FIRST LITERARY REVIEW-EAST

JULY/AUGUST 2014

Dear Loyal Fans of Poetry:

Whether you're on the beach, sitting by the pool, on the terrace, or lazing in your lovely backyard, we hope you will add this exciting issue of FLRev to your summer reading list.

                                            -Cindy Hochman and Karen Neuberg, Editors 

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SON OF SAM PALINDROME

Dam'ff it Sam, a God-deified dog, a mastiff mad.                                       

                                                               —Fred Yannantuono

Fred Yannantuono's book, A Boilermaker for the Lady (www.nyqbooks.org/fredyannantuono), has been banned in France, Latvia, and the Orkney Isles. His work was nominated for a Pushcart prize in 2006. He has been a featured poet for Light Quarterly. His latest book, To Idi Ami I'm A Idiot And Other Palindromes, is due out very soon.

Tuesday Night

I watch the moon starve
for more than this.

Its thin body creeps the sky
like the edge of a bed.

I remain its struggling
feast, the poverty of a woman

sung.
                                             —April Michelle Bratten

April Michelle Bratten currently lives in North Dakota. Her work has previously appeared in Stone Highway Review, THRUSH Poetry Journal, and Waterhouse Review. Her book, It Broke Anyway, was published by NeoPoiesis Press in 2012. Her chapbook, Raw Dogs and Other Metaphors, was published by Maverick Duck Press in 2012. She edits Up the Staircase Quarterly.

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Cleveland Cinquains

Shopping
center promotes
itself as a lifestyle
center: fake small town made for the
new age

Painted
in still-intact
windows are the daily
specials of the long-abandoned
restaurant
                                                                  —Michael Ceraolo

Michael Ceraolo is a retired firefighter/paramedic who is the author of Euclid Creek (Deep Cleveland Press) and the forthcoming Euclid Creek Book Two (unbound CONTENT Press), as well as numerous chapbooks.

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SITTING IN A FAVORITE CHICAGO CAFÉ WITH A VIEW OF LAKE MICHIGAN ON A SUNNY SATURDAY IN SEPTEMBER, I NOTICE THE TRAFFIC LIGHT TURNS AMBER

what does the nasturtium in my salad know of caution?

CONSIDERATIONS: #60 Should I consider your offer?

cooking in strange kitchen, matches where spoons should be
stir fire with fire?

segue   memory    list   litany
menu

chicken   garlic   white wine   tarragon
roasted Spring vegetables

if I accept the lady apple you offer, am I tethered?

moon extricating from cloud from sheets
your fingers — apples of earth — seasoned ripe & ready
pluck me
                                                                         —Kit Kennedy

Kit Kennedy has published four collections including while eating oysters, CLWN WR BKS, Brooklyn, and Intentions, Co-Lab Press, San Francisco. Kit lives in San Francisco and is Poet in Residence of SF Bay Times.

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Rainbow Assortment

Popsicle
flopsicle, dropsicle, plopsicle
hot-topsicle
slopsicle, no mopsicle.
Can't stopsicle, I hopsicle
to the shopsicle
to get another.
                                                     —Jeff Santosuosso

Jeff Santosuosso is a business executive and poet who splits his time between Pensacola, FL and Dallas, TX. He's a member of the Dallas Poetry Community and the West Florida Literary Federation. His poems have appeared in Rhyme and PUNishment, HoboPancakes, Pif Magazine, The 2012 Texas Poetry Calendar, Illya's Honey, Red Fez, the Red River Review and other print and online journals. You can find him on Facebook.

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Daylight

Your arm hit the blinds and
they swung like a pendulum 
       bright
light
       bright
light
piercing my eyes you
held up your hand
to stop the sun
to shade my face
it felt just like love
so I sunk
into you
in the silence
I felt it
                                                     —Sarah Thursday

Sarah Thursday teaches elementary school, is obsessed with music, and only recently dove back into poetry. She has been published in various places, such as Atticus Review, The Long Beach Union, East Jasmine Review, Carnival Lit, Ishaan Literary Review, and Lummox (2). Recently, she has become the editor of Cadence Collective: Long Beach Poets, almost by accident, but completely on purpose.

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 One A.M.

We're in the Chevy; you, staring at the steering wheel.

 I hear your voice in fragments.

 Differences ... see others.

Valentine

Study quantum physics
discover
every living thing

has space
between

its elemental particles

and particles
dance
as we do, my love.
                                                                      —Ann Settel
 
["Valentine" was previously published in The Aurorean, Winter 2003-2004]

Ann Settel's poems have appeared in The Western Humanities Review and others. Some have been set to dance by the Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company.

Jonathan K. Rice is Editor/Publisher of Iodine Poetry Journal. He is the author of two books of poetry, Shooting Pool With A Cellist and Ukulele and Other Poems, both published by Main Street Rag Publishing. He lives in Charlotte, NC.

For a time I spoke to the wind. Firetrack's circuitous press, the dry currents, water's unkempt gleam: my archetype of imagined stillness. A tiny pill slips under my tongue.

I saw myself: a small child scrawling on blanched pages of the kingdom...
a dappled song grown/shameless & empty inside the mouth spills
into the wet grass. Everything
as the ascension toward dusk.

I saw my love walking in the field. He lay down among the spinifex.

When I move I move with my new mind, the unanswerable; memory, snow bleaching the surface of lawns; snow whitening the supplication failure brings.
                                                                                                      —Maureen Alsop

Maureen Alsop, Ph.D., is the author of two full-length collections, Mantic (Augury Books) and Apparition Wren (Main Street Rag), She is the winner of Harpur Palate's Milton Kessler Memorial Prize for Poetry and The Bitter Oleander's Frances Locke Memorial Poetry Award.  Her recent poems have appeared in various journals including The Laurel Review, AGNI, Blackbird, Tampa Review, Action Yes, Drunken Boat, and The Kenyon Review. Maureen is an associate poetry editor for the online journal Poemeleon and Inlandia: A Literary Journal. She presently leads a creative writing workshop for the Inlandia Institute, the Riverside Art Museum, and The Rooster Moans.

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Mayim: for Martin (May 13, 2013, 10 pm)

he must have thought he was in the desert
dry mouth, lips rimed with white

as if water once there
had dried around the edges

his hands cold, his feet, his legs,
his forehead cooling

we lifted the breathing machine mask to hear
the word he was saying:

"mayim", he said, "mayim."

Dan brought him water, a cup with a straw, "Here, Dad."
He sipped, wet his lips.

Not too much," the nurse warned.

"Mayim," he whispered. "Mayim". He must have thought
he was in the desert when he begged for more
                                                                              —Alice Twombly

Alice Twombly teaches Seniors at the Learning Collabortive and works for Fordham University, Teach For America. Her poems have appeared in the NJ Poetry Monthly and other journals. She was a finalist in The Nation-Discovery contest. She has had many one woman shows of her photography in Northern New Jersey and her photographs hang in homes, restaurants, and businesses in the Metro area.

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Seaglass
      for John Elsberg (1945 - 2012)

A bottle washes up
On the Eastern shore

Some boys break it
& years later the sharp pieces

Are worn smooth as stones
But they retain their colors

Glinting amid the dull real
Stones that erode all around us

Reflecting ancient starlight
Bringing it all back home
                                                         —Eric Greinke

Eric Greinke's poems have been published in numerous journals, including the New York Quarterly, the Paterson Literary Review, California Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, The Hurricane Review, Mad Poets Review, The Pedestal, Wilderness House Literary Review and Main Street Rag. Recent international publications include Prosopisia (India), Ginyu (Japan), The Green Door (Belgium) and The Journal (UK). His most recent book is For The Living Dead - New & Selected Poems (Presa Press, 2014) www.ericgreinke.com.

in a frenzied moment

              Juliet tryst I
gave myself to know
your weight on me
your smell on my skin

in time usually given
to moans & rash promises
or false declarations
you whisper
if an alternate universe
spins off from a decision
you will be bound in my embrace
looping eternally
on the river surface of time

this vision is my life raft
when the river
threatens to pull me under
                                                          —Michelle Hartman

Michelle Hartman's poems have been published in Plainsongs, Crannog, Poetry Quarterly, The Pedestal Magazine, Raleigh Review, San Pedro River Review, Pacific Review, Concho River Review, RiverSedge, and Illya's Honey, as well as over fifty other journals and ten anthologies. Her work also appears overseas in Ireland, Germany, Australia, Canada and Nepal, and she is a multiple Pushcart Prize nominee. Her poetry book, Disenchanted and Disgruntled, from Lamar University Press, is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. She is the editor for the online journal Red River Review and holds a BS in Political Science-Pre Law from Texas Wesleyan University and a Certificate in Paralegal studies.

lust lies low and comes with the tides as incest burns the weeping nest -
and the seas roar

women in white weave love in the night as fireflies fly
and gulls kiss the light — and the seas reach

braids unfurl as axes swing and white turns red in the carnal bed - and the seas rise

fear and loathing run the course to death's dark door
and drummers march to skin held taut o'er mothers' wombs — and the seas reign

and hangmen three sink to their knees at the altar of sin - and the seas regret

as prayers push upon the shore drownin' secrets forevermore — and the seas receive
and the seas hold their memories
                                                                                  —Jenean Gilstrap

[Previously published in Yareah magazine, 03/09/2014]

Jenean Gilstrap is the author of Words Unspoken, her first book of poetry, and is a featured poet/artist at both Yareah Magazine and Plum Tree Books. A second volume of poetry will be released this summer. Her work may also be found in several literary publications. Notably, she has been invited to read her poetry at the 2014 Fermoy International Poetry Festival in Ireland.

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The Astrology of Ants

An ant scurries across the sidewalk.
A man walking by
glancing down
sees it.
The world is full of such acts
and even the stars
so huge and other-worldly
will look down on us
from their journeys
but will not see us
looking up
praying their paths
cross ours.
                                                  —William Cullen, Jr.

William Cullen, Jr. is a veteran and works at a non-profit in Brooklyn, NY. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Camroc Press Review, Christian Science Monitor, Gulf Stream, Pirene's Fountain, Poppy Road Review, Right Hand Pointing, Spillway, Wild Goose Poetry Review and Word Riot.

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El Prisionero de la Luz
(after the painting by Roberto Matta Echaurren)

Imprisoned between the dawn and dusk
without the darkness for relief
when light becomes a burden
of certainty without escape
I am blinded by my own beliefs
the way I see myself
a sun that circles endlessly
around the earth
a god who know the thoughts
of trees and birds
while in the light of reason and day
I am nothing more
than a bat without its cave
or a bird inside its covered cage
a prisoner of light
and my own conceit.
                                                                     —Neil Ellman

Neil Ellman, a poet from New Jersey, has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and the Rhysling Award. More than 950 of his poems have appeared in print and online journals, anthologies, and chapbooks throughout the world.

 I Sleep This Way

On my side, one leg drawn up,
half fetal curl, half stretched, elongated,
neither Rubens, nor El Greco,
unable to commit.

Dreams intrusive as claxons,
subtle as sage, flutter white curtains;
snap flags on rocking North Sea ferries;
swarm, humming, from sealed jars
beneath the eaves in Maryland; tumble
like cottonwood-all fluff and fiber — amid tics, clicks, familiarities of home.

And you, keeper of schedules,
recorder of fact, with hammer and spoon,
books and bullets, always seeking truth
layered among poetry and dream,
let it go. Let it go. 
                                                       —Ann Howells

Ann Howells's poetry has appeared in Calyx, Crannog (Ire), Free State Review, Magma (UK), Sentence and Spillway. She serves on the board of Dallas Poets Community, 501-c-3 non-profit, and has edited its journal, Illya's Honey, since 1999, recently taking it from print to digital (www.IllyasHoney.com). Her chapbook, Black Crow in Flight, was published by Main Street Rag Publishing (2007). Another chapbook, the Rosebud Diaries, was published by Willet Press (2012). Her work has been read on NPR; she has been interviewed on Writers Around Annapolis television show; and she has been twice nominated for both a Pushcart and a Best of the Net.

Artist, poet, intuitive counselor, and lifelong student of the esoteric arts, Margaret McDermott resides in Long Island, NY. (By day, Director of a Corporate Wellness Company). Her blog is standingwithangels.tumblr.com.

poem for the Wizard of Oz journey

(After L. Frank Baum's 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz') 

This is an ordinary escape from one's self
an ordinary storm
an ordinary yellow brick road
an ordinary 1+1 = ∞
an ordinary fear
an ordinary arrow mark
an ordinary dream
an ordinary dreamlike reality-
an ordinary fairy godmother
an ordinary pair of red shoes

"Home ... home ... home"
this is an ordinary number three

"Why didn't you tell me before that it
was this easy to go back?"
an ordinary answer:

"Because you wouldn't have believed me!"
                                                                                           —Elif Sezen

Elif Sezen is an Australian-Turkish interdisciplinary visual artist, bilingual writer and poet. She recently received her Doctorate in Fine Arts from Monash University; she lives in Melbourne. Her collection of short stories Gece Düþüþü was published by Hayal Press early 2012 (in Turkish). Her translations of Ilya Kaminsky's collection of poems Dancing in Odessa was recently published in Turkish by Artshop Press. Her poems recently appeared in Cordite, Sotto Magazine, Rosetta Literatura, Australian Love Poems 2013, Kýyý Journal, Wonderbook of Poetry, Buddhist Poetry Review, Eureka Street and Little Red Tree International Poetry Prize 2013 Anthology-‘notable selection' section.

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 Modern and Hi Tech

It is modern and it is hi tech, it is laser sharp and shiny and clean
There are no weeks without contact and no postcards from the front.
No telegram stacatto censored by the night .
     Now it is Skype, Facebook and Twitter, an instant press release and a reporter on the spot.
But when you are on your knees and creeping around a dusty corner while bullets sizzle and twang around you, when a bump in the road can be an IED and the blast can shred both your protected legs and your armoured truck.
     Then you are just as close as Siegfried and Wilfred and just as dead as Robert and Rupert.
     The enemy is still waiting and watching and Britains youth still answer the call , for Queen and for country, for the flag and for the nation .
     But still like Siegfried many brave souls will ask why? and why? and for God's sake why?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

                                                           —Andy Scotson

Andy Scotson lives in Kilsby Rugby Warwickshire with his wife, Jeanette. He works in planning for a big supermarket chain. He used to write a bit of poetry and has just started again.

THANKS FOR READING, EVERYONE . . . AND HAVE A BEAUTIFUL SUMMER!