Poetry Winter 2023 fiction all issues
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Cover
Susan Wilkinson
Selena Spier
Red From The West
& other poems
Pamela Wax
Talk Therapy
& other poems
Ana Reisens
Honey Water
& other poems
Mark Yakich
Necessary Hope
& other poems
Bridget Kriner
A Few Lies & a Truth
& other poems
Keegan Shepherd
Silver Queen
& other poems
Alaina Goodrich
Sacred Conflagration
& other poems
George Longenecker
Those Who Hunger
& other poems
Hailey Young
Ball Room
& other poems
Sébastien Luc Butler
Aubade
& other poems
Savannah Grant
Ever Since (v.2)
& other poems
grace (logan)
Dynamic
& other poems
Samantha Imperi
A Poem for the Ghosted
& other poems
Corinne Walsh
Limerence
& other poems
Kayla Heinze
Stop checking the score
& other poems
Richard Baldo
Chasing Through to Dawn
& other poems
Alex Eve
A moment
& other poems
Robert Michael Oliver
Prison Hounds
& other poems
Robert Michael Oliver
Prison Ball
Wire defines the outfield.
The door to the Yard leads
to the Diamond, with brick
the color of the backstop.
From atop the embankment
across Route 35, I witness
bare muscled men in grey
T-shirts, cagey base-stealers
with black toes, country boys
with antelope legs, scowling
forearms that can snap a bat,
and a guard playing umpire.
A homerun bounces on tar.
The centerfielder thanks me,
when I, the Warden’s son,
toss its horsehide back
to his leather-bare glove.
The horn sounds; players
line up, not in teams of skin
and cotton but in an algorithm
known only to convicts
as they roll like shadows
across the Diamond and
vanish into iron.
Before Prison
On a hard floor,
cheeks blubbering
bubbles of pout,
I stare up the long
staircase at Momma,
cigarette like a gun
aimed at her coffee.
She kisses Father
goodbye, dancing
to a chorus of metal
mugs and fierce chants.
I know his absence.
I suck the air: silence
is my pacifier thrown
in a tantrum against
a white wall. I know
only the smudge left
as it falls to the floor.
James, the Trustee
On the day I broke the cup,
I discovered him, an obelisk—
tall like my Dad but black.
The dappled glass lay in ruins,
or so my ears informed me,
on tiptoe at porcelain’s edge.
I had lifted the chalice above
my head—a sacred rite,
a sky not pierced but saluted.
The man I wanted to become
placing it blindly—shattering—
guilt strewn in a basin.
James raised each shard
like a wafer placed on a tongue
and never acknowledged.
My calamity, he promised,
his voice too callused to cry,
would ripen into rough hands.
Over green beans that evening,
the cup, I said, parents listening,
had dropped into forever.
Prison Hounds
Across the road,
bloodhounds weep
for a pulse:
a shade scurries
across asphalt
into oblivion.
Howls erupt.
Poplars shake
their gnarled limbs.
I wait on knees
bent at my bed
till high school.
On Mondays
the prison gates
swing open.
Father rides
downhill
to purgatory.
I listen for
the chatter
of inmates.
I hush myself
with prayers
wagging my tail.
Sunday Slaughterhouse
The priest sanctifies love
in absència—the gold
doors of the tabernacle
cloak a breathing Jesus.
I visit the slaughterhouse
behind our State dwelling,
atop the hill next to the gully
where the Dogwoods bloom.
I push the wooden gate
open onto a passage—not
labyrinth—spiraling inward
toward a crucible of flesh.
My little soldiers dance
on tiptoe among the globs
of spattered red matter. I
hop over pools of dung.
The cattle are not there—
they are funny that way,
disappearing like shades
into mud with a single thud.
Hearing my daydreams
screech, I want to pray
for the convicts who, with
stunners, blast cattle
into dark pastures, but
language fails, for nothing
suffices to quell the roar
of what I once loved.
Robert Michael Oliver
I call myself a Creativist: a person immersed in creativity regardless of activity. I am a poet, educator, theatre artist, playwright, father, administrator, screenwriter... With my wife and creative partner Elizabeth Bruce, I co-founded The Sanctuary Theatre; I founded The Performing Knowledge Project. My first book of poetry, THE DARK DIARY in 27 refracted moments, was published by Finishing Line Press. Currently, I am a Co-Host of the podcast Creativists in Dialogue @ Creativists.substack.com.