Red Booth Review • Volume 10: Issue 4. December 2014.

Winfred Watson
Photos
Juan Zapata Jr.
Lucinda L.Flanary
Winfred Watson
Spider Thorndal

Poems
Robert Lietz
Hannah Dow
Darren C. Demaree
Erren Kelly
David McNaron
Patricia Williams
Charlie Baylis
Kevin Casey
Howie Good
Larissa Harmsen
Lana Ghannam
Wendy Gist
Ronald Pelias
Michael Carrino



Waltzing At The Knights of Columbus Hall • Michael Carrino

-Saturday Night, Winter, 1959


Music circles a man and woman
in distant, opposite corners

at this dim-lit dance land, both perched
stiffly on gray metal chairs

preparing to bolt, become invisible.
At last they sway

ever so slightly, caught in possible.
A separate dance.


[+]


Michael Carrino holds an M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont
College. He is a retired English lecturer at the State
University College at Plattsburgh, New York, where he was
co-founder and poetry editor of the Saranac Review.
His publications include Some Rescues, (New Poets
Series, Inc.) Under This Combustible Sky, (Mellen
Poetry Press), Café Sonata, (Brown Pepper Press),
Autumn’s Return to the Maple Pavilion (Conestoga
Press), and By Available Light (Guernica Editions)
as well as individual poems in numerous journals
and reviews.

Two Photos • Lucinda L. Flanary

LOOMING


FOUNDATIONS LOST



[+]


Lucinda L. Flanary is a poet and a photographer. She is a solver
of puzzles and a lover of broken things. She has impeccably
awful timing and is always in search of a Delorian or a TARDIS.
Her published works can be found in Full of Crow, Red Fez,
Durable Goods, Nerve Cowboy, Gutter Eloquence, Mad Swirl,
1/25 Magazine, and of course, The Red Booth Review.

I Wrote this Note to You • Kevin Casey

on paper made
of a lake bed

dried by stars,
planed smooth
by the moon.

The pen nib
was whittled
from a passing gale,

and the ink
a jar of starlings,
swirling, iridescent
in the glass’s curl.

But folded,
crease over crease,
the note never narrows,

The knife-neat pleating
won’t ease these
vexing edges,

and so the envelope waits --
patient, blameless.


[+]



Kevin Casey is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts,
Amherst, and received his graduate degree at the University
of Connecticut. Recent works have been accepted by Grasslimb,
Frostwriting, Words Dance, Turtle Island Review, decomP, and
others. He currently teaches literature at a small
university in Maine, where he enjoys fishing, snowshoeing
and hiking.

The Playhouse • Robert Lietz

     The summer morning's full of it, that horse-drawn
roofed wagon, and the vegetables
you might describe in your own English, bringing the women
out again, into this circus neighborhood.  But
who could resist the seasoning sparks and succulents? 
Who could resist the snows, if certain, still
a long way off, or the kids at play on curb-less city streets,
when you are one of them, kneeling at marbles,
or running house to house in fishbowl helmets, tossing
your taped newspaper football
half-way up the block where no one's parking, with
fathers away
or returning late from shit jobs, with cash
in hand, as the lords
and ladies had demanded,
only
a few days earlier.


               *


     I think how we napped or played to nap, and rose
to afternoons made dull
by news of surgeries or golf outings, news of the hearings,
night after night of that,
whispered into evenings, unable as we were to feel
our ways around the issues,
with the waning moon for complement or Playhouse 90,
shaping the stillness
as kids dreamed, of Seoul maybe, or sliced meats
with tomatoes,
so many bewildered parallels, and not so unlike
the moonlight's own,
what with the police, or the armies, skilled
and already
outnumbered, whatever the moonlight
seemed
to be, over     how many    
strange
     countries.


               *


              Who could have dreamt wifi,

     or kits, or lenses put to witness, boots traipsing
soot-crusted snow, eyes
eyeing the shade-side brick or windows scolding us,
opened wide as perishing,
and proof enough of our belonging, of our origins,
you could say, unfolding
all around, according to whose orders, to such schedules
as dreams are figured on,
and accents, in motion, as these were, from
the first platforms, the initial
reconstructions and resisting, in the photo-spreads,
the re-enactments,
which, in perspective, might seem worlds, with
fruits to share, and
bowls to spoon on the fresh corners,
when
this could be all,     and
     everything?


[+]

Robert's poems have appeared widely, including 
Antioch Review, Carolina Quarterly, 
The Colorado Review, Epoch, The Georgia 
Review, Mid-American Review, The Missouri 
Review, The North American Review, The 
Ontario Review, and Poetry. He's published 
several collections with L'Epervier Press.


To an Imaginary Shrink • Larissa Harmsen

How could I not have known? To think
I was so sure – I was that happy –
I’m mad. I’m sad. I need a drink.
How could I not have known to think
of life rafts? Even dreamboats sink.
Believing love songs means you’re sappy.
(How could I not have known? To think:
I was.) So, sure: I was that. Happy?


[+]


Larissa Harmsen lives just outside of Cape Town 
with her husband, where she is working on 
being an artist without losing her mind. She's 
currently shopping her first collection, A Fistful 
of Wet Earth.

Stop, Think, Stare • Juan Zapata Jr.




[+]


Juan lives in NYC. His photography is geared towards
singularity, whether it means loneliness, oddity or place;
he strives to establish a presence for the ones already
existent on his themes.

How to Eat a Kiwi • Hannah Dow

Buy one just
for the occasion, wash
under cold water, scratch
off excess fuzz,
raise to your mouth, think
this could feel
like kissing someone
with a beard. It is
like that, then
use your teeth,
expose flesh,
think of the animals
you dream about—
the ones who tear
off your clothing
with their teeth, the animals
who see you naked.


[+]


Hannah Dow is a PhD student in poetry at the 
University of Southern Mississippi's Center for 
Writers. Her work has appeared in Contrary 
Magazine, Literary Laundry, and Abramelin.

Three Poems • Darren C. Demaree

Emily as Receding into Silence

Without human words,
Emily appears to be
developing a distance

from the rest of us,
appearing to translate
that distance into meaning

& if she didn’t smile after
that flight of flight, we
would know we held

no weight against her,
we would know how
un-pinned we all are.


[+]


Emily as the Floor Wells

There are times when the soul
of our house appears to yield
to Emily’s height, her lack of it

& I will see her be giant in one
room, only to return to her slight
wave in another. If this house

clings to her needs, then what
place do I have in it? I could
make sure the house is kept

in good order. I could hold it
together and keep it able to raise
Emily up, like a gift that reaches

past the ceiling, into the shallow
firmament of Ohio. Neither of us,
the house or myself, are crazy

about these doors. I have a key,
of course, but we both know
it would never allow us to leave.


[+]


Emily as Grief that is the Universe

I assumed Emily
wanted, would rely
on the all-energy

to build us into a deep
cycle of the physical
love. I was wrong.

I assumed the rest
of you wanted that
for Emily and me.

I’ve assumed the rest
of love would bend
to my own constructs,

the come mostly
from my own world.


[+]


Darren's poems have appeared, or are scheduled to appear in
South Dakota Review, Meridian, The Louisville Review, Grist, and the 
Colorado Review. He is the author of "As We Refer To Our Bodies" 
(2013, 8th House), "Temporary Champions" (2014, Main Street Rag), 
and "Not For Art Nor Prayer" (2015, 8th House). He is also the 
Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology. He lives in
Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.

Two Poems • Erren Kelly

Scranton, PA

I keep thinkin about a
Dancer
She kinda reminds me
Of the one in elton’s
Song
Tiny like a snowflake
But moves like a
Wish
This tiny dancer has
Starlight in her breath
And holds jazz in her
Wings
I bury my face between
Her breasts
And find milk and honey
There
They say to sing is to pray
With sound
To dance is become
Lightening
To hold a dancer is to
Embrace fire

For M.M.E…
[+]

Waiting for Superman

like lois lane, she sits
in a coffeehouse, eyes pensive
trying to find a happy ending
in a dime store novel
her hair is black as midnight
i ask her if i can sit down
she says," no thanks, i'm waiting for
superman "

she's waiting for the bus and
her eyes are holding the dawn
she grips her briefcase
like its the presidential football
i notice the swell of her breasts
her eyes could be my kryptonite
i make small talk
and her words are gold
but she says " i'm waiting for
superman"

even if i could detect her secrets
with x-ray vision, it would be futile
she is gone, though she sits next to me
i see the american flag flapping like a cape
in the wind
she's heading home, another lonely
night, she's " waiting for superman"

i've got swag like a football team
enough nerve to leap tall buildings
i make ordinary words extraordinary
i could love her like the world
was ending
but she'll sit at home again
waiting for superman
[+]


Erren has published his work in Hiram Poetry Review, 
Mudfish, Poetry Magazine (online), Ceremony, 
Cactus Heart, Similar Peaks, Gloom Cupboard, Poetry Salzburg 
and other publications. He is also the author of the chapbook, " 
Disturbing The Peace," from Night Ballet Press. 
He received his B.A. from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

Four Poems • David McNaron

Baggage

Kids prospective mates will flee,
alimony, ex-wives and husbands—

and more, the traces, the scars
they leave. As if we

were servicing it,
like debt. Indentured servants

of the emotional world.
When all we really want is

to start anew, open to trusting
once again, with more ahead

of us than behind. The way a 20-year old
enters his first apartment, looking

happily, with anticipation,
at those blank white walls.

And maybe no baggage is a kind of
baggage too. Still on the sidelines?

Where’s the gain—a jersey
that’s clean at the end of the game.


[+]


My Parents’ Bed

Lying here where I began
I suddenly see
the world

from their
vantage point.
Cramped

by the antique space—
looking out
over the horizon

of responsibilities.
Trying to fall asleep I think
how they must

have worried:
House secure?
Bills paid? Kids safe?

This frame’s too small
for me, and far
too big to fill.

Sleigh for a journey ending
precisely where
it began.


[+]


Mrs. Burson’s Private Christian First Grade

We learned phonics, art, and the Blood of the Lamb.
The UR Sisters, E-R, U-R, and I-R: Sue Bee Honey

squeeze bottles with small yellow caps.
Nicholas, an enormous German Shepard,

mostly slept. The hamsters, unfortunately,
ate their babies, which looked like red wet thumbs.

Mrs. Burson would get on to me for saying dern,
learned from Daddy. When I acted badly,

according to her lights, she’d say ‘There’s a little demon
on your shoulder!’ My pastel of Calvary

was praised. I sanded the work with tissue. The stones
of the cave were smooth, Christ’s blood trickled down the hill.

Her son, Jack, who was in advertising,
was nearly killed by a dog food truck

that crossed into his lane coming over a viaduct.
Everything was God’s will. He worked his mysterious way,

turning me into an atheist.
Hers was the prettiest house around.

We met in the finished basement.
We made nice friends. Billy Amari and I

once pushed kids over the woodpile.
Both his parents died within a year,

his father washing up at his feet,
drowned, at Panama City Beach.

I need a little tag to place here, but I’m fresh
out of insights. I can only say that I remember,

and each time I remember there’s something new,
as if I were adding something.

And sometimes remembering is
a consolation for all the things that were lost.

I’m not afraid, or sorry for anything, anymore.
There are people who will always be with me,

and who speak to me as if from a well,
into which I look and see myself.


[+]


On the Shyness of Horses

They’re stroking the Derby winner,
shielding his eyes

from the glare of the cameras as he pants,
froths at the mouth.

In slow motion I see the full power
of his strides, propelling him beyond

the pack, the suppleness of the body
in rhythm, flowing like a river.

He seems to want to race,
but who can be sure?

The beauty of the horse lies not
in what it thinks.

And somehow respect seems in order
for all their ken, the powers

of their senses, so well beyond ours,
the will instantaneous with the act.

And just when I’m on the verge of an important
truth, it recedes, refusing to show itself.


[+]


David McNaron teaches philosophy at Nova Southeastern 
University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He received 
the MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine 
Arts in 2003. His poems have appeared or are 
forthcoming in Poetry East, The Midwest Quarterly, 
Ellipsis, MississippiReview.com, Gulf Stream, 
Third Wednesday, Deep South, Red Booth Review, 
Summerset Review, Tor House Newsletter and other magazines.

Two • Charlie Baylis

Lightning flashes on the strawberry fields, stems
Twist and weave to the moon’s silver - night is
White and a storm gather her pace. Flash. Green bulbs

Memory, cracks the grapes blue on the vine and the vielle
dam dances to the tune of the sea, in an unlit room
The bridges are all on fire, explosions of silence. Calm

Over the ridges the clouds loom grey the wasps, waspish
A boom of thunder erupts the field vanishes to snow. Flash.
The torch of desire breathes. Moonlight on the raspberries.


[+]


Charlie Baylis lives and works in Nottingham, England. He reviews poetry for Stride. His own writing has appeared most recently in Litro, Boston Poetry and Agave. He spends his spare time completely adrift of reality and tumbles, sporadically, here.

Parts • Winfred Watson

Parts

[+]

Winfred lives in Silverton, Colorado.

Hummingbird • Howie Good

Quick,
come here,
before
it flies away,

a needle-
beaked
amphetamine

hovering
outside
the window

in a dazzle
of wings,

a sort of
blurry
stillness,

practically
silence,

from another
world,

the blue
café

where
Van Gogh
decided

to cut off
his ear.


[+]


Howie Good's latest book of poetry is The Complete Absence of Twilight (2014) from MadHat Press. He has several poetry books forthcoming, including Fugitive Pieces (Right Hand Press) and Buddha & Co (Plain Wrap Press).

Waiting For Superman • Erren Geraud Kelly

like lois lane, she sits
in a coffeehouse, eyes pensive
trying to find a happy ending
in a dime store novel
her hair is black as midnight
i ask her if i can sit down
she says," no thanks, i'm waiting for
superman "

she's waiting for the bus and
her eyes are holding the dawn
she grips her briefcase
like its the presidential football
i notice the swell of her breasts
her eyes could be my kryptonite
i make small talk
and her words are gold
but she says " i'm waiting for
superman"

even if i could detect her secrets
with x-ray vision, it would be futile
she is gone, though she sits next to me
i see the american flag flapping like a cape
in the wind
she's heading home, another lonely
night, she's " waiting for superman"

i've got swag like a football team
enough nerve to leap tall buildings
i make ordinary words extraordinary
i could love her like the world
was ending
but she'll sit at home again
waiting for superman


[+]


Erren has published his work in Hiram Poetry Review, 
Mudfish, Poetry Magazine (online), Ceremony, 
Cactus Heart, Similar Peaks, Gloom Cupboard, Poetry Salzburg 
and other publications. He is also the author of the chapbook, " 
Disturbing The Peace," from Night Ballet Press. 
He received his B.A. from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

What I Leave Behind • Lana Ghannam

I hold thinning paper
in clammy hands,
lose my identity on it
by mistake. I crinkle
its abdomen with pressing
fingers, tightly rub
in my self-doubt
beneath my thumb.
I’ll lose my name
if I press hard enough,
erasing my prints off
the tips of my fingers,
like hair that’s been washed
too many times, strands
that fall out and get lost
on my shoulders or through
tumbled fabric. I’ll keep
those loose ends as warnings,
curls that tickle some sense
into me when tucked
into dryer sheets, bed sheets,
lying in sheets on my bedroom
floor. Those tumbleweeds
that catch my cold
toes in the middle
of the day, the sun ripping
down my blinds as if to say
I’m here, I’m here.
The mirror watches
my face get swallowed up
by the sun that sneaks
its light behind the slow
clouds. My eyes grow wide,
my eyes grow wild, always
seeking whatever falls behind.


[+]


Lana is currently an MFA Candidate in Poetry at the
University of Central Florida where she also serves as
a Teaching and Editorial Assistant for The
Florida Review, UCF’s national literary magazine. Her 
poetry has appeared in The Holler Box and The Cape Rock.

Humpty Dumpty Deli • Wendy Gist

Humpty Dumpty dude jots orders with flamingo pen,
scoops rocky road and mango ice cream for tweens
who scream preceding soccer practice.

Humpty places waffle cones oozing melting mounds
into holders on the countertop near antique register,
accepts cash only. An older couple off the Interstate
step forward on tanned legs in Bermuda shorts plaid.

The woman under white visor orders a pistachio shake.
Her hubby in button-down shirt pink, masquerading as boyfriend,
chooses berry banana split, demands in southern twang,
“No cherry, Sir.”

A young woman with a parted fro leaps forward,
her asymmetrical skirt, twirling yellow as sun flow.
Tap tap acrylic nail to laminated photo of frappé on countertop.

We chill at blue-mint booths.
He comes to us as waiter, delivers tropical smoothie
and orange Crush pop in a bottle, chilled.
He waggles behind counter, washes knives in a sink,
wipes equipment sterile. Mops tile.

Efficient as fish fins in water. He comes twice as server,
delivers ice waters as if a mind reader and
lunch with a clank of condiments (without request).

We’d slam a $100.00 tip on the table if able. Why not?
It’s a sweltering 103 degrees out. Heck.
We go, stroll sidewalks, flip-flops melt soles.
Humpty’s up on the rooftop mending the air conditioner.
If he goes tumbling, who will bus the tables?


[+]


Wendy Gist was born in southern California,
raised in northern Arizona. Her work has appeared
or is forthcoming in Amsterdam Quarterly, Canyon
Voices, Burningword, Glint Literary Journal,
Grey Sparrow Journal, Lines & Stars, New
Plains Review, Oyez Review, Pif Magazine,
Poetry Pacific, Red River Review, Rio Grande
Review, Sundog Lit, The Chaffey Review, The
Fourth River, The Lake (UK), Toad Suck Review,
Yellow Medicine Review: A Journal of Indigenous
Literature, Art, and Thought. She currently
resides in New Mexico.

Over • Ronald Pelias

As talk vanishes
into the understood,
a closing,
a covering,
a made bed.

Hand drops hand.

Eyes drop down
in regret,
in the rub and rid
of it all.


[+]


Ronald's poems have appeared in a number of journals,
including Small Pond, Yet Another Small Magazine,
Out of Line, Midwest Poetry Review, Margie, and
Whetstone. His most recent books, Methodology of the
Heart: Evoking Academic and Daily Life (AltaMira Press),
Leaning: A Poetics of Personal Relations (Left Coast Press),
and Performance: An Alphabet of Performative Writing
(Left Coast Press), call upon the poetic as a research strategy.

Wall • Spider Thorndal



[+]


Spider Thorndal has published his photos
and poetry widely. He is a native of Baltimore, Maryland,
where he lives with his wife and daughter.

Some Things Die before Called • Patricia Williams

Big box stores
ran end-of-winter sales;
the groundhog predicted
spring was soon to come;
the calendar revealed
winter had concluded,

but winter never ended,
spring never came.

April drizzle,
not sweet and languid,
but sleety and raw
like February,
spat ice and snow
over broken souls;

winter never ended,
spring never came.

The globe is murky,
the solar star frozen,
the lunar orb immobilized;
we long for something
not to be found,
some dead before called.

You left in winter;
spring never came.


[+]


Patricia Williams lives in the Wisconsin countryside
with her husband; she retired after 27 years of
teaching at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens P
oint and has had poems published in both online
and print journals in the U.S. and England,
including Lake City Lights, Star*Line Journal,
Camel Saloon, Stoneboat, Middlebrow, Your Daily
Poem, Fox Cry and others.