Skyline Magazine Online Poetry Fall 2008

Poets in this issue

Carolyn L. Srygley-Moore

Richard L. Provencher

Carol Lynn Grellas

Richard LIghthouse

Jan Oskar Hansen

Steven F. Klepetar

 

 

                      

Lettuce

 

Carolyn L. Srygley-Moore

 

Touring tiers of the newly planted garden

           it’s like a starting over. Though truly it is

too late; again to venture into that brief trance of girlhood

            losing my innocence to someone

who gives a damn about me. In a garden like this perhaps

            the magnolia browning above us;

It blooms for only a single day.

 

            You cut it with an ugh

placing it at the front vestibule

            a glass dish meant for candy. Caught thus in the space

between truth and untruth

            it’s all like a personal Watergate;

a car moving through a firestorm

            a force so close it cracks

the camera lens

 

            at windshield. Unheard of this flame

moving four directions at once. Learning to believe in someone

            far removed from yourself

you begin to believe in

           self; a harmless thorny spider

paused on my husband’s sleeping cheek

            as if to begin a silky

web there. The inhuman eye

 

            of human trafficking

of landscaping the human heart. There is nothing like

            prison doors slamming

behind you

            for the commencement of reflection.

To regard a soul immaculate

            as the skin of a peach

its juice like nectar like

 

           lettuce curls to the Egyptian

a perceived aphrodisiac. You have to let yourself lose control

            sometimes he tells me; he’s not thinking of

a strip search or champagne spilled

            on the Wall Street floor – just juice

running down the chin

            just speaking

the unspeakable


 

 

Carolyn Srygley-Moore is an award-winning graduate of the Johns Hopkins University’s Writing Seminars, in Baltimore, & a Pushcart nominee; her digital chapbook Enough Light on the Dogwood was published by Mimesis. Her work has appeared in a number of journals to include Antioch Review, A Hudson View, The 4 AM Poetry Review, & the antiwar anthology Cost of Freedom. She is also a wanna-be superhero in a red cape playing matador with aerial hunters who are  trying to shoot wolves & bears & walk off with their paws.

She currently lives in Upstate New York with her husband & daughter.

 

 
Agra, in Northern India

Richard L. Provencher

 
Children dash through Yamuna River shallows
beside the Taj Mahal, their legs more like spider
appendages skipping through splashes

in the morning of their childhood, away from grownup
tales of “moshka” in the Ganges, a spiritual liberation where
parents practice their Hindu and Buddhist culture.

These children have not yet seen tourists arrive in blurry
shapes to hear drums and tambourines celebrate the
cremation of loved ones in pyres of banyan wood

but one day, growing lives will learn to accept a bull lie in the
middle of a pashmina shop, visit the village of Khajuraho
where Kama Sutra temples abound, then drive between
fields of mustard seed plants on their way to Orchha.

Much later, these same children who once splashed in the
Yamuna River, will bare thoughts from crowded streets of
Delhi and remember summer days from precious childhood.

 

Richard L. Provencher is published in Poems Neiderngasse, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Sentinel, Thorns and Roses, PusanWeb, Poetry Sky, and many others. His poetry Chapbook “In the Light of Day” is available from Mercutio Press.  He is a member of WFNS. Richard and his wife, Esther, live in Truro, Nova Scotia.
 

 

Residual Effect From the Nunnery

 

Carol Lynn Grellas

 

 

It wouldn't be easy to leave him−

though I've had those women-dates

when we sit together at Blums and flaunt the idea.

 

Ladies in white wicker chairs- chamois

skirts licking the tops of our shapely knees-

knees once slapped by nuns at tender ages

 

for too much skin exposed to daylight.

We used to kneel on hardwood floors

six inches measured from the tops of our black

 

watch pleated skirts. One half inch more

meant a trip to the Mother Superior's office,

where she'd undo the hems and our femininity.

 

Knees have become our little fugitives,

bared shamelessly in the noon hour-

sealed together under table-leafs just the way

 

the Convent taught us, back in our white oxford days-

but instead of sturdy laced-up shoes, we parade

our highest Jimmy Choo's. And when we're

 

feeling mildly indecent, one leg might raise

high above the other in a cross-over display

revealing the upper thigh; a polite

 

yet provocative pose. Then the preening

begins. Like flamingos grooming, we caress skin

as though there's a secret that mustn't be shared

 

and we continue on with our feminine prattle−

until the meal ends, when we return home

and wait for the reason to be defiant.

 

Carol Lynn Grellas is a Northern California-based writer. She has been widely published in literary journals including most recently, Chanterelle’s Notebook, Dogzplot with poems forthcoming in Flutter and The Hiss Quarterly. Her chapbook, Litany of Finger Prayers will be released in 2008 from Pudding House Press.  Her second chapbook, Object of Desire was recently accepted for publication and will be forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.

 
care dare

Richard Lighthouse


i no longer care how the moon balances
                each evening
                crested between
                wax and wane.

i no longer care how your silken hair
                teased in
                moonlight, ripples thru
                meaning unannounced.

i no longer care why buildings
                stand vertical, swearing
                at the sky, daring
                the moon come closer.

i no longer care why your heart
                sings with altitude,
                making moons dance,
                longing ever
                for great care.

 

Richard Lighthouse is a contemporary writer and poet.  He holds an M.S. from Stanford University. His work has been published in numerous journals and magazines worldwide.
 
 
October

Jan Oskar Hansen


Woke up with a start, the night was cold

a dream had disturbed my peace;

a black hole in the ground loose soil from

its edges kept falling into its endlessness.

 

Got up looked out of the window into a street

of pale light, my breath fogged up the glass

I saw a distorted image of my youth;

"How old you are," it mocked.

 

I pressed my head against the glass, tried

to make friend with my tormentor; and

behind stillness I heard the hum of

the long sea rippling on nirvana's strand
 
 
Mermaid

Steven F. Klepetar

Who will incise your initials onto the rabid face of sky?

When moonlight bleeds through an angry rustle of leafless trees

where will your blue and gold-green parrots hide?

 

Every side of your house has been blocked off.  Your street

rolls away like withdrawing tide dragging rocks and shells

out onto the breast of sea.  Somewhere beyond your vision

a mermaid shouts her anguish to the distant ships, but your

ears feel only a rushing sound, pinpricks in the soft flesh of day.

 

When will your doors be flung open, your trumpets and flags

hurled into startling wind?  How long before your falcon

mounts silver stairs out onto dizzying roofs above the shining world?

 

 

Steve Klepetar teaches literature and poetry at Saint Cloud State University in Minnesota.  His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Web.
 

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