Siona in Town

Watching an Open Wound

by Dan Flore

Dan has appeared in Enthalpy several times. His background in mental health (he teaches poetry workshops to people with mental illness) is folded into his work.

I told her I couldn't talk
I needed sleep
the day had raked its fingers across my eyes
earlier she had learned it was over
and all I could see then was the memory of her bouncing young laugh
and strawberry cheeks
and I sunk into the earth
I became mud and stone

the next day
I could tell she had taken great care
in getting ready to see me
hair straightened,
blush and
green summer dress
as though nothing had died

but what made me tremble most
was seeing her sweaty fingers tightly squeezing
the tiny cross dangling from her chest
as she said give me one more chance

Water color by Siona Koubeck

The Ghosts And You

by Helm Filipowitsch

Helm lives in central Ontario, Canada. He's retired today, but may not be tomorrow. He writes poetry and is deeply involved in photography, as well as music. Most days, his world shifts between the laptop keyboard and the Yamaha keyboard; that is when he is not traveling the world with his wife of almost forty years.

Words are condensation on the window
between the maple and my chair -

breakfast dishes form a road from the table
to the sink, moraines on the counter top.

I miss the walks we took for cigarettes,
to the corner store, for fries from the drive-in -

I miss the baby steps and the way September
shed heat, worms in rain, stories with coffee.

I regret first snowfall, leaves clicking polka
in the hedge, the way dreams migrated

south and never returned. I rue twenty thousand
rhymes grown in wine petri dishes,

knocked senseless until they became poems,
anecdotes, lies, the sounds of an accordion

played long past midnight - in immigrant time,
for breakfast, in the milk of gunshots,

dressed in the flesh of uniforms, reciting
the differences between, with falling bomb sentences.

More of Siona's Artwork

Drawing by Siona Koupeck

Fleeting Notes Sever the Head from the Body

by Alex Nodopaka

Speedily conceived in Kiev, Ukraine, spit out like a cherry pit head first in Russia. Studied tongue-in-cheek finger painting at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Casablanca, Morocco. Presently wishfully thinking of an acting career in an IFC movie to make up for the Economic Meltdown.

Daydreaming in a Moorish souq
I glimpsed my friend Rahim strumming a guitar.
The imaginative melody he played evoked
Jalāl ad-Din Muhammad Rumi and Ghani Kashmiri.

They were squatting next to a street vendor hawking
Antique jars from whom I bought a diminutive model
Reminiscent of the shape Aladdin so deftly polished.
Under the lid I mentally inserted a few poetic stanzas

Hoping they'd keep company to the Genie.
While the seller was fitting the cap I noticed
A misfit but in my heart knew it was meant
For ascetically flawed notes to escape.

Sharing this poem with my trendy companion
Whom I considered of a superior creative kind
He proceeded to expand on the meaning of the slit
Formulating that a bad note was the devil's work

Rubber Dish Gloves

by Dan Flore

Dan has appeared in Enthalpy several times. His background in mental health (he teaches poetry workshops to people with mental illness) is folded into his work.

they are her
cosmic,covered with little bits of old cheddar cheese
rubber dish gloves
she washes her plates
that never had any food
cleansing the coastline
for lost motorcyclist souls

she has a linen table
dances around it like a cowgirl
when she restores their crystals

the lovers in torn corduroy
without their silenced desires
are sharpening pencils
recalling a star
that fell into her
jasmine garden
start wishing
with cracked skin
crossed fingers
that she will remember
the burst that shimmered
her out of that fizzled jig years ago

the sky is orange tonight
the ditch diggers along the mountains
know the chuckling mysteries have settled in
the laughter's echo is a dizzying crumble
they look to their watches
for her and are
hoping too she will
come out of her over
sparkled celebration soon

the motorcyclists zoom by
their exhaust a pristine purple
the waiting still exploding within

the lovers see an old condom
the ditch diggers-a rubber band