Chiara Maxia | Early Afternoon

Early afternoon

Daisy scent in the air
dry grass stinging my legs
an old white dress.

April

Eyes closed,
flattened by the downpours of sun.
Laid down in the backyard
I disaggregate.

I melt in the sun

I melt.

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Chiara Maxia is a multilingual actress and writer. Born on the Italian island of Sardinia, she has lived in different countries including England, Russia, Scotland, and France. She started training as an actor in Italy, continuing her studies in London and later in Paris, where she graduated in Film Acting in 2019. She currently splits her life between France and Italy. In 2018 she published her first poetry collection, Flirt. ICON — poems and visuals — was released in April 2020.

Thomas Fucaloro | Two Poems

The Meaning of Corn

Little cartoon yellow bullets
pulled from cobbed gums
glisten with spit and
delicious. Filled to the ear.

No one comes close
to our consumption. Filled
to the beer, we are a nation
defined by what we grow.

8 interesting facts about corn
and none of them are this
poem.


First published in Eratio.


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600 Ways To Give People The Shaft

we wore yellow
to each other’s farewell
although the band played
while the dead danced
we morphed
into an unknown
knowing we would


The titles of these poems come from the George Carlin’s list poem “Join the Book Club,” the ninth track of his album A Place for My Stuff, recorded and released in 1981, from Atlantic Records.


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The winner of a performance grant from the Staten Island Council of the Arts and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Thomas Fucaloro has been on six national slam teams. He holds an MFA in creative writing from the New School and is a co-founding editor of Great Weather for Media and NYSAI press. He is an adjunct professor at Wagner College and BMCC, where he teaches world lit and advanced creative writing.

Roxanne Hoffman | For Sean

For Sean

I wait for my love to return to me
under the cool shade of the sycamores
bouncing our three-year old upon my knee
I wait for my love to return to me

We tie a yellow ribbon ’round each tree
He plays soldier while I tend to my chores
Veiled in Stars and Stripes you return to me
under the cool shade of the sycamores.


Capt. Sean E. Lyerly, 31, of Pflugerville, Texas, was assigned to the Texas Army National Guard’s 36th Combat Aviation Brigade, 36th Infantry Division. He was piloting the Black Hawk when it went down, on January 24th, 2007, killing a dozen service members. Lyerly entered the Guard as a private in 1996 and was deployed to Iraq in August after being called to active duty. He is survived by his parents, his wife and their 3-year-old son. In a Guard statement, Lyerly’s wife said, “He exceeded even my dreams. He was loving, compassionate and full of integrity — a beautiful man inside and out.”

— Stars and Stripes, January 26, 2007 

Originally published in The Brownstone Poets, 2008.


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Roxanne Hoffman runs the small literary press Poets Wear Prada with Jack Cooper. Her words can be found in cyberspace (IndieFeed: Performance Poetry, Pedestal Magazine, New Verse News); set to music (David Morneau’s Love Songs; on the silver screen (2005 indie flick Love and the Vampire); in print (The Bandana Republic: A Literary Anthology by Gang Members and Their Affiliates, Soft Skull Press; It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure, Harper Perennial). Her elegiac poem “In Loving Memory” was released as a chapbook, with illustrations by Edward Odwitt, in 2011. Their second collaboration, The Little Entomologist, appeared in 2018. 

Davidson Garrett | You Talking to Me?

You Talking to Me?

“She flees from those who talk a lot about her.” — Alicia Partnoy

Nocturnal Manhattan — deprived of starlight.

I’m a zombie in my yellow cab’s front seat

numb with fatigue, spinning my tired tires

 

on Lexington, like a brain-fried automaton.

A frumpy, humped-back woman hails me.

Stopping on a dime — an inch from her

 

orthopedic shoes; she stuffs her wide ass

in the backseat of the Crown Victoria

bellowing: “Port Authority.” We cruise

 

west on East 39th, rumbling to the beleaguered

bus station. Out of boredom, I pipe up:

“Do you live in Jersey?” Like a snarling

 

witch, she shrieks: “It’s none of your business!”

Offended by her snotty insouciance,

I retort: “Got lots of friends down in Camden —

 

thought we might travel in the same circles.”

At that she snaps: “STOP THE CHAT AND DRIVE!”

I think to myself: Am I just a mere robot?

 

Is there a law against a cabbie

shooting the breeze with a passenger?

In the darkness of sinister midnight, I

 

deliver this grumpy —— (rhymes with itch)

to her hellish destination. She swipes

her credit card, slams the door with fury

 

as I take a verbal swipe at her.

Rolling down my side window, I shout:

“Lady, you deserve the Port Authority!”

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Davidson Garrett is a poet, actor, and retired New York City yellow taxi driver. He trained for the theater at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts and is a member of SAG-AFTRA and Actors’ Equity. A graduate of The City College of New York, he is the author of the poetry collection, King Lear of the Taxi. His new poetry collection, Arias of a Rhapsodic Spirit, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. Davidson is a member of the PEN America Worker Writers School. www.davidsongarrett.com

Jack Cooper | Nocturne

Nocturne

Moments before,
outside in the summer air
where a tree of heaven rose,

above an old oak door
and a gray stone stair:
something shone —
I did not know.

The lamp yellow glowed;
leaf in shadow struck,
repose breezes scold —

at the edge of shown
that I must learn

in the dark, alone myself:
strange, night only may have.


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John “Jack” Jackie (Edward) Cooper is the creator of These Are Aphorithms, author of TEN (Poets Wear Prada, 2012), TEN … More (Poets Wear Prada, 2016), and translator of Wax Women, with French texts of the original poems by Jean-Pierre Lemesle (International Art Office: Paris, 1985). His work has appeared widely, in print and online, most recently in The Opiate, Rat’s Ass Review, Jerry Jazz Musician, and Paris Lit Up 7. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he is editor and co-publisher of Poets Wear Prada, a small press based in Hoboken, New Jersey. He lives in Paris.

Patricia Carragon | Four Seasons of Haiku

when daffodils bloom
pregnant calicos sashay
down garden catwalks


Meowku (Poets Wear Prada, 2019)

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topaz sunlight
the storefront cat
makes eye contact


Meowku (Poets Wear Prada, 2019)

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golden leaves
touch the ground
autumn grace


Urban Haiku and More (Fierce Grace Press, 2010)

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yellow snow
at the trunk of the tree
doggie’s m.o.


The Weekly Advocet Newsletter #122, March 15, 2017

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Patricia Carragon is the author of several books of poetry and fiction. Her most recent poetry collections are Meowku (Poets Wear Prada) and Innocence (Finishing Line Press). Her debut novel, Angel Fire, is forthcoming from Alien Buddha Press. Patricia hosts the Brownstone Poets reading in Brooklyn and publishes an associated anthology annually. She is also an executive editor for Home Planet News Online.

Carrie Magness Radna | Two Poems

Heart of Gold 

I saw you in the light,
gold-glittering skin & hair;
I stood steady in the night,
starstruck & kind with care —

But I’m too scared to speak;
my tongue lies dead in your world,
but in my solitude,
my mouth never stops running.

& my heart starts to dance
when streets turn to gold,
when I see you again & again.

I go into the world,
carrying all my hopes with me,
searching for a heart of gold
to share my life with —

& will you be the one to hold
when the years grow cold?

Will these golden dreams
be minted, or will they
simply blow away
during our first shared words?

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Golden

 
I came like there was no tomorrow last night
My mind was fixed on yellow leaves falling
Outside in the New York streets, fan-like
I didn’t recall the type of trees, but they grew
Into a forest of golden leaves

Then my skin grew golden and the stripes worn raw
Grunting and growling like a newlywed tiger
My mate grinned and said I was letting go of inhibitions
He was the catalyst, not the tiger but the hunger
His sweat mixed with my own

Suddenly all the world was golden tipped
The night was hot and our eyes glowed like candles
He called me his lioness — we both do the work
Loving and living … intertwined love knots
We made with our fingers and our hair

We slept for the thousand years after
The stupid light conversation as the trees disappeared
The golden leaves blew away and my hunger dissipated
Now flesh is milky again and sounds are quiet

And we are happy and warm and tired.

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Carrie Magness Radna is an audiovisual cataloger at New York Public Library, a choral singer and a poet who loves traveling. Her poems have previously appeared in The Oracular Tree, Mediterranean Poetry, Muddy River Poetry Review, Poetry Super Highway, Walt’s Corner, Polarity eMagazine, The Poetic Bond and First Literary Review-East. Her latest poetry collection, Hurricanes never apologize (Luchador Press), was published in December 2019. In the blue hour (Nirala Publications) is expected to be released early 2021. Born in Norman, Oklahoma, Carrie lives with her husband in Manhattan.