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Yes, Poetry Vol. 3, Issue 6: June 2012
yespoetry.com twitter.com/yespoetry facebook.com/yespoetry editor@yespoetry.com Editor-in-Chief Joanna C. Valente Assistant Editor Stephanie Valente Managing Editor G. Taylor Davis, Jr. Cover Image: Joanna C. Valente
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Contents 4 5 6 7 8 9 13 14 15 16 17 20 22 23
Ali Znaidi Zachary Scott Hamilton Tyler Smith Jeanette Geraci Jeffrey Park C. Derick Varn Tyler Malone Dawn Schout Haris Adhikari Rosemarie Horvath Iwasa Anton Frost Contributor's Notes Editor Biographies Submission Guidelines
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ALI ZNAIDI Sacrifice these embers are not for the fireplace I saddle up my cold night the fireplace sacrifices its embers for my cold bed
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ZACHARY SCOTT HAMILTON Loop Shows Those are soft windows that keep these four eyed rooms in our pretty cat yarns. Asleep under the mouth of a friend, or a spiral love contained in each small hair. What formula the birds make at our wandering language(s)– researched for eighteen years before we meet in the flesh beneath a flickering halogen. Arms we attach, the extra wings that we have set upon one another's broken shoulders– the ones to repair the loss and pay for damages inside our breath. Souls wiggling next to each other from the radio waves inside us, to the licking skin, a nights alone weave person to long anchored person– Build the secret machine in us. Tuned at that night watch as the snow passes down our loving loop story– It's Myst of our devises we must someday submerge, alone one another to final transmitter tower, a dark left turn upon the electric, we gotta go down that channel, the open sign where an electric daisy rises up.
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TYLER SMITH The One Dressed Like a Horse Is there another road to Bakersfield? An answer served with pie? A love song comprised entirely from the sound of pi単atas breaking? I have blindfolded, marked spots with an X, spent nights in gold sequins. I have capsized tugboats in the back yard, pickled your gardens green tomatoes, swallowed the waxing moon before dancing. The crickets carry codes in the binary hour of morning. A rusty tourniquet, two finch eggs, a pink balloon.
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JEANETTE GERACI All Over Me I've read that the freckle one inch West of my left eye suggests how much I've suffered; that the mole on my hip means I'll have a handsome husband. The palm reader on 13th says my lines are dangerously cross-hatched: I turn them this way and that, trying to understand how you could go from naming the birthmark on my back to disappearing.
You Made Off With A Piece of Me I see now why orgasm in French— La Petite Mort— translates to the little death; why each time I exhale, something nameless and essential exits.
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JEFFREY PARK Fingers on My Flesh Take your fingers and place their cool tips here, just here to the side – do you feel the rusty rasp in my speaking box, the jagged edges that stubbornly refuse to mesh? Just there, feel how one poorly tooled seam threatens to split the encasing flesh. Press down here, see if you can read the words imbedded below the surface through thin layers of mechanical pain. And you do feel it now, can you? Feel the hiss and the drawn-out scraping breath that brushes gently against your cheek scoring it like a hot blast of wind-blown sand.
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C. DERICK VARN Grayer Skies Quid loquar Antinoum caelesti in sede locatum ?/ Ilium, delicias nunc divi principis, ilium/ Purpureo in gremio spoliatum sorte virili -Aurelius Prudentius Clemen
The snow-fog blots the sky white-gray so the horizon knows no difference from clouds. I sit near a statute of King Sejong in the center of Seoul as school kids run past stiff military guards. From gray to gray, I read the news in the midnoon shadow of the US embassy. Normal print: Reports from Kabul in one panel and a Tel Aviv bombing on the other. As a child I was never sure which side of the wailing wall I stood: Hadrian or Bark Kochba. Since Josephus Yes, Poetry
10 couldn’t decide, I figured I kept good company with my truant eyes on childhood televisions. Remember Antinous’s statuary dusted the streets of Jerusalem and choked the provinces breathless. All in all: it’s chaff and mulch. No Cassius Dio to execrate the numbers. Dead Essenes littering the red fortress did not serve as a warning for long enough, even now we forget as helicopters chop the sky over Kandahar. The Gingko branches empty of leaves biting the peripheral vision and bluing the face with lust for blossoms, I wonder if reading the Jewish Wars made Roman lovers shiver in cramped, humid stucco streets, or if the zealot had a Yes, Poetry
11 woman whose tangle kept him twined. Snow falls on square where I realize the dreams of Joseon were scourged in Japanese smoke.
Listening to Theotokario without Faith The Greek renders down love like butter fat, thick in the voice. Seraphim and atheists aren’t generally palling around at the bar, no matter much how beer one drinks on Friday. Cherubim whisper to the icon of Saint Macrina hoping those like me who see nothing but beauty in Byzantine icons can know another kind of love. The harmony of cassocked and tonsured tongues who make sounds in symmetry as if they were lovers of pure sound.
Stasis “To function, memory requires a fixed, stable object” -Giacome Leopardi, Zibaldone di pensieri
Ellipses indicate omissions. Syntax: a slippery slope. Piles of magazines are rubrics, small devotions. The fogged peaks of the mountains outside my window line my pleasure. The closest one comes to clarity is oxtails rustling in wind. At the bottom of things: glass and blood Yes, Poetry
12 wash out of your hair. Speak in tongues until the flames spout forth. Colons tell you there is more to come. Calling your name at night, sweet decline, long goodbye. Sheet metal, bottles, and bones kick the lies out of your mouth. Trace of one before. Fire for your eyes. Entice a hand to help you out the wreckage. Entice a memory to resonate on your limps. Take your car and drive it home in pieces. Hard to remember: resurrect the way I call your name. Tell the truth, it wouldn’t help anyway. Keep the glass out of your hair. Blue and gold lights churn down the river. If we spoke of what happened, we’d have to remember the bits and pieces. Sometimes bad weather follows good people. Sometimes.
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TYLER MALONE A Good Man Is Hard to Melt A good man melts on an unfinished roof with a nail gun in fingers as yellowed as oxidized nails, working for sandwiches, a modesty salary, a chance at salvation: He found a job and Jesus on a roof, safe by a rope slung over a tree branch, anchored to a bumper—the same method that’s killed two others when their wives drove to the city’s stores, dragging husbands to dressing rooms—to death, faceless and limbless by lovers. He never had a ride to the work site, he’d walk wearing work clothes, the same for weeks; hand printed, well-oiled overalls: an unshed snake, a torn kangaroo pouch. Wheels would have been illegal. After stealing a state inspection sticker at a gas station to save his seat stained, knife stabbed mini-van, he did time. Banished to his feet, road shoulders, sidewalks, while his spray painted camouflaged van dissolved into his backyard. Finally, he didn’t beat the sun to the asphalt: he was a no-show. So his boss drove to where roads end, where shadows are the shortest, where it’s dirt, holes and a mesquite forest—to their hovel, roofless, to see that they emptied out of their condemned home like a chicken coup with its door left open, feathers and paw prints fell everywhere and led around the rubigo kitchen, to droppings in cages: bedrooms, sunny with no roof— out the door, into the forest. A frontier of a front yard, past underwear on a wire line: under a woman’s undergarments as wide as a picnic blanket, centered with shit stains as the forest’s fingers grew up the porch’s concrete steps, through floors, and into the pulled wide womanly leg holes.
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DAWN SCHOUT Souvenir He bought a one-way ticket, took a permanent vacation from us. Now it’s my turn to pack. Leave the reminders of him, the black USMC shirt he gave me to sleep in, the coffee mug from his trip to Vegas while I was vacationing somewhere else, the music box from Christmas, the flowers dying on my counter. If he wants me again, I’ll be 30,000 feet above his head, lost in broken clouds.
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HARIS ADHIKARI Turn by Turn Ants swarming upon the dead enemy – the snake gives all it has, eventually. So oily – in the sweltering sun, it lies like broken beads – beside the pond.
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ROSEMARIE HORVATH IWASA He Looked Me in the Eye He looked me in the eye, the wizened old man, as he leaned into the wind crossing Euclid Avenue toward me. My collar up and knit cap pulled down, mittens snug as I passed him in the street each of us bracing against the cold Ohio winter. I wondered about the soul of that homeless old man, probably like the winged Pegasus, soaring and grand.
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ANTON FROST Lineage the father runs. each day before dawn, he follows the river to the lake, breathing heavily. on the beach he meets his son standing between the palings where the gray sands build. "i've been up all night." dark almost similar shapes stand on an earth unfinished. "i just woke up." fate alights from them & they breathe. in the dimmed cold their forms slur. the air moves over the blue-black swells. they wait for sunup. they watch the water fade in. blanked blue chorus. remembered voice. (the woman they both call "mother" Yes, Poetry
18 dreams in her sleep.) the bluffs gather behind them. before the light clears the hills, one of them turns and walks away. the other watches him. they've done this a few million years now.
The Evocation the burnt trees. the fire-brunt came down here, before the sun bleached everything with years. to walk through dry grass the height of a woman the color of failed wheat is to stir up oblivion. to desire the forms as they fold is to become meager. a woodpecker bangs its head again and again against dead trees like a stirrup against the ribs of a starved horse. empty wind passes over a wicker basket. the image appears as if begged for. the woods. the hills. the wreaked basin. i walk with the hopelessness of imagined water. there is dust where snow should be. it swirls and implies.
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Contributor's Notes Haris Adhikari is from Nepal. He is a graduate in English and American literature from Tribhuvan University. A member of The Society of Nepali Writers in English, he is a teacher of English by profession. Also, he is the editor of Misty Mountain Review, an online journal of short poetry. His poems have appeared in The Enchanting Verses Literary Review, Buddhist Poetry Review, Mad Swirl, Of Nepalese Clay, Poddle (Poddle Publications, Dublin), Locust Magazine, Snow Monkey Journal, The Applicant, and Cuckoo Quarterly, among others. His other works are coming up in Mad Swirl and Essence Poetry Journal. Anton Frost is a poet living in Grand Haven, Michigan. Jeanette Geraci is a yoga teacher, dance club fanatic, chocoholic, and occasional slave to the written word. If Woody Allen and Shakira conceived a love-child, she'd probably look and behave something like Jeanette. Please drop by http://jeanetteicdisorder.tumblr.com/ to take a gander at some of her musings. Zachary Scott Hamilton is the author of fourteen Zines, including Temple of Sinew, The Orchestra of Machines, Wallet of Hexagons and HAIR LAND (named Zine of the month by the Independent Publishing Resource Center). His work appears in varies magazines including: Ignavia Press (issue 4.1), Otiliths (a journal of many e-things), Sein und Werden and Karawane. He Recently went on tour with the band Holy! Holy! Holy! and installed artwork with partner Molly Pettit for a photo series, which appears online at his website: Blackmonsterzine.weebly.com. His book, The Teacup of Infinity will be released in February of 2012 by The Black Magic LSD sex cult. He can be found at: www.zachabstract.blogspot.com Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Rosemarie Horvath Iwasa has also lived in Washington, D.C., Naperville, Illinois and Sunnyvale, California. In California she got married, bore 2 children, got divorced and got a B.A. in Art from San Jose State University 1982.She has been published in Diverse-City in 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011, the anthology of the Austin International Poetry Festival. Poetry and memoir are her main writing interests. One of her poems was printed in The Enigmatist, 2010 and another in 2011; one in the 2011 Blue Hole Magazine. Tyler Malone is Short Story Editor for Mad Swirl as well as the current Guest Editor of Tea with George, an online publication under the Desperanto publishing group. He is the author if The Brief Life Is Always the Best and his second book, Creatures Gone Wrong, will be released in May 2013 by Desperanto. Dawn Schout’s poetry has appeared in more than two dozen publications, including Breadcrumb Scabs, Fogged Clarity, Foliate Oak Literary Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Muscle & Blood Literary Journal, Pemmican, Poetry Quarterly, The Yes, Poetry
21 Centrifugal Eye, Tipton Poetry Journal, and Yes, Poetry. She has a B.A. in creative writing and lives near Lake Michigan. Tyler Smith lives and works in Somerville, MA. He plays bass in the bands Pistol Buckets and Small Fires. C. Derick Varn has a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from Georgia College and State University where he served as assistant editor for Arts and Letters: A Journal of Contemporary Arts. He also served as managing editor for the now defunct Milkwood Review. He won the Frankeye Davis Mayes/Academy of American Poets Prize in 2003 and has recently published poems in Backwards City Review, Cartier Street Review, Deuce Coupe, Rusty Truck, JMWW Magazine, Writing Disorder and Unlikely Stories 2.0. He currently lives in Yongin-si, South Korea during the academic year and in Macon, Georgia during the summer season. During the day, he works as a full-time Instructor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies’ English Translation and Interpretation Department and, at night, writes and paints. Ali Znaidi lives in Redeyef, Tunisia. He graduated with a BA in Anglo-American Studies in 2002. He teaches English at Tunisian public secondary schools. He writes poetry and has an interest in literature, languages and literary translation. His work has appeared in The Bamboo Forest, The Camel Saloon, phantom kangaroo, BoySlut, fortunates.org, and is upcoming in Otoliths. He also writes flash fiction for the Six Sentence Social Network— http://sixsentences.ning.com/profile/AliZnaidi.
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Editor Biographies Joanna C. Valente was born in Manhattan, New York. She attends Sarah Lawrence College as a MFA candidate in poetry writing. In 2011, Joanna was the recipient of the Friends of Humanities/American Society of Poet’s Prize. She is also the founder and editor of the magazine, Yes, Poetry. Joanna is a graduate of SUNY Purchase College, where she received a BA in creative writing and a BA in literature. Her work has appeared in La Fovea, The Medulla Review, The Houston Literary Review, Owen Wister Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Uphook Press, among others. In her spare time, she is a mermaid. More can be found at her website: http://joannavalente.com Stephanie Valente lives in New York. One day, she would like to be a silent film star. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from dotdotdash, Nano Fiction, LIES/ISLE, and Uphook Press. She can be found at: http://kitschy.tumblr.com G. Taylor Davis, Jr is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College's MFA program in writing. He received his BA from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. He is currently the managing editor at Yes, Poetry. In the past, his work has appeared in The Boiler Journal and The Atlantic. He hails from the Milky Way, but currently lives in New York.
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Submission Guidelines -Please send all submissions to editor@yespoetry.com. -We consider previously unpublished work, although simultaneous submissions are acceptable. Copyrights revert back to writer upon publication. -Submissions are on a rolling basis, so we ask you not to submit more than once per month. -Don't forget to include a third-person author biography with your work. We also encourage you to link us to your website or blog. Poetry: Submit up to seven poems. In the subject line of the email, please write “Your Name_Poetry Submission.” Either copy and paste your work into the body of the email, or attach as a .doc file. We welcome all types of poetry. Photography: Only submit original work; it can be a stand-alone piece or part of an entire collection. Submit up to five photos with an artist's statement. Email us with the subject line “Your Name_Photography Submission.” Music: Please send mp3 or mp4 files only. In the subject line of the email, write “Your Name_Music Submission.” Other: If you are submitting a review or interview, please send in a .doc file. It must not exceed 2,000 words. Email us with the subject line “Your Name_Other Submission.” If you would like to be involved or have any other questions, please direct all emails to editor@yespoetry.com.
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