2010 IIi
Editor's Note: A big fat thank you to the poets who responded to the clarion call for submissions (ok, it was really a Facebook call but "clarion" sounds so much more poetic!) Our aim is to showcase a diverse mix of talented poets, and to create a supportive atmosphere within which to share our craft and our humanity.
First Literary Review
2010 IIi
***
***
***
***
Love Is Like Oxygen
Inspiration!
I love the smell of carcinogens in the morning!
-Michael Ceraolo
Michael Ceraolo is a 52-year old firefighter/paramedic/poet who has had one full-length book (Euclid Creek, from Deep Cleveland Press) and a few shorter-length books (Cleveland Haiku, from Green Panda Press and More Euclid Creek and Cleveland Scores Early, from Kendra-Steiner Editions) published. He is looking forward to retirement next year so that he can write even more.
***
GULF COAST POEMS
in memoriam
the Gulf Coast
draped in black
the flow of greed
dyed in black
BP is not green!
streets flooded
after the levees broke
jazz still cries at night
blood diamond
blood diamond
clarity shows
the stain of death
-Patricia Carragon
Patricia Carragon is a New York City writer and poet. Her publications include Poetz.com, Rogue Scholars, Poets Wear Prada, Best Poem, BigCityLit, CLWN WR, Chantarelle's Notebook, Clockwise Cat, Ditch Poetry, MÖBIUS, The Poetry Magazine, The Toronto Quarterly, Marymark Press, and more. She is the author of Journey to the Center of My Mind (Rogue Scholars Press). She hosts and curates the Brooklyn-based Brownstone Poets and is the editor of the annual anthology. Her new book is Urban Haiku and More (Fierce Grace Press, 2010). For more information, please check out her Web sites at http://brownstonepoets.blogspot.com/ and at http://patriciacarragon8.wordpress.com/.
***
Vida
What does Life mean to you
What does it mean to give it your all
To face it when excited
To face it when in doom
To face it when alone….that is when
you really feel it
What does Vida mean to you.
-Diane Mofazelli
Diane Mofazelli is a New Yorker @ heart and mind, but resides in the warmth of Florida. Her background is in the interior design field, and she has a floor covering business with her husband. The poet reports: "Actually, this is my first time submitting anything I have written. So I hope it is felt by others. Thank you for listening."
***
Reduction
You reduce me to
Words that never reach my ears.
An image of disjointed limbs
Piercing the flesh the
Finest compliment short of a
Kiss.
-Zev Torres
Zev Torres is the author of Revision (2010), In Celebration of Hope and Change (2009), and Percussion Suite (2008). Zev is a regular participant on the New York City spoken word circuit and has featured at numerous venues. He has hosted Make Music New York's Spoken Word Extravaganza in Battery Park each of the past three years. Zev is currently working on a collection of short fiction. Some of Zev's work may be seen at http://www.zevtorres.wordpress.com/.
***
Anyone Can Be a Bard!
(Villanelle)
| English isn't really all that hard, though for mastery, you must be clever! Anyone can be a bard! Proper English was spoken by Jean-Luc Picard, Remember that Star Trek Next Generation endeavor? English isn't really all that hard. A rhyme with lard? How about Swiss chard? Or a rhyme with whoever?...Whatever! Anyone can be a bard! Dems, dees and dats are not on a poetic Christmas card, but puns and other plays on words do abound, however! English isn't really all that hard. Sing a good "Old English" poetic song, then dance a galliard, The phraseology will stay with you forever! Anyone can be a bard! As I near the end, this villanelle will be starred, from this train of thought I'm about to sever... English isn't really all that hard, Anyone can be a bard! -John Todras |
|
John A. Todras, retired teacher, was a first place prize winner in a Shelley Society of NY poetry contest and the Borders Book contest on Long Island. He has also served as Associate Publisher of the New Press Literary Quarterly, as well as having developed the business plan and trained the hosts of events for a Long Island poetry organization. A former concert pianist, he has devoted many years to creating comedic cabaret and love songs. Contact: ElizabethOne1@msn.com.
|
***
| Shallow |
***
Lucent
When whales salivate
I’ll shake a brainstorm
free of keepsake variety
in the huddle of a poodle
Lucent words their urge
solidified in fragrant ladies
summering in a wayward
yearning for peripherals
-Mitch Corber
Mitch Corber has recited his musical poetry throughout the city. His work has appeared in Blackbox Manifold, Columbia Poetry Review, Blazevox, Listenlight, Polarity, and others. He founded the Thin Air Video Poetry DVD Archives which includes Ginsberg, Corso, Ashbery, Di Prima, and Cage, as well as dozens of contemporary NYC poets. Awardee of the New York Foundation for the Arts, and director-camera of NYC's Poetry Thin Air Cable Show.
***
A Lion is a Cow
Meat I ate was once a lion.
Had to be. My mother told me
it would make me strong.
Like a lion.
She’d cut it up for me, into
little pieces. I’d leave the last
piece. She’d say: the last
piece was the key.
Years later: I learned,
meat I ate was not a lion.
I was: hurtshocked.
A cow?
-Ted Jonathan
(previously published in Bones & Jokes and Iconoclast).
Ted Jonathan is a poet and short story writer. Born and raised in the Bronx, he now lives in Manhattan . His work has appeared in many literary magazines. Ted has recently been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His first collection Spiked Libido was published by Neukeia Press. Bones & Jokes, his most recent full-length collection of poems and short stories, has been published by NYQ Books (2009). http://www.nyqpoets.net/poet/tedjonathan?PHPSESSID=44831dcae90a40eddd9562bb0f98fe89
http://www.nyqbooks.org/author/tedjonathan
***
Ants
Getting ready to stir up a memory can be like
coming upon an inquisitive child holding a stick,
studying an anthill. When the arm lifts, you
intercede, admonishing with your tiny Zen-bell
voice. Fascinating as it might be, who wants such a
scattering and its ensuing mayhem unsettling across
the flowerbed, disoriented workers frantically trying
to save the queen. She sits somewhere, deep,
below, protecting the future, swollen with memory.
-Karen Neuberg
(Originally published in DETAILED STILL)
Karen Neuberg's work has appeared in or is forthcoming in many on-line and print journals and anthologies, including Barrow Street, Melusine, or Woman in the 21st Century, PoetryBay Magazine, and Switched-on-Gutenberg. She is the author of the chapbook, Detailed Still (Poets Wear Prada Press, 2009), is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, holds an MFA from the New School, and is associate editor of Inertia Magazine. Links to her work can be found at http://karenneuberg.blogspot.com.