A New Poem by Sandy Hiss

Hidden in the Cracks

Rummaging through your face
blue ocean eyes
the one i remember
an old file
dusty
think unopened bottles
crown royal
coke
stored away
where i could not imagine you

today
i wrote a lost memo
some new clutter

questions
hidden in the cracks
spiders spinning tales
a gold hoop tangled
in denial
returned to sender

you came without a tie
apricot soap
a white angel
greeting me
hand signed
always
a long ago
when my fingertips
tasted your goodbye

Sandy Hiss' poetry and fiction have appeared in Cabaret New Angeles, Autographs, Eskimopie.net, Scorched Earth Publications (Editor's Choice Feb/Mar issue), Autumn Leaves, The Cat's Meow, Poet's Haven, True Poet, The Green Silk Journal, Ken*Again, Thick With Conviction, and Fresh! Magazine. Her work is forthcoming in CC&D, Falling Star, & Bolts of Silk. Sandy resides in Wyoming with her two children and husband. She is also the editor of Flutter, an online poetry Magazine.

A New Poem by Andrew Haley

Moscow Stations

for Peter Golub

I
night tavarish in the Central commode
bubbling in chasms of alabaster
sheltered from endless twilight
the color of putrefaction and dew

II
night in the reaches of television towers
alien baubles of Hasdrubal grey against sky
one-sided barbells fastened to earth
iron-steepled
under-reaches slight-arched
graceful as nenuphar

III
night in dandelion glades sewn with garbage and cars
planted trackless in wild grass under the plantation of masts
reaching for Heaven

IV
night under lamps in wallpaper and cherries
kissing the words Ejaculation and Hemorrhoid
in ash spilled among papers that slip from the upholstered divan

V
night sprawled in talk in quiet in kissing in ashes
in the night at the foot of the door
balcony to the weird sky
flat as the world of tramways and bridges
Iofan ziggurats
rivers wending among fractals

VI
night in the zoo
of thighs smooth under blankets
drowsy in innocent wishes and smells
stunned tired to mind’s quiet
ceiling a wild quiet
fit for thoughts
lost in Dream

VII
night tavarish on the alien actual globe among stars
brevity of cars hushing through actual air
ichor and surprises of desire’s plantations
with the lights out the lights out there

VIII
night automatic in Heaven’s bough
greased with the unending sun

IX
night in bed’s pollen tamped out with ashes
on the patina
crossed
on skis fixed to the tarantass

X
night in the crook of an arm
waking to breath
and the lamp shining on plastic and alphabets

XI
night’s coffer
plain with wires–
black gauges
among fruit

XII
night tavarish in the web of stations nearer to home

Andrew Haley's Poem to Get Started appeared in the Spring 2006 issue of Western Humanities Review. It was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2006 Utah Writer's Contest by Billy Collins. New poetry is forthcoming in Quarterly West. He is the author of three novels, most recently Transference, and lives in Buenos Aires.

New Poetry from Peter Golub

Brodsky Walrus Waltz

(1) Non-circularity
Brodsky is not a kind, because the feature that distinguishes members of the set is just that something be a member of the given set. Yet the items in the things might also be described as things.

(2) Mind-independence
Trotsky is not a kind, because the fact that the members figure in an example is just the result of his deciding that they should.

yesterday we drank pepper vodka and talked about the different varieties of incest
the day before that we locked our selves into a small bathroom and blew smoke into
each others faces
the day before that i woke up to find naked boys in the kitchen
before that a friend of a friend gave birth-- the day was warm, there was a light drizzle
and then there was a kiss somewhere near the train station and then a light farewell kiss
at the station
there was the room with the green forest wallpaper
photos and cognac
walking walking and walking
paying-- cops armless men women girls women girls people in the metro
there are many more
they all take something out of my bag or my jacket or my wallet (when i still had the
wallet)
the camera the phone something about poetry and byron and translation and rhyme and brodsky and trotsky and jumping off bridges and climbing climbing climbing
reading reading reading
putting it together
picking and pickling
it art it aren't they
brodsky a walrus
you kiss too much
she waits somewhere near the edge of the bath
like a small child
naked and wrinkly lost in the water
there are things to be picked up
don't i have to give something away
are there not people who would rather be with me
but here i am

Peter Golub is in Moscow, where he is translating and compiling contemporary Russian poetry. His adventures in Moscow and St. Petersburg can be followed at Chekov's Solarium.

Stay tuned for la Nueva Poesia Russkaya...

A New Poem by Jack Helbig

7 Erotic Scenes

-1-

Cowrie shells, curling like toes,
your fingers, my fingers,
the color of conch,
meet in a white porcelain bowl.

-2-

A light breeze inflates the curtains,
ruffles my cotton dress,
moves the hairs on my arm.

-3-

Crossed legged,
book open on my thigh.
You face me:
young brown eyes, soft lips, smile.

-4-

The shells tick:
disks on an abacus,
pebbles in a pool.

-5-

A handful of shells.
Your fist unfolds.
Petals opening to the sun.

-6-

In your palm a dozen
wrinkled eyelids
wincing at the light.

-7-

You smile and I read aloud
this seashell prophecy:
“No one knows what lies
at the bottom of the ocean.”


Jack Helbig' articles on theater and the arts have appeared in the Chicago Reader, The Chicago Tribune, and the Daily Herald. He has had short stories and poetry published in Vice Versa, The Chicago Literary Review, the Grey City Journal, Rhapsoidia Literary Magazine, and Another Poetry Magazine w/Art. He has written two plays, THINKING OF HER MADE HIM THINK OF HER, first produced by the Talisman Theatre in Elgin, Illinois and KITTEN WITH A WHIP, produced at the Café Voltaire, Chicago. His new translation of Franz Lehar’s THE MERRY WIDOW premiered in August, 2005, at Light Opera Works, in Evanston, Illinois. Mr. Helbig lives in Oak Park, Illinois, with his wife and spunky daughter.