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| John McCluskey |
Sally Lester
Adele Souto
John McCluskey
Poems:
William Greenway
Katya Yakubov
Marc Swan
Katie Lewington
Philip Dacey
BZ Niditch
R.A. Allen
John Repp
Red Booth Review • Volume 11: Issue 2. June 2015.
Sally Lester
Adele Souto
John McCluskey
Poems:
William Greenway
Katya Yakubov
Marc Swan
Katie Lewington
Philip Dacey
BZ Niditch
R.A. Allen
John Repp
"She held her fists..." • Katya Yakubov
She held her fists
The world danced around her
She felt its motion
It's electric embrace
But only saw through
Telescope, galaxy ahead.
Behind her, they softly crumbled
Drowned by the morning light.
The sounds don't reach her
Out from the clock tower
She's taken flight.
The world danced around her
She felt its motion
It's electric embrace
But only saw through
Telescope, galaxy ahead.
Behind her, they softly crumbled
Drowned by the morning light.
The sounds don't reach her
Out from the clock tower
She's taken flight.
Too Late • John Repp
“Saturdays were all Fury and Flicka back then.”
- overheard from the booth behind,
Woodstown Diner, 2010
Good to be alive to have not just
the phrase “King Korn Popcorn”
appear in the mind, but an image
of the box, too. However, “appear”
is approximate. Words congeal
simultaneously behind the permanent,
scrunched frown & the epiglottis.
King Korn Karamel Korn was best
though research so far has failed
to verify it ever melted & crunched
in a mouth. Good to be alive
to know for sure bad guys
once sealed their own dooms
in phone booths & scuffed
past lunch counters where
delivery boys in slouch hats
hunched smoking over big plates
wiped clean of congealed eggs.
The bad guys always realized
who they were too late.
1466 East 54th Street, Los Angeles, 1974 • Marc Swan
Larry and Irene were with me
in a low rent flat in Eagle Rock
drinking can after sweaty can of ice
cold Coors, toking on
tightly rolled sinsemilla,
listening to Dylan and The Band
crank it out on track ten:
“The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”
Three pairs of eyes wide
on a barricaded prize
on East 54th Street smoking
on a nineteen-inch color TV.
Lobo beside us;
his paws curled under
his chin.
Through the split curtain
I could see the thick haze
fifteen miles away.
A flicker of sunlight
on the old green couch
seemed a slow tempo
version of the rapid fire
dance on the screen:
3722 rounds by six revolutionaries,
thousands more from the other side.
They didn’t get Patty Hearst.
I’m not even sure she was there,
but the house, its roof, walls, floors,
anything living inside no longer was.
in a low rent flat in Eagle Rock
drinking can after sweaty can of ice
cold Coors, toking on
tightly rolled sinsemilla,
listening to Dylan and The Band
crank it out on track ten:
“The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”
Three pairs of eyes wide
on a barricaded prize
on East 54th Street smoking
on a nineteen-inch color TV.
Lobo beside us;
his paws curled under
his chin.
Through the split curtain
I could see the thick haze
fifteen miles away.
A flicker of sunlight
on the old green couch
seemed a slow tempo
version of the rapid fire
dance on the screen:
3722 rounds by six revolutionaries,
thousands more from the other side.
They didn’t get Patty Hearst.
I’m not even sure she was there,
but the house, its roof, walls, floors,
anything living inside no longer was.
The Weather Outside • Katie Lewington
Legs on the chair, crossed
Sitting with my paper trail
And watching as the sky darkens
Like a slapped red cheek
The sun had burst and the clouds had been white
Passing me by like the legs of a can can dancer
Now as the light dims
I glance up
And crack!
The whip of thunder
Flash of light like a camera bulb
The rain hits up against my window
Like a skater boarding the dip of the ramp
And drips
Drops fall through my open window
Like a falling star
Attaching to my paper
Blurring the ink
A fly flutters by.
Sitting with my paper trail
And watching as the sky darkens
Like a slapped red cheek
The sun had burst and the clouds had been white
Passing me by like the legs of a can can dancer
Now as the light dims
I glance up
And crack!
The whip of thunder
Flash of light like a camera bulb
The rain hits up against my window
Like a skater boarding the dip of the ramp
And drips
Drops fall through my open window
Like a falling star
Attaching to my paper
Blurring the ink
A fly flutters by.
The Morton Salt Girl • Philip Dacey
I don’t know who put me here
in this storm with only my umbrella.
Who would have done such a thing?
I hear a voice saying,
“When it rains it pours.”
Though I seem to be walking,
I don’t get anywhere beyond
the side of this cylinder.
All I can do is hope I stay dry
as I spill salt behind me,
though it’s not clear if I know
I’m spilling it. I never look back.
Sometimes I’m tipped upside down
and then righted. Does that
ever happen to you?
I am the oldest little girl in America.
I’ve been in place here for more
than 100 years, though I never
show signs of aging. Every
decade or two, however, I do
change my hair or my clothes.
I have been through many wars
but show no scars nor
stop smiling, though my salt
is distilled from decades of tears.
in this storm with only my umbrella.
Who would have done such a thing?
I hear a voice saying,
“When it rains it pours.”
Though I seem to be walking,
I don’t get anywhere beyond
the side of this cylinder.
All I can do is hope I stay dry
as I spill salt behind me,
though it’s not clear if I know
I’m spilling it. I never look back.
Sometimes I’m tipped upside down
and then righted. Does that
ever happen to you?
I am the oldest little girl in America.
I’ve been in place here for more
than 100 years, though I never
show signs of aging. Every
decade or two, however, I do
change my hair or my clothes.
I have been through many wars
but show no scars nor
stop smiling, though my salt
is distilled from decades of tears.
Two Poems • BZ Niditch
Hesitation
At the glass window
a once day dreaming student
now twenty five
and endeared to poetry
hesitates to put on
her brand new skates
until she reaches
a blind blue hill rink
invisible to the quarry,
as a visitor of graffiti whispers
in the wind as he initials
the local Elm
marked above her
that he, her former tutor
in the language department
is in love with nature forever
waits by the tallest tree
near the clearing woodland
frozen in ether
with a photograph
from winter's last welcome
of bears and foxes
now has written all over a branch
of a hundred year elm
his new poetic lines
and waiting for her to skate
at the annotated spring.
[+]
Lifeguard
Chuck, the life guard
now far away in Frisco
saved sister
from downing
she was a rainbow to us
when we were nine
dropped into a bloodshot world
from a diving board
all of us only small bodies
that summer of haunting shadows
needing rescue,drafted to Nam
we even named our cat Chuckie
after you.
At the glass window
a once day dreaming student
now twenty five
and endeared to poetry
hesitates to put on
her brand new skates
until she reaches
a blind blue hill rink
invisible to the quarry,
as a visitor of graffiti whispers
in the wind as he initials
the local Elm
marked above her
that he, her former tutor
in the language department
is in love with nature forever
waits by the tallest tree
near the clearing woodland
frozen in ether
with a photograph
from winter's last welcome
of bears and foxes
now has written all over a branch
of a hundred year elm
his new poetic lines
and waiting for her to skate
at the annotated spring.
[+]
Lifeguard
Chuck, the life guard
now far away in Frisco
saved sister
from downing
she was a rainbow to us
when we were nine
dropped into a bloodshot world
from a diving board
all of us only small bodies
that summer of haunting shadows
needing rescue,drafted to Nam
we even named our cat Chuckie
after you.
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Two Poems • William Greenway
Lucky
. . . on fortune’s cap we are not the very button.
—Guildenstern
How about that Black Death?
Really tapered off, huh?
And only today I was lamenting the loss
of both my feet,
when I saw a man with no shoes.
Two satellites reentered the earth today
but missed my house.
Goddamn it.
Catholics call it a State of Grace,
one I’ve never driven through, though
I’m sure all the Highway Patrolers
are beautiful bears, fuzzy,
with brown button eyes.
But if I ever spin fortune’s wheel,
I’m betting all my bucks
on the black and bad.
And on the righteous red?
Half an egg
from the farm’s sickest chicken.
[+]
In the Personals
Aging widower seeks half-pint
woman half his age
for meaningful relationship.
Must be beautiful (long, black
curly hair preferred, olive
skin, Mona Lisa lips),
talented, hilarious.
Must love: cooking
“cheesy-peppery rice,”
writing and reading poems,
sex,
running five miles a day
on the treadmill,
singing Aretha Franklin
into the TV remote control,
dancing in the kitchen in XXXL
men’s t-shirts.
No sadness
or sickness need apply.
Rerunner • R.A. Allen
Those opening credits
superimposed over
Santa Monica Boulevard
mean it's a period piece—
Raymond Chandler's L.A.
And even in black & white
the sky is Bunsen blue.
All of the automobiles,
like my old '49 Chevy,
sport white sidewalls.
In those days
a careless barber
might etch sidewalls
above your ears;
perforce, your fedora
would be your noggin's
fender skirts.
And A-line skirts
adorn the actresses
as they sashay
across the set—
same as my first love,
a prick teaser, with
her teased-up hair,
her cultured pearls,
and her pointy bra.
First cars, first loves:
were they guideposts
destined to be cherished,
or were they landmine
markers on the topography
of an idle retrospection?
superimposed over
Santa Monica Boulevard
mean it's a period piece—
Raymond Chandler's L.A.
And even in black & white
the sky is Bunsen blue.
All of the automobiles,
like my old '49 Chevy,
sport white sidewalls.
In those days
a careless barber
might etch sidewalls
above your ears;
perforce, your fedora
would be your noggin's
fender skirts.
And A-line skirts
adorn the actresses
as they sashay
across the set—
same as my first love,
a prick teaser, with
her teased-up hair,
her cultured pearls,
and her pointy bra.
First cars, first loves:
were they guideposts
destined to be cherished,
or were they landmine
markers on the topography
of an idle retrospection?
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