Sarah Sarai | A Thousand Deaths

A Thousand Deaths

 

Jack’s in Wisconsin with a girlfriend

whose father is down one cow,

which I become in its death,

the wandering-off cow Jack finds

“out in the woods with its legs sticking /

straight up to the stars.”

Its unborn calf is by its side.

Eight dead cow-legs point out

two escaped cow-souls.

And so I become animal mother

sorrow, my eyes aching and red,

searching night skies.

My legs pointing to the endless.

I am galled by the up and

down of love, a boulder

hard-shouldered every day.

 

Quote from “Thinning the Herd,” I Have No Clue by Jack Wiler (Longshot Press, 1996)

 

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Photo by Amy Holman

Sarah Sarai has published two to three poetry collections, depending on how you reckon, and a bunch of short stories. A native New Yorker, she lives in the big city, where she is an independent editor of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.

David Huberman | Nighttime Rainbow

Nighttime Rainbow

The night hung thick over the waterfront like dark gray octopus ink. Flying above, even Nosferatu could not penetrate the gloom with his x-ray optics, swooping downwards through the heavens, piercing the oceanic air.

His high-pitched hearing, unique to his kind, detected prey below. Descending almost to the murky saltwater surface, he lashed out lightning quick, and the quarry was caught. The Beast did not struggle. Sometimes the shock alone did them in.

The first bite was always the best. Sinking his teeth into his game, he was shocked to taste so much salt in the blood. What was this being? Was it true what they said? Had Homo sapiens gotten so much heavier due to their bad eating habits?

Never had the night been as shadowy as it was this evening. Witnessing the longest lunar eclipse in a millennium, his curiosity had piqued beyond belief. Flaming like a red-orange meteorite, he landed on a nearby dirty white lighthouse, still grasping his kill. The lights revolved to reveal a large amount of violet blood!

Before he could react, a powerful force had punched him almost through the roof. As the pale alabaster vampire's pallid-yellow eyes took one last look at the living entity that he had caught, his victim had come back to life. Somehow it appeared familiar, somewhere between a humanoid and a giant green lizard. And the Creature from the Black Lagoon plunged them both back under the deep blue sea.

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David Huberman has had work published in Evergreen Review, A Gathering of Tribes, Long Shot, Lungful, Icon, Make Room for Dada, Best of Panic, the anthology The Jewish History of the Lower East Side, The Unbearables, Prometheus, Rant, Pink Pages, and Public Illumination, among many others. He has performed in three plays at La Mama Experimental Theatre Club and also appears as a lead actor in the movie Trail of Blood, 1995, archived in the TCM (Turner Classic Movies) database. Follow this link: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/517247/Trail-of-Blood/. He reads his work all over New York City and now to a worldwide audience on Zoom.

A recently published short story “Vampires of Pattaya Beach,” a fictional, horror, avant-garde account, can be seen in the selective story anthology 2016–2018 issue of Sensitive Skin.

Howard Pflanzer | Orange Sky

ORANGE SKY

 

In the west the sky glows orange

Light scattered by the pollution

Right before the sun goes down beyond the shore

Is this a harbinger of a happier time ahead

Or just a precursor of another black night

 

Let’s wait for tomorrow

And see how the day progresses

Will the sky at dusk glow a brighter orange

Streaked with crimson

Or will the disappearing light plunge us directly into the darkness

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Howard Pflanzer is a poet, playwright, and fiction writer. Dead Birds or Avian Blues was published by Fly By Night Press in 2011. Recent publications include FIVE Poetry, And Then, Downtown Brooklyn, Home Planet News, Pratik, Poems:LES Festival of the Arts Dedicated to the Lower East Side (TNC 2016, 2017), Of Burgers and Barrooms (Main Street Rag 2017), and WORD:An Anthology by A Gathering of the Tribes (2017). His hybrid performance piece, Walt Whitman Opera, adapted from Whitman’s poetry with music by Constance Cooper, was presented at the undergroundzero festival in New York in July 2014.

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


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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.

George Held | Yellow and Honey Moon

Yellow

Yellow crocus
bursts from snow cover
melting my heart

Yellow daffodils
bending in the April breeze —
sure signs of spring

Full moon in June
year’s lowest on the horizon —
honey-yellow moon


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Honey Moon

 

At ten the White Pine tops are backlighted

by a yellow glow that stops me in mid-

stride. Soon the etched disc of the Honey Moon

follows its aureole over the trees,

and I’m tempted to rhyme “moon” with “June,” but

such custom betrays the unaccustomed

glory of this nocturnal sight. One night

a year, this lowest of all the full moons

on the horizon gilds the east. I might

have been at the movies, or cloud cover

could have obscured this cool phenomenon.

From now on, for however many moons

I’ll be around, I’ll free my calendar

to let me keep this moonstruck rendezvous.

Previously published, in slightly different form, in Phased (Poets Wear Prada, 2008, 2010)

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George Held has published four children’s books with Filsinger & Company, Ltd. and over a dozen poetry titles with various small presses. His most recent book, Second Sight: Poems, was released by Poets Wear Prada in 2019. A collection of stories titled Lucky Boy is due out in 2020. Believing that smaller is better in poetry, he writes a lot of haiku. He wears his trousers rolled in Sag Harbor, NY.

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.