Geer Austin | Bird of Paradise & October

Bird of Paradise

With green spears
crested orange flowers
& bird beaks
I’m a showoff
a show stopper
an in-your-face
specimen of a plant.
Some say I’m pushy
like a rooster, a brilliant
tropical thing screaming
my name at sunrise
keeping you from sleep.


__________________________

October

My face is a jack-o’-lantern a couple of days
before Halloween. The oak trees in my yard
bear 24-karat acorns; squirrels break their teeth
on them. I smell a cloudless blue sky, but it’s raining.
I’m staring at my laptop. Alan Cumming is trying
to sell me stuff on Instagram, but I’m not buying.
I can taste the money those gold acorns will bring me.
Okay, I can’t really taste money & acorns
aren’t palatable. So I munch a Macoun I bought
at a farmstand the next town over. My neighbor’s kid
tells me to chillax, but if I follow her advice I’ll forget
to vote. Her mother tells me about pif paf pouf. I say to her
this insane bench of stoicism is not a comfortable perch.
I ogle the orange blossoms that attracted hummingbirds
last summer. All of them have flown to Ecuador
where they work a gig entertaining tourists. I remember
their wings whirring next to my face while I read
novels on the deck. I always flew after them
as they rushed toward their next flower. But Chucky’s
saying that’s not true. What does he know?
A honey-drenched butternut squash opens its interior
for me. Cinnamon sweetness splats my taste buds
& I think about dinner at an agriturismo in Sicilia
one year ago. An acorn lands on my head & black squirrels
scramble up tree trunks. Pretty soon it will be November.


_______________________________________________


Geer Austin’s poetry and fiction have appeared in Poet Lore, Manhattanville Review, Big Bridge, Plenitude, BlazeVOX, Boog City, and others. His short story, “Stuart Livingston Hill,” is a recent episode of the podcast A Story Most Queer. He has served as a judge in the PEN America Prison Writing Awards and the Bisexual Book Awards. He is the author of Cloverleaf, a poetry chapbook (Poets Wear Prada). He lives in New York City.

Amy Barone | Orange Is My New Black

Orange Is My New Black

I’m tossing black from my world —
black clothes, black cars, black moods.
Banishing dread and gloom.

Black was cool at sixteen and slimming at thirty.
Now I’m occupying orange-hued vibes,
loosening the shackles to dark tones.

I’m deporting colorless lingerie and sex.
When I sleep, instead of jumping into black puddles,
I’m going to emerge from tangerine dreams. Glowing.




Reprinted with author's permission from We Became Summer (NYQ Books)


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Amy Barone’s latest poetry collection, We Became Summer (New York Quarterly Books), was released in 2018. She has also published two chapbooks, Kamikaze Dance (Finishing Line Press) and Views from the Driveway (Foothills Publishing), and is an active member of  both PEN America and the Brevitas forum for short poetry.  Her poetry appears in Paterson Literary Review, Philadelphia Poets, Sensitive Skin, and Standpoint (UK), among other publications. Haling from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, she now hangs her little orange dress in New York City.

Austin Alexis | Replay & Seeing Twilight

Replay

I slide down the memory of you
hoping the ride will never end.
Yet I sense one day
I’ll be too old to recall
your jokes, your jaw’s attractive shape,
my fascination with your insights.

At least for now, you live
in an orange haze of twilight
at the front of my mind
where I keep what I cherish,
though I know all of that is fading,
slowing, dissolving into night

Seeing Twilight

The air is polished pink,
then orange, then scarlet
at the shore
as dusk ages into evening.
“You’re missing the sunset”
a person says to a sleeping friend
who wakes, sits upright
on a lumpy beach sheet
to spot the orange ball
knelling into the sea,
yielding to Time and Nature,
since it is part of both.


_______________________________

Austin Alexis is the author of Privacy Issues (Broadside Lotus Press, Madgett Poetry Award, 2014) and two previously published chapbooks from Poets Wear Prada. Recent flash fiction, poetry, reviews, and plays have appeared in Home Planet News Online, Unstamatic, The Avocet, Point of View, and Long Island Sounds (an anthology). He has work forthcoming in Maintenant: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing. He served recently as a panelist for the Bronx Council on the Arts. He lives in Manhattan.

Patricia Carragon | Early Autumn

“Brooklyn in Seasonal Transition”
Photo Credit: Patricia Carragon

Early Autumn

October at midpoint
Brooklyn in seasonal transition

summer trees wear highlights
of golden yellow    reddish orange     or russet brown
 
cool air tingles my fingers that snap photos
of ghouls & witches amid pumpkin patches

from a passing car
I hear Ella Fitzgerald sing Early Autumn

walk a few more blocks before rain’s return
& think of things best kept in the attic

like why my thoughts wear Code Orange

why you can’t touch me    hear me    or even see me

“Happy Halloween”
Photo Credit: Patricia Carragon

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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, was just released by 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 | Studded Orange

Studded Orange

Why did ya pick dis man?
people used to ask me;
they thought I was still in play,

that his love & kindness
wasn’t enough —

but his skin,
on a good day,
smelled like an orange
studded with cloves

before the muddled wine
& cinnamon Red Hots
were added
to our winter-friendly
romantic recipe.


__________________________________

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.

Megha Sood | The Season of Fall

The Season of Fall

Warmth of a hug
Closeness under a blanket
Fingers warming to a cup of coffee
Calmness of listening to him
Endlessly

Falling leaves of the orange-tinged fall
Brings back all the warmth
Intertwining of fingers
Till the palms start sweating

Sharing earbuds 
Swaying to the same rhythm
Heart singing the same beat
The twinkle in your eyes

Fleeting smile on your face
Spoken words;
And unspoken vows

Tis the season
Each falling leaf is a bookmark
In the book of memories
This is the season,
The season of fall.



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Megha Sood lives in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. She is Assistant Poetry Editor for the UK-based feminist zine MookyChick and is one of the editors of The Kali Project, an anthology of art and poetry by women of Indian heritage, to be published by CrossTree Press. Megha’s recent publication credits include several print anthologies, among them Adelaide Literary Award Poetry Anthology 2019 (Adelaine Books, 2020), Fallow Ground (Inwood Press, 2020), and She Speaks (Sierra Club Books, 2020), as well as Life in Quarantine: Witnessing Global Pandemic, a digital initiative of Stanford University.

Linda Kleinbub | Back Road Driving

Back Road Driving

Back road driving
in the evergreens
can lead to quiet streams

keep holding telescopes
star searching
orange in the sunset still visible

lay beside me longer
tangled limbs
branches in the backyard


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Linda Kleinbub hosts the monthly Fahrenheit Open Mic (on Zoom since July 2020). She is a co-founder of Pen Pal Poets and an editor of the forthcoming The Rimes of the Ancient Mariner Silver Tongued Devil Anthology. Her debut poetry collection will be published by Fly By Night Press. Articles and poems appear in The Brooklyn Rail, The New York Observer, Yahoo! Life, The Best American Poetry, and Grabbing the Apple: An Anthology of New York Woman Poets, among other publications. She received her MFA from The New School.

Moe Seager | I, October

I, October

Fire, color, syrup sweet, dripping vines
Grand, my consummate embrace of passion
Ablaze, my glorious variations
Radiant, defiant my stand in the throes of encroaching shadows
Triumphant, for a spellbinding moment
Misty haze aromatic, my perfumes scent the harvest
Take me, intoxicate, dine at my table, drink me to your fill
Excite with me, spread your limbs free
My winds, swirl, whirl, rustle you open
Beautiful, naked, flight of the leaves
Night owl hoots, field mouse dances
A distant train passing in the night
It’s lazy cadence beckons you dream
As it shuffles by gently, a faint lullaby
Passed, the plentitude of mother spring’s seeds ripened,
Passed, the bounty of father summer’s fallen fruits
Take me, la grande dame, yours, encore et encore
November soon to strip me to the raw
December to bury me in his white shroud cover of snow
I, October, last grand consummate embrace of passion
Bittersweet, before the silence


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Moe Seager, poet, vocalist (jazz & blues), and recording artist with two jazz-poetry CDs, sings his poems in Paris, New York, and elsewhere. Seager is the founder and host of the Paris-based Angora Poets World Caffé, organizer of 100TPC (100 Thousand Poets for Change) festival in  Paris, and one of the coordinators for La Fédération des Poètes. Internationally published (USA, UK, France, and Egypt), his nine books of  poetry include the most recent: Moe Seager (International Peace and Art Center, 2020) and I Want to Make to Jazz to You (Onslaught Press, 2016), and two in translation: One World (Cairo Press, 2004) in Arabic and We Want Everything (Le Temps des Cerises, Paris, 1994) in French. The French Ministry of Culture released his debut collection Dream Bearers in 1990. Seager has won a Golden Quill Award (USA) for investigative journalism (1989) and received an International Human Rights award from University of Pittsburgh - Zepp Foundation (1990).

John J. Trause | Orange

Orange                                 Color? Orange Red Green Yellow

It was an ordinary Sunday in San Antonio, a city more bright and beautiful than Venice, without threat of flood in over 85 years, when fresh from our hotel, on the River Walk lined with overhanging trees and decoratively verdant vines, some resplendent with bright orange flowers, when my sister, three-year-old nephew, and I strolled the short walk to St. Mary’s Church, a block or two away. We had learned the day before how the Germans had settled in San Antonio, contributing to the local Tex-Mex cuisine their preference for wheat over maize tortillas, wheat considered by them the proper food for humans, corn only fit for animals. I marveled all weekend at how the San Antonio River seemed so clear and clean, not murky or flood-prone as the lagoons of Venice are known to be, and now even the air itself on this brightly orange-yellow Sunday testified to the mix of urban bustle and bucolic profusion in efficient balance. Beautiful shade trees, blocking the auburn sun, flourished along the streets, recalling those of Amsterdam and Berlin. As we approached the façade of the church, there lounging on the steps, a seemingly homeless woman, fleshy, plump, and with brightly but poorly dyed orange-red hair, was calling out and gesturing to us in the distance while combing her greasy coif. Getting closer, I realized that she, knowing that we were headed toward the entrance of the church, was trying to get my attention and not that of my sister or nephew: “Mister, mister, your fly is open.”

__________________________________

John J. Trause, Director of Oradell Public Library, is the author of six books of poetry, including Why Sing? (Sensitive Skin Press, 2017) and Seriously Serial (Poets Wear Prada, 2007; rev. ed. 2014), and one of parody, Latter-Day Litany (Éditions élastiques, 1996), the latter staged Off Broadway. His translations, poetry, prose, and artwork appear internationally in many journals and anthologies. Marymark Press has published Trause’s visual poetry and art as broadsides. He is a founder of the William Carlos Williams Poetry Cooperative in Rutherford, New Jersey, and the former host and curator of its monthly reading series.

Mireya Perez Bustillo | When Gabriel Came to Call

Max Roach:
 “Black Music and Its Creators”
Library of Congress
Max Roach Papers
 Box 57, folder 1

When Gabriel Came to Call

For Max Roach


Max the last bebopper
Dizzy, Charlie, Bud, all those cats gone on

Dizzy had warned you to stay put
If that heavenly trumpeter Gabriel
wanted you for his band
digging the ringing tone of a “ride” cymbal
to keep the basic beat
using the bass drum for accents

In spite of eulogies, musical tributes,
videos, photographs of you in that
church where Martin had spoken for peace —
all said you were gone —
I even saw your body carried out
the tape playing you for the recessional —
I did not believe it
until I walked up front to the altar rail
and to the left, faced your black stool
the drumsticks on top, the stilled cymbals
on a black-draped pedestal
and heard your hands, a prayer echoing
Gabriel’s trumpet beckon

 
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Mireya Perez-Bustillo, born in Colombia, raised in the Big Apple, writes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction in English and Spanish. Among her publications are La picara y la dama (editions Universal), Casos en la comunidad (Houghton Mifflin), and The Female Body (Greenwood Press). Associate Professor Emerita at The College of New Rochelle and Coordinator of the IRP Program at the New School, she has a Ph.D in Spanish Literature. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. BACK to EL DORADO (Floricanto Press, 2020) is her debut novel.                                                        

Isabelle Lorion | Yellow Mood

 Thammapa Supamas’s Yellow Cat

Yellow Mood

A yellow cat is miaowing
He’s calling for the love of the stars
His yellow eyes are glimmering
Among the shadows of the night
He’s jumping in a meadow of daffodils
His growl turns into a song
You might hear him during hot summer nights
And never forget
Yellow is the color of the sun
When I rise in the morning
Yellow is the color of my mind
When I wonder
How do I fight
For my rights
He passes at the end of the streets
With a hat of melancholy
On his head
And a coat of solitude
He holds tight
Against his pale chest.
She gratifies him with a yellow smile
When he leaves her behind
The cat opens his maw
And yawns
He puts his paw on her cheek
And gently caresses it
To console her
For the loss of her lover
She holds him tight
In the silk of the night
And rocks his dreams
Singing softly an old lullaby
For yesterday and tomorrow
The young man dozes in the tenderness of her love
She borrows a yellow fish
At the market of miracles
And lets it swim
In the hollow of their secret garden
A young fellow is sleeping
In a rocking chair made of purple willow
His mouth is open
And his dreams are chaotic
His flesh is trembling
With the variation of his thought
And the weeping willow wobbles
Over his scared shaking face
When he opens his eyes
He draws a sad smile
On the yellow sand
Of the remote beach
And the light of the sun
Plays through the yellow foliage of the fall
After they’ve gone
Only yellow memories
Mark the places
Where they once loved each other
Mellow yellow memories
Melt in the shallows of lost hopes
He follows her again
And howls his sorrow
Through the window of the past
For yesterday and for tomorrow
He sews her a dress
With the golden thread of his love
She wears it
And she dances
In the shadows of the night
A yellow cat is miaowing
In the heart of the night
They borrow the marrow of happiness
For yesterday and for tomorrow
To follow the direction of their dreams
To grow
Toward the slow show of the cows
On desolation row


______________________________

I was born in the mid-1950s in the suburbs of Paris.
I ran away. I traveled. And I wrote and played music.
I love walking.
I’ve been working with children.
I go to poetry scenes.
I love horses. And all animals.
I am an anarchist.

Ron Kolm | Sigmund, Surprised by Joy

Sigmund, Surprised by Joy

Sigmund,
A thoughtful child,
Transcribes his dreams
On his bedroom wall
Using a yellow crayon.

When he plays
With his die-cast cars
Pushing them across the rug
He can’t help but hear
The music of the spheres.

Sigmund asks his mother:
“Can we stay up late tonight
And watch the stars come out?”

______________________________

Ron Kolm is a contributing editor of Sensitive Skin magazine and the author of several books including Swimming in the Shallow End (2020), A Change in the Weather (2017), and Night Shift (2016). His writings also appear in And Then, Feuerstuhl, Local Knowledge, The Opiate, and The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Thunder’s Mouth Press). A collection of his papers (some 35 cartons of correspondence, notebooks, objects, chapbooks, signed first editions and runs of literary magazines) was purchased by New York University and is now part of the Fales Library’s permanent archives.

G. E. Schwartz | Yellow Lantern

Yellow Lantern, 2018, Oil on linen, 87 1/2 x 108 inches, Suzan Frecon (b.1941)

YELLOW LANTERN

for Suzan Frecon

I stand before Suzan Frecon’s

Yellow Lantern and my heart

falls into small pieces, shards,

splinters with OTHER summers

before the eye, though it be

on canvas only. My heart

being a revolutionary fool,

a holy fool, falls, into shreds,

as blood pumps, defiantly some-

how through the conduits of

memory, Yellow Lantern. here,

now, THAT taste of our past

on the tongue, like lemon, like

light.

 

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G. E. Schwartz, author of Only Others Are: Poems (Legible Press), Thinking in Tongues (Hank's Loose Gravel Press), World (Furniture Press), Murmurations (Foothills Press), and the forthcoming The Very Light We Reach For (Legible Press), lives and writes in Upstate New York.

Sarah Sarai | Three Children Are Laughing

Three Children Are Laughing

They fall and float up.
Heaven is deep space, the moon.
They were not issued boots.
They don’t care. They are angels.
They wear taffetas, twinsets,
garlands of sorrow strung on ivory,
eat five grams of Cheerios
every ten years if that is what they
need to count tulips ochers
of the dust we once thought
was all there was to life.


Originally published in Peacock Journal.

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Sarah Sarai’s poems appear in Barrow Street, Prelude, POOL, E-ratio, Zocalo Public Square, Boston Review, and many other journals. Her second full-length collection, That Strapless Bra in Heaven, was published by Kelsay Books. She is an independent editor in New York, where she volunteers teaching manners to pigeons.