November 11, 2020

“Teddy Levine,” Poems by Robert Cooperman

Teddy Levine, on Line to Buy Girl Scout Cookies, Outside the Wild Weed Dispensary: Denver “The Girl Scouts of Colorado have decided it’s now cool to peddle their baked goods outside marijuana dispensaries.” —The Denver Post Jesus-freakin’-Christ, this woman’s taking all day, can’t make up her mind, so she’s demanding free samples of every variety. The girls behind the table roll their eyes, but afraid to tell her to screw off, so the scout leader informs her, with a smile tight as a dolphin’s rear end in a rip tide, “I’m so sorry; we can’t break open boxes.” Madam Entitled stalks off as if a butcher had tried to pass off gristle for T-bone. Finally, it’s my turn! But I forget what I want, the kids snickering like I’m already stoned, which, I confess, I am, a little. I point, while the ounce in my pocket gets hot as a fired .45 on old TV westerns, when cowboys rode off into the sunset, free as mustangs, and schoolmarms waved goodbye and tried not…

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November 9, 2020

“Barry and the Trumpet,” A Short Story by Nancy Kissam

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

Barry always wanted to play the trumpet. Sure, he was a lemur and that made his dream a bit more of a challenge, but he had faith in himself. “Listen,” Barry thought, “if I could peel a mango in an hour, I can certainly learn to play the trumpet. How hard could it be?” As it turns out, pretty hard. Barry had a sister. Actually, he had twelve sisters if you counted his nine half-sisters. Lemur dads were not known for sticking with one partner, not that his mom cared one wit about it. “Good riddance,” she once told Barry. “That guy got on my last nerve. Did you know he’d constantly accuse me of going out at night? ‘Of course I go out at night, I’m nocturnal. Ya dummy.’” Barry’s sister, Colleen, always tried to encourage Barry. If he was inclined to hang from…

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November 3, 2020

“Black Oranges,” Poetry by Mbizo Chirasha

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

BLACK ORANGES Xenophobia my son I hear a murmur in the streets A babble of adjoining markets Your conscience itching with guiltiness like Genital leprosy Your wide eyes are cups where tears never fall When they fall the storm wash down bullet drainsand garbage cities ii) Come nomzano with your whisper to drown, Blood scent stinking the rainbow altar. Darfur, petals of blood spreading, Perfume of death choking slum nostrils Slums laden with acrid smell of mud and Debris smelling like fresh dungs heaps Fear scrawling like lizards on Darfur skin Kibera. I see you scratching your mind like ragged linen Smelling the breath of slums and diesel fumes The smoke puffing out through ghetto ruins is the fire dousing the emblem of the state iii) Belly of Zambezi ache with crocodile and fish Villages piled like heaps of potatoes against the flank…

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October 26, 2020

“Baba Yaga” — Poetry by Raquel Dionísio Abrantes

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

Baba Yaga He needs to learn to respect your no; He needs to learn to hear your yes. If he does not let him go; You do not want a vile head on your chest. Unleash your Baba Yaga, the one Who leaves scars. You will rise from the red-hot sun And no one can tear you apart. Believe me; You are ready to forge your throne. In you there are the seven seas Beneath your growing skin of stone. Your Perseus Face Dream after dream you split my Soul like a glass of rum. I spend the night by the bed, Restless, seeing your Perseus face. But I do not have Medusa’s head Nor any body to offer you. You are a man in the shadow Of a lost fire. How many times Have you seen the…

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October 22, 2020

“Being Green,” A Short Story by Col. Jon Marsh

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

Janey was trying so very hard but her six-year-old-to-be fingers had not yet fully mastered dexterity. “Well, Poop!” She learned to cuss in the girl’s bathroom at St. Thomas Elementary. She tried again. She learned from her friend Alonda that Mommies and Daddies would get a divorce if they had arguments all the time. A divorce was a bad thing to get, Janey was sure. She didn’t want them to get a divorce. . .where would they put it? In her bedroom? There wasn’t much room in there already, with all the stuff they brought with them from their house. The apartment was too small and it smelled bad. She pulled a little to stretch the rubber band enough to get it to fit through the loop her little hands were able to form. She learned in school that…

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October 19, 2020

“Unendurably Gentle” – The Poems of Alan Cohen

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

Unendurably Gentle From the upstairs Room, one could not tell Cloudy from clear Until the sun was Well up into the leafy Metacoloring limbs of resolute Trees; by that Time, a skein of noise had Cracked like a whip and lingered like Sustained applause, up Over the roof of the Room, quite invisible, in its Passage south–voices Of the atmosphere calling As, one suddenly Imagines, voices may Also call us from water or fire It is only later, while Digging shallow Trenches for spring Bulbs, that one looks Up over one’s Shoulder to seek the butterfly casting That wavering Shadow and is surprised to see A single red leaf hovering On the wind Voiceless A handful of bulbs, Sunlight And the leaf-swept air Circadian Rhythm Receptive to a fault The mind composes an…

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October 13, 2020

“The Trio” — A Short Story by Nick Sweeney

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

Of the men in the trio, one managed a hardware store, another was a supervisor in a factory producing plastic parts for light fittings, and the other a print shop proofer. Their white collars were discolored, verging on frayed, their shirt cuffs grubby, though they had to have a Sunday best at home. They were men out of old magazines and black-and-white movies, from a different time, I sometimes thought, yet there they came, swanning into mine. Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, they converged on a corner on the edge of the industrial district, where three roads met, then, without pausing, marched into our little restaurant. “Never call it a diner,” Dad warned me, a long time before I set foot in there to work. “It’s a restaurant.” But with a cook, and not a chef, and no espresso machine, it can’t even be called a café; it’s a diner. There’s nothing wrong with that. In our ad in the local rag, it says we serve ‘good, honest, home-cooked food’. Those commas are the loudest items on the page. It’s not too off-the-mark to say I’m…

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October 11, 2020

“Tumours on My Chest” —Poems of Anindita Sarkar

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

Tumours on my Chest Tear drops, popcorn, kidney peas, red ants collectively navigating through a complex quarry, a fable of sequins, or say like the child with knotted limbs who couldn’t make it till dawn break. Is it vitriolic? Not like the toothache that barges in when we are mid-flight into our dirty deeds, but like the cramps on arcane purple mornings when you are buried in deep sleep. Will they appear again? You mean like the hairs on my bald terrain? Theory says yes like uneasy questions searching for meaning I hope this time they are photogenic. Robot Mom No girly time but a relic of disenfranchised relationship. She weaves the worn-out pillowcase with my butchered dreams, ignites the chipped tile fireplace with paper-cuts from my Origamis she wouldn’t let my art…

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October 8, 2020

“Red Studio” — A Short Story by Bob Conklin

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

In your lover’s studio, everything is red—the chairs, the coverlets, the bedspread, the afghans, the doilies, the end tables, the lamps, the lampshades, the sofa. Red is how she likes it. The easel itself is painted red, as is the canvas, and she always wears a red dress. To mention individual items is a pointless exercise, as it is impossible to distinguish shape from shape, item from item, form from form. It strains perception, and your eyes must make a profound adjustment coming into the room, and then readjust when you leave. It is similar to entering a room that is without light, pitch black, except that once your eyes adjust to the perpetual darkness, you come to accept the featureless quality of the darkened environment. Or else your eyes begin to detect faint shapes,…

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October 5, 2020

“E T R A H” — The Poetry of Michael T. Smith

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

E T R A H During the moon landing I was on earth But ever asked: how subjective is ‘here?’ At what point does famil’rity have birth? In a dark side of the sun place a hearth. Because a home of heart is without peer During the moon landing I was on earth Beg with a Styrofoam cup of such worth: Spacemen in a fishbowl of walls not clear. At what point does famil’rity have birth? For space to be on a premium dearth On a TV screen wide enough for cheer. During the moon landing I was on earth Hands held across a million miles in mirth Static dances for grains of a soiled year At what point does famil’rity have birth? Our empty hands surround a riddling girth A small doubloon of proximity ne’er near During the moon landing I was on earth …

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