A Poem for Dransfield

a previously unpublished poem for Michael Dransfield by Cornelis Vleeskens c.1973 found among his papers while i was working on them....pete spence

New Poetry by Donal Mahoney

Concert at Bernie's

When Bernie wakes at 6 a.m.

there's a piano on his chest

and Erroll Garner's playing "Misty."

Sinatra's on the headboard 

improvising lyrics

and Krupa's in the corner 

painting on the drums.

The music is magnificent.

Once the song is over 

Bernie chants his morning prayers,

shaves and showers and limps to work

for another day at the gherkin factory. 

The foreman, Mr. Simpkins, is an ogre 

nonpareil, a sumbitch unsurpassed, 

who stalks the catwalk all day long

with megaphone and stopwatch.

At 5 p.m. the factory spits Bernie 

and his cohorts out the door 

so Bernie limps to the Hot Wok Shack

and buys a carton of Egg Fu Yung 

and heads back home to wait for dawn 

so he can hear Erroll play "Night and Day"  

while Sinatra does the vocal and

Krupa punctuates the piece

softly on the drums.

Bernie spends each day in hell but dawn 

is always a concert from heaven.

- Donal Mahoney 2013

Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

New Poetry by Breda Wall Ryan

Childhood Sin

...the earthworm

we split

to see the head

grow a tail

the tail

a new head

instead

five simple hearts

failed

one by one...

another regret

- Breda Wall Ryan 2013

       

Stardrift

Nights we lay still as hares

in our grass form,

balanced the rising moon

on our toes,

skyward-stretched arms

finger-tipped with stars.

Tonight you sit alone

in the screen’s blue glow,

tea cold at your elbow,

while I watch

distant balefires,

light years between us.

- Breda Wall Ryan 2013

Breda Wall Ryan has been shortlisted for several international literary prizes for fiction and poetry, most recently The Fish Poetry Prize, and won the UCD Anthology Contest(poetry) 2011. Her work is published in anthologies and in journals. has won or been shortlisted for several literary prizes. A member of Hibernian Poetry, Dublin, she has an M. Phil. in Creative Writing from Trinity C ollege, Dublin. She has completed a short story collection, The Hardest Winter and Other Stories and a poetry collection, The Woman who Toasted the Owl. 

New Poetry by April Krivensky

Choppy

 The image of you in my head is nothing but a compilation of pixels. 
 Squares filled with shades to figure
 out what they’re actually there for once you’re completely zoomed out.
 I long to zoom myself back in and get lost. 

 Your technicolor checker board of
“I’ll tell you later”’s 
 and 
“I don’t wanna talk about it”’s
 make for a gift wrapped Capricorn horoscope served on
 a gold platter. 

 Inch back to me because inches provide a way 
 for everyone to understand the size of something.
 Like the top joint of your thumb or the 2.54 seconds 
 it took you to leave your apartment balcony.  

 Just talk to me like you would into a tin can.
 Childishly.
 Tell me you want to play.
 Let me teach you the abacus of my breath.
 Each bead that gets pushed is another heartstring
 you plucked.
 I’m still stuck on the other side.


- April Krivensky 2013


April Krivensky attends the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign pursuing a major in Creative Writing. She loves her Dorgi, a good joke, and eating toffee. She lives in Orland Park, IL. 

New Poetry by Kathryn Guelcher

Too Much. I Know.

Listen, friends. I probably either didn’t care about you or even like you

for a long time.  Sorry about that.  Inevitably, there was a moment—

something you said or did, or just exposure over time— when

I realized I was wrong, again, and we should be friends. Forever.

There is almost nothing that can undo this now,

whatever your wishes to the contrary—sorry again. 

And while I’m good for a laugh or two, this moment marks

the beginning of everything getting generally worse for you. 

I’ll forget your birthday, text too often, email too much

fail to ask important follow-up questions, make you read my poetry,

tell meandering anecdotes at a displeasing pitch or volume,

defend the person you are angry with, interrupt your story

with one of my own that is vaguely related, and maybe better.

But probably worse. 

I’ll be decent at unimportant marks of friendship of my choosing,

like remembering your aunt’s quirks, and terrible at any that really matter. 

But I’ll think kindly about you more than you’d suppose.

I’ll manage to suffocate and fail you with my love, simultaneously.

All this, I think you know.  You are not too many in number,

but you are not alone.  So, be irritated, perhaps, but not overwhelmed. 

I can’t help it.  Because once I’m finally done casually disliking you,

I can’t fully comprehend your importance to me. 

- Katyhryn Guelcher 2013