New Poetry by Ariel Riveros

Table

Wooden scale
where to play
with fingers

fundament
and keyboard
of black pens

and white paper
Michael as brut
chop belly

pile books and glasses
on tranquil parks in forests
filled with the flat

the movements of days
sculpture of hours
the previously placed

things unaccessible by a dig
the table as site
good dinners tweeted

and the dance of all my plates
go without document
and all moths

and such are unexpected
without notice
some secondary stains

on the old table
a table as factory,
office, lab, device

the work of eating
the turning of pages
with visitors

coffee, water
what food I make
the table heard you laugh.


- Ariel Riveros 2017

Ariel Riveros Pavez is a writer based in Sydney, Australia. Ariel's work has featured in several publications including Southerly, FourW, Contrappaso Magazine, Verity La and Journal of Postcolonial Text. Ariel was the editor of Australian Latino Press and the organiser for the Bluespace Poetry Jam.

New Poetry by Robert Ford

Overcoat

It was autumn in my endless year. I was under-ripe,
an empty bucket. So I bought an overcoat belonging to

a dead man. I gave a five pound note to his crushed-up
daughter, and released it from where it was hanging,                                                                      

all limp and unwanted, in a hidden closet, next to
a woollen suit and a defeated army of collared shirts.

The sweetness of the lining against my shaved neck
offered a first kiss, the stretch of bottle-green cloth

across my unsteady shoulders, an embrace, of sorts.
Wearing it with black shoes punched with silver buckles,

and a shirt whose tight cuffs never quite stopped making
my wrists itch (though I was glad of the distraction),

I toyed with a bashfulness easily mistaken for arrogance,
took the first, tiny steps in a long, unmapped journey.


- Robert Ford 2017

Robert Ford lives on the east coast of Scotland. His poetry has appeared in both print and online publications in the UK and US, including Antiphon, Clear Poetry, Homestead Review and Ink, Sweat and Tears. More of his work can be found at https://wezzlehead.wordpress.com/

New Poetry by Abigail George

Gone to Jean Rhys’s purple sea

Sunlight came to my house.
It came knocking. It came
And went like winter guests usually do. Like angels
Or when you put away things.
The sphere of childish things.
Flowers came to my window. A
Woman’s reflection (or rather self-portrait).
She was standing alone in the
Rain. Fading blooms on their
Own out of focus journey. You’re
Thunder dear, I wanted to whisper
In her ear. Coming home in the
Afternoon. There’s a dream in
Her my eyes sees. I know what
She is thinking. That this is not
The morning that she expected.
Departure. The secret of joy. Poetry in the art
Of fishing. Safe footprints washed
Away like yesterday. Swamp!
The depth of futility can be found there.
The almost tranquil dance of
Sins and moonlight. Joyous and brave!
The sun anonymous. It flickers.
Black rain a memoir. A soul on fire and
So the change within me came.


- Abigail George 2017

Abigail George is a South African poet, short story writer, aspirant playwright and young adult novelist. She was educated in Port Elizabeth, Swaziland and Johannesburg. She briefly studied film and her short story "Wash Away My Sins" was nominated for the Pushcart prize. She is the recipient of two grants from the National Arts Council in Johannesburg, the Center for the Book in Cape Town and ECPACC (Eastern Cape Provincial Arts and Culture Council) in East London. Her poems have appeared in anthologies, widely in print in South Africa and some zines in Australia, Finland, India, the UK, the US, Nigeria, Turkey, and more.

New Poetry by Donal Mahoney

Ringing in the Ears

Ringing in the ears
has no cure. 
It’s called tinnitus
and you can pronounce it 
the way it looks or the way 
your doctor says it.

Today I discovered how 
to turn the ringing off 
and that’s to take 
a phone call from your son 
who says your daughter 
died last night.

She won the first 
and second match but  
lost the last to cancer.
An hour later you realize
the ringing in your ears
has stopped but there’s 
no silence in its wake.

A train of memories 
chugs by and stops
and then chugs on again.  
You want the ringing 
in your ears back again.
You can live with that.


- Donal Mahoney 2017

Donal Mahoney, a product of Chicago, lives in exile now in St. Louis, Missouri. His fiction and poetry have appeared in various publications, including The Wisconsin Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, The Christian Science Monitor, The Chicago Tribune and Commonweal.

New Poetry by James Diaz

Before I Forget

This thing 
like lightening
between my teeth
bad ideas
left at the bar
time ravaged 
muddy boots
and not wanting 
hard enough

it is better to long
for what you cannot have
then to have what you cannot long for

people don't know 
how lucky they are
sometimes

the freedom to open a window
and jump out
or simply water the plants
on the fire escaspe
breathing in that first draft of air
morning makes 
in its silent creeping
into the apartment

how our lungs make love
better than our hands 
sometimes

all the things 
you didn't know how to say
words kept from you
by some silent companion
until at last
why not
let it all out

see the ash scatter
and the daylight intervene

no one is where they belong
or who they thought they'd be.


- James Diaz 2017

James Diaz lives in New York. His work has appeared in HIV Here & Now, These Fragile Lilacs, Epigraph, Foliate Oak, and A Long Story Short. He is founding editor of the literary arts & music journal Anti-Heroin Chic. http://heroinchic.weebly.com/ His first collection of poems, This Someone I Call Stranger, is forthcoming from Indolent Books (2017).