Summer 2009
Abha Iyengar
Alison Eastley
Barton Smock
Bridget Gage-Dixon
Charles Reis
Cheryl Snell
Daniel Crocker
David Jordan
David Lawrence
Dennis Mahagin
Doug Ramspeck
Henry Louis Shifrin
John Sweet
Kathryn Jacobs
Lois P. Jones
Margaret Babbott
Mather Schneider
Richard Lighthouse
Roger Pfingston
Roy Lewis
Simon Perchik
Tim Kahl
Tony Leuzzi
Julie Steiner
Don Shaeffer
Steiner Interview
by Alex Nodopaka
Jennifer VanBuren
Jai Britton
Alex Nodopaka
Patrick Carrington
Mannequin Envy in memory of poet and artist Douglas Gamrath
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David Michael Wolach
Winter Melt Issue 2009
Denominator of Book
to Kythe Heller
I wear you
Sleeping lick
Of flame we walk and carry this morning skin's ridges
Words between first and last
There are infinitely many you said
We stoop or we crawl
We double the heaviness
And wait, you said hour spines ashen brightly we ask
I believe you asked
How far
Do you think this last
Breath will travel?
I wear you
Waking smear
Of ashen fold
After the fire
We sit bone to bone and carry this morning walking
The branching gutter words
Flung heat rising into the sky they turn
You said we watched and heard you
Mark the air and you marked and punctured the air
And then I was alone again I asked, I believe we asked
If it is true that you will become
The stars and all their dust, how will you ever fit
Into this small, charred
Container all of you?
from We Are Richard Pryor
for the longest time
nothing ever happened.
he woke to the same things:
toaster crusted beyond redemption,
bedroom window, too
cheap or too poor to curtain,
player piano with a switch
in the off position, three
sunflower stalks banging
against the baked pane,
breeze after breeze. then
came the poison eaters.
they consumed everything
in the house, the yard,
whole people. now
he could only see
scorched earth,
which was kind of
beautiful.
from We Are Richard Pryor
he could not be his father
grandfather, both criminals
according to writ-law, but
his mother: the coughing,
worrying, nervousing, systems
worrying & harvesting worry
& half-used sheets
miles of suits in a closet
& closeted wants unearthed
by writ-law, & his father
wears orange today, tethered
tarred & feathered, it's
writ-law they say, though
his childhood was fascinatingly
good, but the worrying, systems
worrying & nervousing systems
& nights without knowledge
& all of this is writ-law, &
all of this is the way things
are for the landscape has changed
overcrowding a word that has
become useless with the coming
of the poison eaters, redundant, like
black death. holly cross. parapet.
amphora. blithe. scramble.
David’s poetry has appeared recently or is forthcoming from Bird Dog, CRIT, Night Train, Admit2, The Concelebratory Shoehorn Review, GHOTI, Diode, Mad Hatter’s Review, elimae, The Duplications, and BraKit: An Anthology of New Writing. David is also editor of Wheelhouse Magazine & Press. |
David Wolach is professor of writing & poetics at The Evergreen State College, and visiting poet for Bard College’s Workshop in Language & Thinking. Author of two chapbooks, Fractions of M (Trainwreck Press) and The Transcendental Insect Reader (Stormy Petrel Press), one full-length book, Acts of Art/Works of Violence (SSLA/University of Sydney forth.), and a CD of sound/video compositions for performance Prefab Eulogies. |
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We accept submissions all year long, however, we read them only during the month before publication, so please do not get upset if you do not hear from us right away.
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