What Never Was by Amir Elzeni

I guess we all have
our memories, our past,

I threw out
every girl's number
I ever had, when I fell
in love,

and ten years later,
somebody finds me,
somebody always finds you,

and they write you,
email you, as if
the rain never got us wet,

but I am in love,

and they should know,

only fools
revisit.


Amir Elzeni, USA

Time on My Hands by Kat Mortensen

In solitude, I sit
Looking at my hands.
Palms, scarred skating ponds
Carved with creases;
Timelines, criss-cross;
Lifelines, cut;
Lovelines ... persist,
Like the laughlines on my face;
Fingerprints, indistinct
At fingertips—
My identity fades
With age.


Kat Mortensen, Ontario, Canada

Three letters for Péter by Ana Tun

Confusion:
You snub me with a lecture
about love and Plato.
By the end of the day
accepting my defeat
I left.

II
Why beckon me now?
Our deaf souls
are unknown to each other.
Reliquarium my heart
to hold your thoughts
for ever and a day. Still
my soul
will not
can not
summon you.

III
And if we are to meet again
in our late years of fruit bearing trees
You and I are to know
it was our grain too young to reap
under the frozen ground
still deaf and mute
in the winter’s cold windy blow.
.
.
Trei scrisori către Péter

Nedumerire:
Imi dai peste nas cu o prelegere
despre dragoste și Platon.
Până se lasă seara
recunoscându-mă înfrântă
Am plecat.

II
Pentru ce mă mai chemi acum?
Sufletele noastre surde
Nu mai au cum să se recunoască.
Relicvar inima mea
îți va păzi gândurile
pentru o mie și una de zile.
Doar
sufletul meu
nu vrea
nu poate
să te mai conjure.

III
Și de-ar fi să ne vedem din nou
în anii noștrii târzii de pomi pârguiți
va fi pentru că vom ști, eu și cu tine,
grăuntele ne-a fost nevârstnic pentru a încolți
sub țărâna degerată
s-a învârtoșat surdomut
în rafale reci de vânt iernatic.


Ana Tun, PA, USA
Rumanian translation by Octavian Logigan (and Ana Tun)

Rockwell by S.P. Flannery

Not abstract existing within obtuse,
limned real and sold to popular
periodicals for everyone to skim
the surface,
social commentary we lost to esoteric
indulgences, Caligula reborn
to preside over a modern bacchanalia
of forget, escape the confines
and problems, critique from distant
mushrooms eaten
because of instructions written neatly
with black ink on white paper.


S P Flannery, Madison, USA

Observer by Kanev Peycho

I am feeding on sunshine
and fading moon light,
pouring my poems into bottles of wine
and later find them on the bottom

I walk;
I lick the morning mist from
the street-cars and dream about their
desire

most of the times I am lazy like
Sunday morning,
and at some other times I pace across
the projects and the gutters of the city
where all the stars of the world blazed
for the first time

but

where are you right now Allen G. to show
me how to smoke joint or roar Ommmmm;
where are you dwelling Robert F. to teach
me how to shake hands with the big wigs;
where are you Ezra P. to find out how not
to go mad or speechless or old or dead;
where are you smiling Robinson J.?
I know-with your sun and eagles and loneliness.

I will try
not to be like you
when right now I don’t look even like myself.
You wrote the right words
and I will drink this bottle right now
without thinking of you for the rest
of the day.


Kanev Peycho, Chicago, IL, USA

A Universe of Leaves by Andrea DeAngelis

I spy a universe of leaves
what is under the ice in me?

Conversation suspended still
no more warmth to break the chill.

Autumn partially thawed
will never exist again
for you were right.

We construct
and deconstruct
our constellations of hate.

Until the maps of them
are plain
against our broken skin.



Andrea DeAngelis, New York, USA

Love your vegetables by Christie Isler

Beneath the open air tents, vegetables tempt like
penny candy or beckoning bins of polished
stones, five dollars a bag. They glow in shades of want
- small hand want, desire confused with need.
Want to hold those circus hues crying, Sweet! Want to
heft the weight, to possess. Want to envelop in
sweaty palm, the disco ball gobstoppers, gummy
bears bejeweled, the agates and the humming ribs of
tiger-eyes, burnished sight of malachite. Even then,
it was never about nourishment or need, but
a rodent crusade to have those lovely things.
Even then. Even now.

The market throngs are festive and intent. Wiry,
naked faced women scurry past, canvas bags and
picnic baskets harvest heavy. The weight of their
wealth measured in ostrich orb eggplants, taffy striped
cream with violet and lace dancing frocks of carrot
tops. But then, all your colors are waning, sliding
from stands like drying sand. Currants effervesce in
bubbles of Champagne, apricot tomatoes are
yanked from the stage by crooks of comic summer squash.
Minutes more and to churned earth, they’ll return. That bud
of cabbage head, chanterelles wrapped in copper ruffles.
Hurry! Hold them, eat them, possess them, those
lovely, lovely things.


Christie Isler, USA