New Poetry: Angelina Martin
voyeur
you’ve gotten into the habit of slinking
out of the room when anything happens
if it’s something joyous, you float to the rafters
and admire the scene like a refined work of art
look at the energy here! such elated emotion
on the faces of the subjects! there is no doubt
this is a beautiful moment. I would pay top dollar
to have this moment hung in my home.
if it’s something awful, you rise slow like morning
and crawl to the corner to join the rest of the dust
where you examine the agony or shame
or whatever the air is thick with at the time
and your heart breaks briefly in the same way as when
you drive past an accident on your way to work
those poor, poor people,
whoever they are. I hope they’re okay
but they probably aren’t. I’m thankful
that’s not happening to me right now.
but my dear, you are the poor, poor people!
that’s your own wicked body
strewn about the wreckage
though if you didn’t recognize it
when it was all in one piece
then you surely wouldn’t be able
to pick it out of a line up now
at least that makes sense: you’re trying
to protect yourself and witnessing pain is easier
to swallow than experiencing it
but you don’t understand why you must rush off
when rare peace comes around
when it’s one of those long awaited hours or minutes
that you claim to stay alive for
just once when you get what you want
you wish you could be still
enough to savor it
***
Angelina Martin is a poet, comedian, and waitress who lives in Austin, Texas. She has been published in literary magazines such as Sea Foam Mag, Corvus Review, and Okay Donkey Mag as well as in the book Anthology: The Ojai Playwrights Conference Youth Workshop 2006-2016. You can usually find her on Twitter and Instagram (@angelinajmartin) or on the basketball court, trying to become the oldest woman ever drafted by the WNBA.
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This body of custom attached to the concept of divine kingship is very reminiscent of Egyptian thought and practice, thus indicating the length of the historical period during which Africans have credited their kings as spiritual leaders with divine authority, and not only that, have perceived them as avatars of Divinity itself. The deification of Haile Selassie therefore presents itself as a resurgence among expatriate Africans of this concept of divine kingship. The psychologically and socially programmed urge to re-create the social structure in which they had functioned in their homelands resurfaced continually in slave and post-slave society. African Caribbean groups always elected kings and queens: cabildos de nación (national societies) in Cuba, convois (secret societies) in Trinidad, St. Lucian La Rose and la Marguerite dance affiliations, jonkunu bands and Brukins dance groups in Jamaica, tea-parties in Tobago, St. Vincent, and Jamaica, African and bele dances in the Eastern Caribbean, even modern Trinidad carnival masquerade bands - all of them - whether temporary or permanent sodalities, or whether wholly or partially secular - were/are headed by royal figures. Chevannes (1989:18) notes the reverence accorded the Rastafari founders and acknowledged leaders. The Rastafari choice of Haile Selassie, as is well documented, was influenced by the Biblical prophecy: "And Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hands unto God", as well as by the political and psychological cataclysm precipated by the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935.
Maureen Warner-Lewis - African Continuities in the Rastafari Belief System (1993) [Caribbean Quarterly Vol. 39, no 3/4]
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Daniel Nester, Mike Faloon, & Jasmine Dreame Wagner
Reading @ The Spotty Dog Books & Ale
440 Warren Street, Hudson, NY
Saturday, September 29, 2018 @ 7pm
About the readers:
Daniel Nester is an essayist, freelance writer, poet, writing professor, erstwhile literary journal editor, reading series curator, podcaster, and Queen superfan. He is the author most recently of the memoir Shader: 99 Notes on Car Washes, Making Out in Church, Grief, and Other Unlearnable Subjects. His other books include How to Be Inappropriate, a collection of humorous nonfiction; The Incredible Sestina Anthology, which he edited; The History of My World Tonight, a book of poems; and God Save My Queen: A Tribute and God Save My Queen II: The Show Must Go On, his first two books, which are collections on his obsession with the rock band Queen. As a journalist and essayist, his writing has appeared in a variety of places, such as American Poetry Review, Salon, New York Times, Buzzfeed, The Atlantic online, and the Poetry Foundation website. His work has been anthologized in Lost and Found, The Best American Poetry, The Best Creative Nonfiction, Third Rail: The Poetry of Rock and Roll, and Now Write! Nonfiction. https://danielnester.com/
Mike Faloon is a former DJ, dishwasher, and drummer. He is the author of The Hanging Gardens of Split Rock and co-editor of Fan Interference. Faloon co-founded the Go Metric and Zisk zines and has contributed to Cabildo Quarterly, Cashiers du Cinemart, Razorcake, Submerging Writers, and Vol. 1 Brooklyn. He has toured often in the past decade, with stops at the UCB Theatre and the Baseball Hall of Fame. Faloon lives in upstate New York. Faloon's The Other Night at Quinn's is a window into a community of creators surviving beyond the mainstream in an otherwise overlooked outpost of the cultural underground that cuts across distinctions of culture, gender, race, age, and genre, a circuitous anatomy of a scene where initially opaque and elliptical experiences are transformed into the rewards of deeper understanding and humanity. Mike Watt of the Minutemen exclaims, “Whoa, these spiel batches pack much punch and got their grip way into brain-frame! Faloon had me captured and I had to keep reading.” Wayne Kramer of the MC5 adds that it’s “…a deeply personal dive into the psyche of a hardcore music fanatic…utterly indispensable. A truly great read.” http://razorcake.org/tag/the-other-night-at-quinns/
Jasmine Dreame Wagner is an American writer, artist, and musician. She is the author of On a Clear Day (Ahsahta Press), a collection of lyric essays and poems deemed “a capacious book of traveller’s observations, cultural criticism, and quarter-life-crisis notes” by Stephanie Burt at The New Yorker and “a radical cultural anthropology of the wild time we’re living in” by Iris Cushing at Hyperallergic. She is also the author of Rings (Kelsey Street Press) and six chapbooks. Wagner's work appears in American Letters and Commentary, Beloit Poetry Journal, Colorado Review, Fence, and Guernica. Wagner will read from a novel in progress about a young musician touring solo across America. http://www.songsaboutghosts.com
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Cabildo Quarterly #11 out now!
The fifth anniversary issue of Cabildo Quarterly is available now! It features new writing by by Gale Acuff, Brendan Kiernan, Natalie Crick, Sean Arenas, Changming Yuan, and Rex Thomas. Available online at .pdfsr and issuu. Dig it!
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Anthem
"Don't peep the flag, its withered stars" #Poem: "Anthem" #poetry
Don’t peep the flag, its withered stars &
snakelike stripes a windsail blown to hell–
cleats in fake grass, the dead broil of fall.
(originally published in Cabildo Quarterly, Winter 2018)
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New Poetry: Zebulon Huset
Image by Annaliese Jakimides
Skating Curbs All Night
Curbs were never cool, but
for those of us without much
to skate they were damn fun.
Down the road from where
I grew up there was a supermarket-
slash-strip mall with painted curbs
and wide sidewalks where we skated
runs for hours and hours and hours,
balancing one pose long as we could
then skating quick but not hard
onto the next curb glinting
with a fresh coating of paraffin.
Especially far after all but
the 24-hour grocery store
had locked up for the night
under the warm yellow eyes of
the streetlights buzzing with mosquitos.
No cars in the parking lot,
no cameras filming—just
the sound of urethane wheels
and plastic sliding on concrete
punctuated by claps or the percussion
of frames slapping concrete following
a solid grind or even a close attempt.
***
Zebulon Huset is a teacher, writer and photographer living in San Diego. He won the Gulf Stream 2020 Summer Poetry Contest and his writing has appeared in Meridian, The Southern Review, Fence, Atlanta Review & Texas Review among others. He publishes the writing blog Notebooking Daily, edits the journals Coastal Shelf and Sparked, and recommends literary journals at TheSubmissionWizard.com.
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New Poetry: Izabella Santana
from Where Do The Ghosts Reside
A home away from home. A family of five turned four in 2017. Morir. A brother. I can remember the sound of his voice carrying over breakfast, a family who treated me as their own. Twin sisters. Friends who could wrap themselves around me and I wouldn’t shake. A mother who cooked me Caldo de Verduras on summer days when I stayed. A father who ignored the language barrier and drove me home making jokes I did not always understand but loved to hear. And we used to climb the roof to drink lukewarm coffee and smoke a blunt passed between lips holding secrets. What do you dream of? Stayed up late talking to the moon and stars hoping one would fall into our lap. We needed hope. Drank our mugs until empty, stared into the bottom where coffee grinds stuck wondering what this divination might mean. Laughter spilling into our hands trying to stop us from waking up the parents. This is where we dreamed. A string tied around our fingers, we promised we would never let go. Mi amor por ti es infinito. Mis hermanas. Mis salvadoras.
***
Izabella Santana (She/Her) is a 23 year-old college grad with a Bachelor's in English-Creative Writing, now working on her last semester as an MFA candidate at SFSU. She currently resides in San Francisco, but is originally from Santa Ana, California. While working on her MFA, she’s interning for Omnidawn Publishing as a Marketing Assistant and Fiction Editor. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, perfecting her coffee-making skills, and collaborating with friends on other art projects. You can follow Izabella on Twitter @izzy_raven_poe
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New Poetry: Alan Cohen
Eventually, Even the Ocean May Provide Us with a History
We all live treacherously imbedded in history
Though our watches tell us the time, innocent of any mystery
Though our wheat feeds us, and our keys open our doors
Each is devoid of context until we trap it and heave it ashore
Create for it a place upon our shelves
Slide it between two other glistening, stiffening fragments
Changing the bloody sense of symmetry
It takes an unwilling suspension of disbelief
A long pause
To see a real event come to life
And it only comes to life for us at flash point
Instantaneously
Illuminates and annihilates all that has come before
So if it weren't for our cherished history, it would make each of us a suicide or bore
But our histories must be flexible, must continue to grow and change
Because each event is a single work of art, the best
By a unique and uncompromising artist
Demanding its own milieu
A new bedrock
As if each wave were the true voice of the entire ocean
Like us, building only to destroy
***
Alan Cohen is a Poet first/Then PCMD, teacher, manager/Living a full varied life. To optimize time and influence/Deferred publication, Cohen wrote/Average 3 poems a month/For 60 years/and is Beginning now to share some of these discoveries. Married to Anita 40 years/in Eugene, OR these past 10.
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New Poetry: Roger Johnson
To the Ambiguity of Joy
Freude schöner Götterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium.
Were I a multi-conscious thing and able
To set my personalities to divers tasks,
I would set one to weeping for the ills of this old world
And separate another to celebrate and
Contemplate the wonder and the joy that I have known.
But I am not so talented or split, just one soul,
And I, as alle Menschen,
Must bring that joy and sorrow to one ineffable point.
As if of its own volition, my hand
Reaches out to pull the refrigerator door.
The inside light comes on, surely at its own volition,
And I am filled with joy.
I do not need to change the bulb and the Emmenthaler is fresh.
But there is a synagogue attack at the Festival of Lights,
And people are dead and hurt.
Not of their own doing.
The chocolate buds melt over
My molars and seek the places on my tongue
To work their magic. I am child-like happy.
But refugee children from Guatemala have no chocolate.
The roof shields me from rain and snow.
My clothes are clean. Whirlpool be praised.
Bolognese fills my belly. Brunello warms my heart and
Evokes the best of memories. Love was there.
Petro-chemicals now seep unchecked
Into sacred lands and water, here and there Elysium.
The brotherhood of oil, a gift less joyful now, an ambiguity,
Providing magic luminosity inside that Kenmore.
My pension check arrives on soft wings. The rent is fine.
A modest scotch is not beyond my reach,
Shipped here by diesels driving ugly freighter ships.
The grocery roasted chicken is not bad.
I chose it when my time is short. I trust that chicken.
There is no stopping or trying to stop
The perversion of elections never
Perfect but better than what has happened and will again.
That trust is gone, its absence now a modish separation.
Millions could be embraced,
But a sycophantic chorus separates and lies.
My one-time joy of service descends to ambiguity.
Was it for this I risked my life? U-S-A, U-S-A.
A grandchild sends her carefully considered
Sketch with me imagined beside a blue house with tilting chimney--
Sweet and satisfying. Cliched birds and a quarter of the yellow sun,
Her take on Heaven’s gorgeous plan.
A few more children and worshippers go down,
Victims to our well-regulated militia. Ho hum.
Beethoven’s Ninth resounds from public radio.
A lump chokes me and brings on recollection of
Vienna. Brackish tears of precious memories.
I am happy with the salty residue.
My grandson takes up martial arts.
And children dwell in cages, at my doing,
Because I seem impotent to change even
My own mal-nominated democratic construction.
U-S-A, U-S-A.
Two Arab students greet me. “as-salaam ‘alaykum.”
From the back of my brain I manage to respond,
“wa ‘alaykum salaam,” knowing that there could be
An issue of the plural I did not recollect.
Go, brothers, on your way.
The exchange brings joy and, yes, a joyful wish for peace,
But with irony too hard to transcend the
Ambiguity this old world imposes on that joy.
***
Roger Johnson studied mathematics, German, and comparative literature. The recipient of two Fulbright awards (Germany and Egypt), he has lectured also at Huaqiao University, Quanzhou, China. He co-edited and co-translated Elsa Respighi's memoir, Cinquant’anni di vita nella musica and translated Max Meyer’s novel, Jenseits dieser Zeit, published as The Other Side of Now (2016). Recently he authored The History of Ward (2019). His most recent essay, “Everything Changed in Egypt,” appeared in Gaudium Sciendi (2019). Since retirement from higher education, he has taught part-time at Penn State Altoona and Mount Aloysius College, and he has served as consultant at other universities.
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New Poetry: Holly Day
Practical Tips for Newcomers to Winter
I don’t know how anyone survives winter in Minnesota without having at least one birdfeeder in the yard. I can always tell what sort of day it’s going to be by how many birds are clustered at the feeder outside my kitchen window, or by the tone and volume of their songs as I open the door for the dog to run out to her yard. It’s only on the really cold days that birds don’t congregate at the feeder, instead choosing to stay quiet and silent in tight groups in the snow-covered lilacs, as if they, too, have shut themselves off for the day.
Flowers in Shades
on a beach of blue and white ink, upright stalks unleash
against a wall, sprout down-turned flowers on thin stems
faces like tiny men. my garden makes me think of
suntanned boys resting after a hard surf, girls parading in swimsuits
ancient monks experimenting with eugenics, octopi
unfurling great purple tentacles in shallows
flashing bits of oiled, fluttering flesh with each passing breeze.
***
Holly Day’s poetry has recently appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Grain, and Harvard Review. Her newest poetry collections are In This Place, She Is Her Own (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press), A Wall to Protect Your Eyes (Pski’s Porch Publishing), Folios of Dried Flowers and Pressed Birds (Cyberwit.net), Where We Went Wrong (Clare Songbirds Publishing), Into the Cracks (Golden Antelope Press), and Cross Referencing a Book of Summer (Silver Bow Publishing), while her newest nonfiction books are Music Theory for Dummies and Tattoo FAQ.
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New Poetry: Steven M. Smith
Addiction Song
In the afterlife . . .
he’ll quit playing the crack pipe.
He’ll visit the pawn shop before
he succumbs and repay
the loan on his grandfather’s
alto saxophone. In the afterlife
he’ll become a street musician
cool as a corkscrew in a black
pork pie fedora with dove
feather trim, white V-neck T-shirt,
red evening jacket, cuffed faded
blue jeans, and black canvas
slip-ons massaging his sockless feet.
He’ll spend the rest of forever
playing for forgiveness
on a floating sidewalk stage
at the euphoric intersection
of 9th Cloud and 7th Heaven.
And he’ll quit playing the crack pipe . . .
in the afterlife.
***
Steven M. Smith’s poems have appeared in publications such as Rattle, Poem, Old Red Kimono, Plainsongs, Poetrybay, Ibbetson Street Press, Studio One, The River, and Mudfish. Smith resides in North Syracuse, New York.
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New Poetry: Kevin Canfield
How to Know When You’ve Arrived at the End
They’ve flattened
Small mountains
Dammed the tributaries
Pushed pianos off
Ledges and cliffs
Curled, torn pages
Of sheet music
Blow around
On the breeze
They grind the notes
Into barren soil
Under thick boot soles
Walk to the horizon
And then keep going
***
Kevin Canfield is a writer in New York City. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Bookforum and other publications.
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New Poetry: Michael Chang
godliness in 30 minutes or less (do not congratulate)
no shade but — if you have a buffalo in your logo — you
probably don’t get my poetry — i like how when british
boys sing — their accents disappear — i buy his favorite body
wash so his smell can linger — it’s kiehl’s grapefruit bath
and shower liquid — then i realize it is missing something
coconutty — of course — the coconut oil in kiehl’s amino
acid shampoo — so i buy that too — as one-third of an elite
crimefighting team — backed by an anonymous
billionaire — you would think i had better shit to
do — women with baby carriages are usually spies — when
you’re a hammer every problem looks like a nail — i think
about his oral fixation — so good make his gum pop — i
cook him swordfish for dinner — it looks kinda sinewy and
all i can think about is his body — i have started to do that
thing where — i scribble down great lines before they
evaporate — this means i am a genius — what do you think
taylor swift is doing right now? — don’t be afraid of my
sadness — i accept the rosé and watermelon — served by the
light-skin — polite like the 2020 olympics — beginner’s
guide to japan — we hang out a lil — before he goes to
work — i have my lil espresso (4 shots) — he is principal
deputy assistant secretary of state — he advocates for things
like — pink-collar job security —and nuclear
nonproliferation— i picture short skirts and feather
boas —glowing— as rupaul says — the rest is drag — he says
things like — there is no solution because there is no
problem — there is no problem because there is no
solution — i remind him — omit needless words — self-care is
a human right — like wifi —free refills—substitutions at
restaurants— borderless nations — he tells me — top gun is
homoerotic — i say — they sell rotisserie chicken in bags
now — but what i really want to know is — am i a ghost
with a predilection for pottery — also — when he talks about
timber in my eye — is that an invitation
***
MICHAEL CHANG hopes to win the New Jersey Blueberry Princess pageant one day. Michael strongly suspects that they were born in the wrong decade. A recovering vegan, their favorite ice cream flavor was almost renamed due to scandal.
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New Poetry: Jack C. Buck
Make Great Again
I’ve decided camping out here along the Green River that the president is not the president / instead it ought to be the collective moms of America / one giant hivemind of mothers watching over us / and that these mountains of red, black, yellow, and orange are us faithful sons and daughters / and all obvious things that make mountains so great is what makes us great / like seeing 15,000 stars in the night sky great / the small miracles of life great / not even going to try to figure it out it the head might explode from it great / all windows open I don’t want a roof great / in spaces where words are not needed great / I am alive and 400,000 acres of desert are surrounding me great / as good a time as any to pack up everything and move out here for good great / you’re halfway there great / your successful personal revolution great / getting answers to some of the questions you’ve always wanted to know great / going over a wall which you went over and are now on the other side great
***
Jack C. Buck is a writer and teacher from Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is the author of three books: Deer Michigan (Truth Serum Press), Gathering View (Punch Drunk Press), will you let it send you out (Ghost City Press).
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Cabildo Quarterly #13 available now!
Cabildo Quarterly. Issue #13. Summer 2019. With new poetry, fiction and essays from Margarita Serafimova, Luke Kuzmish, Ama Birch, Ben Stein, Katherine Sinback, Bruce McRae and Jude Vachon. Available here. All right!
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New Poetry: James Croal Jackson
Local Bar’s Annual Water Balloon Battle
Yes I am drinking Oktoberfest beer is my raft
But listen Local Bar celebrated birthday number four
And held a water balloon war at Goodale Park
My army heaved water balloons at the other’s soft music
It ended sharply in a siren call of silence
Because we ran out of inflatables
Red blue green yellow scattered in the grass
Parsing through the blades during cleanup
Someone mentioned we’re grazing
While picking up the latex shards
I thought the animals we unintentionally kill!
Deer need stomach surgery after eating sugary fragments
And penguins in the arctic beg us
Please unplug your computers you’ll run out of poetry
Deep recess of eventual yearning
We freeze in the act of self-entertainment
Becoming self-immolators
For the love of a lover or for love of ourselves
We find ourselves stricken by wants we cannot control
And they will come to control us
***
James Croal Jackson (he/him) has a chapbook, The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017), and poems in Pacifica, Reservoir, and Rattle. He edits The Mantle (themantlepoetry.com). Currently, he works in the film industry in Pittsburgh, PA. (jimjakk.com)
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