Wednesday, August 22, 2007


Finding the Abandoned

by M.E. Silverman

Silverman graduated with an MFA from McNeese State University in 1997. He now lives south of Atlanta, is a full-time dad, and seeks a publisher for "The Forgotten Songs of Mud Angels." Poetry has appeared in a variety of magazines, including Nexus, The Delta, The Review, The Flask Review, Orange Room Review, Blood Orange Review, Ceremony, and Midwest Poetry Review. Silverman won first place in The Journal of College Writing contest.



For years, I refused to return to the seasoned house
where my mother and father first lived and fought
the savage landscape. Now, flakes of sun-rinsed
pink paint and hungry rust coat the exterior.
From the front, I see dense decay through an open board—
mold spots the bathroom walls and master bedroom.
Three years they chopped and dug down,
strived to return the gabled house back
to its Craftsman roots. I suppose,
it matters little to see the false cypress
axed and the branchless trunk of my mother’s live oak
taken by disease or vine or perhaps pest.
Or the three crape myrtles stretching rampant,
their pink petals spilling across the Bermuda grass.
The river pebbles that lined the driveway
stolen from their beds. Gone are the rows
of sweet basil, parsley, and the thick layers of mint
for my mother’s julep and my father’s peach tea,
which once grew between the back fence and work shed.
Somewhere a family’s mower whirrs over weeds
and blades of grass swelled by summer.

This is no longer my house. I close my eyes to give in
to the moment, the reason why I’m here:
in the yard behind the house,
I imagine my father’s binoculars for birding
in the cup of my hands, the Sibley guide tucked
in the right pocket of my shorts. As if blackbirds,
cardinals, and thrashers could choir the history
of my trespasses. A bee brushes
a wing against my left ear, returns me to the present.
I wave it away and watch as it continues onward,
bumbling nectar to the hive. The whole yard feels
unchanged— I allow myself this lie. To peer within,
I approach the rear door where two green-thorn bushes
stand guard. I try not to notice the cuts
as they obstruct my view.

The hydrangeas droop their appendages and sway
like hula dancers. The purple-leafed smokebush
leans against the kitchen window— reminds me
of June afternoons and my mother, young and waiting
for their puffy plumes to bloom. The shed they rebuilt
in the shape of a brown barn smells of gasoline, motor oil,
and sawed wood with a hint of charcoal from barbeques
past. Chipmunks and fat-gray squirrels
trade barks and rummage the backyard.
The pink and purple butterfly bushes planted with such purpose
display an overlapping web of pink and white tubes
from several honeysuckle vines. A porch,
once screened from their planned heaven,
bares an openness I never saw before.

My mother would say it was not summer
until the smell of gardenias perfumed the neighborhood.
She knew each blossom by name, each yield,
when to cut back. My father could not wait to get away
from breathing the cold, to the days of furrows
and cut grass, to the pick-axe and seeding the songbird feeder.
They had that in common. Earthward and believing
in better days, both never found their perfect plot,
the ease of honeyed days, nor
have I— much time has passed since this bungalow
framed us three. I suppose,
it matters little that I pine for a kingdom where nothing
is vacant, and everything is returned
from where we abandoned.

Monday, August 13, 2007


Black Widow

by M. Kathryn Black



Kathryn Black grew up in Provincetown,
Massachusetts and has studied poetry there and since.
She has been involved in chapbooks (Three Rivers among
them) and has been published in about 20 e-zines.
Lately she's been focusing upon the novel, but still
writes poetry on a regular basis.


We thought we’d be till death
made of woven matter
like silk-weed husks
where Monarchs feed before flying
to the South, or spider nests
where eggs are laid waiting for the Spring.

But I decided to live half a life
then none lived whole with you.
I will eat fruit and nuts,
and sleep my dreams.
As you turn black and sleek, old
friend, you’ll kill husbands
in your web then eat them.

This Is How You Grow Old

The doctor talks to me frankly
and I ask:

Should I
not dye her hair anymore
as she lies there
losing teeth; and arms
next to useless
waiting for medicine to
bring her to nirvana?
As she has one spark
to return should I
abandon her, make her finally
a stranger? What
follows is a very long
parting.

Thursday, August 9, 2007


Electric Bill: A Sonnet

by Graeme Mullen

Graeme grew up in Zimbabwe and moved to Massachusetts at the age of 16. He is currently living in Los Angeles where he spends his days slurpin' sodas, whittlin' wood and watching social Darwinism at play. Despite the many screenplays he has planted in the back seats of Maseratis (valet job), he has yet to secure a studio deal.



Just ask this lonely East Coast refugee
How come he's stranded here without a dime.
He'll tell you that his lover, drunk on wine
Stormed out on him, did not return his keys,

Did not replace the Chardonnay he'd bought,
But wandered out into the Eastern sea
And left him only in the company
Of Californian women, who he thought

Looked flat inside his T.V. screen, and so
He took off for Los Angeles, but there
The lights distracted him, he didn't hear

The meters clicking as the city cleaved
Away his days, and charged its hourly rate
That leaves a man too deep in debt to leave.