough to destroy the handsome neon prince. Copyright © 2015 by D. Dina Friedman. Biography: D. Dina Friedman has published widely in literary journals including Lilith, Calyx, Xanadu, Common Ground Review, Bloodroot, Inkwell, The Sun, Anderbo, San Pedro River Review, Mount Hope, and Rhino. She has received two Pushcart Prize nominations for poetry and fiction and is also the author of two young adult novels: Escaping Into the Night, and Playing Dad’s Song. Visit this author's homepage at http://www.ddinafriedman.com
Monique Kluczykowski Featured on ArLiJo Issue No. 80 Wintering in Iowa The river runs dark deep in darkness, matte save where bridges, arched cats cross and re-cross, their lights puddles of redblueyellow shimmering against the flat surface. There, where iridescence meets the cold matte/flat/black, where we turn back into ourselves, say good-bye, return each to our own side, divided by depths we cannot fathom. Copyright © 2015 by Monique Kluczykowski. Biography: Monique Kluczykowski was born in Germany, educated in Texas and Kentucky, and currently teaches at the University of North Georgia. Her most recent poems have appeared in The Stonepile Writers‘ Anthology, Vol. III., Third Wednesday, StepAway Magazine, Cactus Heart Press, and The Magnolia Review. Luke Normsy Featured on ArLiJo Issue No. 80 Knee-Slapper February Monday frozen rain pinging grimy windows fire trucks wailing to someplace out of Xanax stockyard stinky breath meeting on the Quality of our Values. Clandestine phone reading: your poems are not for us. No waterboarding, no jumper-cabled nipples, God and His angels tire of Suffering & Sorrow and require Levity. Copyright © 2015 by Luke Normsy. Biography: Luke Normsy is a mid-level bureaucrat by day and a very-minor poet and photographer by night. He lives in the same meaningless void as everyone else, but tries to be cheery about it. Masochists and other interested parties can dig his work on Google+. Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb Featured on ArLiJo Issue No. 80 Little Girls and Tea Parties What does she know—he’s only five. “I want to go to the tea party,” she insists, resisting my efforts to cross the street, to leave the town square where they continue to rally, to evoke loudly names of their heroes of past— Bush, Cheney, Palin, McCain—it’s Arizona. “Who’s Sarah?” my young comrade asks. I do not want to address her question, as she is, after all, a little girl, my friend’s kid, so I try to avoid politics with “She is a lady who lives in The Bible— a person in one of those stories your parents sometimes read to you.” “Does she know Alice?” the child is seriously curious. “Alice who?” I ask, not realizing she means in Wonderland. Her face implies I am the most ignorant grownup in the world; then, as if all books connect, she sighs, “You know, Alice— who got to go to the Mad Hatter’s tea party?” Copyright © 2015 by Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb Noise She said that she could hear the shovel hitting the dirt too hard and the engine of the rototiller. I had heard her yelling over the fence at the gardener, thinking it was friendly conversation, until the pitch changed, and the man’s face reddened in frustration. I would go talk to her, I assured him, and would let her know we were getting ready to plant, that the noise would be temporary. Though neighbors for ten years, I had never been in their house before then. After my visit, I knew any decibel level was too loud, as was a bee buzzing, rain falling, and that our carpet cleaning would be on hold, house painting delayed. Walking out with two hospice workers I had not known were tending to her husband, I knew our garden would be postponed. Copyright © 2015 by Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb. Biography: Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb’s work has appeared in Aji Magazine, Sierra Nevada Review, Caesura, Red River Review, Dark Matter: A Journal of Speculative Writing, The Broken Plate, Wilderness House Literary Review, Concho River Review, Twisted Vine Literary Arts Journal, The Blueline Anthology (Syracuse University Press), Pedestal Magazine, Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built and Natural Environments, Flash Fiction Magazine, The Conium Review, and other journals and online forums, with poetry forthcoming in the anthology Talking Back and Looking Forward: Poetry and Prose for Social Justice in Education (Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Fall 2015) and others. A past Pushcart Prize nominee, she holds an interdisciplinary MA from Prescott College and is co-founder of Native West Press, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit natural history press. Amy Wright Featured on ArLiJo Issue No. 80 “To Hell With Recreation, Let’s Just Survive,” Willow Scratches onto Ziploc Baggies Desire will hang you out to dry, Willow tells her sorority, ”over a canyon, with no one to cut you down or hear you howl. I’-m not one of the ones who will lie to you. The weapons you need are inside. Polish until they shine. Your reflection may stop you. It is only your reflection. Be interested in it, as you would a small toothy mammal chewing grass. Be disinterested in it, as you would a long-standing tie. Wear your pin. Share the experience with your sisters. A needle is a tiny determinant knife.&drquo; Copyright © 2015 by Amy Wright. If We Love Not Each Other, How Can We Love Gigi Who We Have Not Seen? “Not money,” say forgotten flea market journals— “but that split fish multiplied to feed thousands proliferates like transplanted grass carp in the Chocatawhatchee River.” Loose stuck pages and you will have not one but a consort of experts parked in the road talking sideways through driver side windows, saying you know, only you know where to go next. Copyright © 2015 by Amy Wright. John John’s Nailing a Styx Riff on his Stratocaster Sometimes John John’s not available to bring ginger ale when Avery’s feverish on the sofa. Tough break, but she hardscrabbles over it, knuckle-dusts yellow pillowcases into the headboard grunting. The tendony roughneck trims trees shirtless, tan as outlaws, tough as jerky. She kicks rocks, pushes pins, but he mewls from the back bedroom so longingly he seems to have been there always. Copyright © 2015 by Amy Wright. Biography: Amy Wright is the Nonfiction Editor of Zone 3 Press, and the author of five chapbooks. Her first full-length collection, Mudlick, is forthcoming from Brick Road in early 2016. Online excerpts of published work is available at awrightawright.com. Visit this author's homepage at http://awrightawright.com
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