J.T. Whitehead

Interview with an American Writer

Q: “Could you name your biggest influences?”
A: “French artists
“& Indian gurus.
"German philosophers
“& Black blues.
“Irish poets
“& British rockers.
“Dutch brewers
“& Jamaican farmers.
“Hyperborean climates . . .
“& . . . naturally . . .
“American blood.

{J.T. Whitehead}

Samantha Seto

Relative End

The sidewalk etches the words
deep into the pavement.
I cower at the sight,
bury my face into my jacket,
only to realize that it’s an illusion.

In subway trains, the images blur together,
creating a nonsensical web.
Familiar bustle at the station in late afternoon
is restless and alerts surrounding traffic.

Music arises, light from outdoors,
Pedestrians dance in the streets,
as I drive past at walking speed.

The winds sway a swing at the park,
with sunbeams on its convex shape.
Rectangular blues and purples
reflect the water’s light from a nearby lake.

Downtown bus, unscheduled
stops a few meters away, rounds a curb.
The driver looks back at me,
I am forgotten.

Gravel beneath my feet erodes blisters,
hesitating to take me home.
I hold my breath for a second,
to take in fumes that only pollute me.

The silver maple tree drips water from its leaves,
clean dirt beneath rosebuds holds weariness,
I stand only a few meters away
from dreary weeds that grow.

Dusk in dark gray and blue shades in horizon,
signifies half-moon shadows.

{Samantha Seto}

C. David Hay

Wings

Oh, to catch the winds of flight
And soar where eagles go,
To leave the woes of troubled souls
Behind me far below.
I'd listen to the song of birds
And sail in endless flight,
Then chase the sun through cloudy paths
And play with stars at night.

The boundless heavens for my home,
The breeze to lift me high,
To rise above my mortal bonds
And never have to die;
Knowing I had found the way
To trails where angels trod,
And when my wings could fly no more -
I'd take the hand of God!

{C. David Hay}

Frank DeCanio

Gossamer Girl

Could artifice work such a toxic kiss
despite its guile? Demure, yet filled with grace,
she glares at me as if she might dismiss
me out of hand, and put me in my place.
She doesn’t play like novices who scowl
to snuff out flames of passion that they stoke.
But like some hungry spider on the prowl,
she’s poised to pounce on quarry with one stroke,
as soon as they’re entangled in her web.
Indeed. When I approach this stern cashier,
her sweet hello accelerates the ebb
and flow of my heart’s racing blood. And fear
in my glazed eyes assures her she holds sway
as her smile spins the silk that dooms her prey.

{Frank DeCanio}

Mackenzie Brown

What Are You

You are my pencil.
You carve charcoal tinted
graphite solidly onto the
page below; successfully
transporting images that
rest in my mind.

You are my tool.
Your sharply sawed edges
slice through the toughest
membranes; hoping that
what you discover exceeds
what you currently posses.

You are my weapon.
You represent the extent
of my fears; where reality and
fantasy converge. In exploring
the possibilities, I find
your infinite usefulness.

But I am the Author, the Creator.
I am the floor water spills over onto;
the ideas that are too extravagant
and many to stay in their cage. I use
you to express myself. I am your
beginning and end.

{Mackenzie Brown}

Michael Zadell

Interstitial

First light ignites the placid air
of a vaulted darkness
blown wide open

and from that arc
of sky in disrepair
the radiance of morning

rages
out of a spreading glare
of derelict clarity

and what cannot be penetrated
is shoved aside
to the margins

where our spirits
spend our days
already vindicated

wrapped in shadowed weather
leaning into our lives
like water

nudging us past those streams
that forever lead us toward
but never really get us here

to a reef of the heart’s own making
on an
interstitial ocean

awaiting our return to ourselves
until the interrupted night resumes
like a fever

finally broken.

{Michael Zadell}

Erren Geraud Kelly

Kenlynne

something was different about
her tonight
it was the clothes, the
hair
the hat that tried to hide her feminimity
but only enhanced it
it comes as natural as the way
she walks
the way she puffs her
cigarette
ever blase' to death
she can only take certain kinds
of crazy
otherwise, she just walks
away
and it's not going out of my
way
to follow behind her
some women would kill
for her curves
she thinks its no big deal
and doesn't work at it
at all
and i don't think god
is fair or unfair
god is just god
sometimes, i don't think we should
work at it at all
there should be some things
that just drop into our lives

{Erren Geraud Kelly}

Natalie Jeanne Champagne

Love

We are not in love
But, yes, we do love
We do not kiss
But instead read each other’s lips
He might draw me a bath
Scented like lavender

When the sun has fallen
We lay side by side
Though we do not touch
We are not in love
But, yes, we do love

Laughter can be intimate
A hand held sensual
Fervent passion
Explored with the mind
And not the body
We are not in love
But, yes, we do love

{Natalie Jeanne Champagne}

Michelle Macfarlane

Burning Clouds Before the Day Ends

A black crescent moon swallowed the sides of his head
which contained entire galaxies of complexities
and standards and measures of faith.
Soothing included a bedtime story and
helping move a grand piano down a
staircase for a neighbor. A massage
was merely an uncomfortable interaction
of strange intimacy.

The earth was merely a super glued rubber ball
that bounced around and shook the
inhabitants around and up and down.

It was the good, the bit of melted cheese in a sandwich
or the laughter of tickling a daughter’s knee which
mended the useless rubber ball into
a place worth existing.
He was not a man of only simple moments.
He drove an exotic Mercedes with brown leather
seats and heated cushions for long winter drives.

A man of his word, unless he merely forgot or changed
the terms and conditions of an arrangement.

Books on history collected no dust on his shelves
as he constantly swallowed the black ink
into every pore and surface of his being.

He did not ask to be remembered by the masses
He did not want his name to span the ages.
He would survive through unanswered questions

Their path destined by a need to understand
black crescent moons that burned
clouds during daylight.

{Michelle Mcfarlane}

Susan Marie Davniero

Legacy of Emily Dickinson

Lore of legend raise
Gifted poet’s praise
The creative source
For poetry’s course

Solitude inviting
Recluse for writing
Pinning away alone
Set the poet’s tone

Life of isolation
Denied recognition
The myth has last
Recluse of Amherst cast

Success later came
In posthumous fame
Her poetry is left
To speak for itself

As legends grow old
A story left untold
By the poetry creation
Legacy of Emily Dickinson

{Susan Marie Davniero}

Donal Mahoney

No Hypocrisy, No Cant

The lioness is wont
to practice no

hypocrisy, no cant.
The lioness

will topple her objective,
grapple with it till

all palpitation
finally is still.

The lioness then laps,
completely dry,

what unavoidably
may spill.


Before He Goes Bare

You'll never see him again, you say,
but what if he brings to your room
a midnight poem he says
he's written for you.

Will you read it together
a couple of times, out loud,
as you have in the past?
And what if he then

shoots like a rocket
into the forest, igniting the fire,
as he has in the past.
Will you see him again?

We have the children
to think about.
That's why I'm here.
We all need to know.

{Donal Mahoney}

Peter Layton

Sand

I've been taught to
sleep with my weapon
eat with it
feed it its shells
oiled, cleaned,
we are often as one
it grasps much I
hold deeper inside
you
sharing this space and not
hearing and feeling all I can't say
the late night hours tick
the hard closeness of them
saying my epistles to you
you seeming
the dust of morning
nearby, wishing everything away
I'll hold this
warm dark wood
inside like a candle flame
the deeper inside smoking cold shells
readying to do me harm
I'm always armed, night after night of same
the cold framed trees
the starklights
the cold
held in.

{Peter Layton}

Earvin Wilson

Seeing Things

It takes time to see a lot of things, and yet,
in a lifetime, we seem to not have the time.
When we could just stop one day, and watch
a beautiful sunset.
Walk along a shore, and just be in that time.
We can miss so much, looking for it all,
like not noticing the mist off the roaring waves.
It's cool in the summer, barefoot in the
grass of morning dew.
But it takes a lot of time, to see a lot
of things, when all we got to do is look.
That's when you can really see the joy,
In seeing things...

{Poem by Earvin Wilson}

Roger G. Singer

Faithful

My fingers greedily crawl
into spring soil;
a salve for hands deep pocketed
from past winter winds.

Up into me an aroma
spills my senses to warm.
I breathe in the green flavor
of growth
while studying the land.

Faithful is the change
that tilts the earth,
raising the sun with blessing
onto the place I live.

I will swim in the suns hold,
opening my shirt,
forgetting my shoes and
welcoming screen doors.

{Poem by Roger G. Singer}

Kevin Cole

This Sidewalk Was More Interesting

This sidewalk was more interesting
In the evening leafy sun
A whitewashed wall
Some roses
A tended hermit’s yard

Paths like free verse stanzas
Trellised vines in poet’s light
A garden of word solitude
A summer of the mind

A few steps in the June past
An evening’s finished pages
This sidewalk was more interesting

{Poem by Kevin Cole}

Brandi Underwood

Smudged

I throw the Twain pages into ember flames. Edges of paper turn crisp brown. Reflecting from my brother’s eyes ink words change hues now inflamed violets. By time twilight runs its time clock, the bottom of the black oil drum ash collects. Bully points out the smile the ash forms. We move along. Towers of charcoal window panes stand evergreen roots a hundred feet long. Billy sees an odd indigo magazine. He sits along the curb edge. His eyes flip through jargon he did not know.

Before the Drop, lands in the central plains grew lush, and kids sat in class and knew that their destiny was like whispers easily re-written. Now out eyes are crisp with dry morning tears. Every sunrise I check Billy for indigo rings almost like bruises. A side effect from radiation. We travel. Our legs grow weak and muscles inflamed by time twilight with few stars. Another side effect partial blindness. Age three towers of red legos towered over me. Now towers of brittle charcoal threaten to crumble. Our bodies turn to ash.

Food: number one priority. Keep moving for Billy’s sake, or his bones will crumble to ash. In Mother’s womb when the Drop came. Radiation seeped through her skin. Now he’ll never know how moist grass feels against your feet. Instead he feels dry lakes of ash. Solomon’s towers are now dawn’s past. Frankenstein, I will remember the story. I will remember inflamed faces as I shoveled dirt upon them. Death’s blanket won’t make me forget mothers crisp eyes of indigo. Six years to the day, to the hour since the Drop. Happy Birthday Billy. Indigo Streams and irises of his eyes still deep, just like hers were. Our night cradles ash flakes. As I lay, I feel the warmth of dying embers. Few travelers along the road but memories of faces are inflamed in the back of my head. In time will I forget what they even look like? No! Just how I will remember the yellow sun. How I miss modern towers. Dreams crystal cut sky with diamonds scattered. The one thing that never changed. Towers with panes of glass still firm in their steel frames, before the flames of burning indigo hues. Story books, fresh from press, typed words to life. Crisp mountains soothed reader’s moral. Now it’s reduce to ash flakes at bottom of countless barrels. I read Frankenstein to Billy. He’ll know stories because of me. I will teach him words are treasures that bring truth inflamed.

The sun rose in the powder sky. Men gazed at clouds with inflamed sins still lingering. Our world was at peace. What a lie. Plane engines buzzed, and boots stomped, towers never stood after the turning of the key. We all know the date October 22 1962. The horizon would shine bright red before the dawn, now indigo shadows replace. “Don’t blink this world changes in an instant.” Ash falls as rain daily. Billy’s tears smudge, but his smile still remains crisp. Crisp, inflamed ash towers no indigo.

{Written by Brandi Underwood}

Peter Lattu

Our Trip to See the Trey McIntyre Project

Saturday night we were off to see a dance performance by the Trey McIntyre Project at the Sidney Harman Hall across from the Verizon Center. We hopped the Metro at Huntington.

There was an intriguing crowd on the subway into the city that night… a man in a kilt with a frame backpack… a woman in a long celery green formal evening gown with bare shoulders listening to her iPod… an older man in jeans and an indigo kimono top in a wheelchair reading a small book… a blonde woman dressed in black and white with a gift bag writing her card on the way to a party… two young women resting their boots on the handicapped seat… a woman way behind us coughing… all this on our train ride to Archives-Navy Memorial-Penn Quarter.

Emerging from the Metro, we walked past the Navy Memorial with pleasant memories of its summer concerts. Regrettably, the Navy Memorial Visitors’ Center itself no longer displays changing daily reminders of events of the day in Navy and Marine Corps history. We used to enjoy reading those historic reminders as we walked by its window. But tonight a red carpet was out for a film showing at the Center – an inviting touch.

On the way to Harman Hall we noticed the packed restaurants and bars. Lots of people were walking along the sidewalks, including a couple pushing a baby and a small white dog in a stroller. A woman in very high heels walked into the street to avoid the grate.

The performance consisted of three dances: Ma Maison, In Dreams, and The Sweeter End, all created by Trey McIntyre in the past several years. Ma Maison featured eight dancers in death’s head masks with recorded music by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Sister Gertrude Morgan. There was a bit of vaudeville and a sequence channeling the Roaring Twenties with an ecstatic Charleston. The death’s head masks reminded us of how death is a part of life even in present pleasure, like a New Orleans jazz funeral. At one point the dancers formed a chain of death as in Ingmar Bergman’s film The Seventh Seal. A hint of plagues and coffle gangs was there in that chain of dancers.

In Dreams, set to recorded music by Roy Orbison, was created for the Ballet Memphis in 2007. The Sweeter End brought us back to jazz with more recorded music by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The dancers were costumed in post-twentieth-century urban grunge. Sweat flew as they vamped exuberantly to jazz of yesterday.

The program did not have photographs of the dancers in the company so we could not tell who was who except for Jason Hartley, one of our favorites from his days with the Washington Ballet. His characteristic casual soaring lightness remains and we were happy to see that he is now assistant to the artistic director as well as one of the dancers.

Interestingly, this dance company makes its home in Boise, Idaho. All of the dancers are sponsored by someone, including several by people in Boise. Idaho is a long way from New York City, that fertile center of contemporary dance and ballet. However, Trey McIntyre’s company showed no sign of missing the big city. His dances are twenty-first century creations, chic and modern.

After the show, we stepped out into the street and into rain. Several people were wearing police badges with black bands. Later we heard on the radio that it was National Police Week with events downtown. There was track work between Pentagon City and Braddock Road, so our train took twenty-five minutes to appear at Gallery Place. On the way home was a woman wearing a silk kimono in circles of color on black with a purple obi. Back at Huntington, we got in our car and headed home after an exciting night out.

{Essay by Peter and Alison Lattu, May 18, 2011}

Joy Olree

To Dance

My light it shines for all to see,
I am translucent yet fully seen.
My spirit it bids me dance, my
feet they follow suit. I am for
whatever reason a servant of
what is.

But, if in Gods’ wisdom it was
never meant these feet to move
then let him to my soul speak,
because it is for him, I worship
this way.

{Poem by Joy Olree}

Jeff Steinle

Beginning Alone

We look out to a cosmos of gargantuan expanse
Willing passage into night’s starlight dance
Wise nephilim through technology reveal
What histories thieves waive and conceal
Canals on Mars were proof at the last centuries turning
Chime in the millennium at a comet cult of lost souls learning
Consider crop circles two guys, two hours, a board, and a six
Crazy, silly, weird times and people humanity shall never lack
Iconoclast astronaut ingest the ambrosia via the ajar adytum
Inquire off the pale blue dot for isles of forgotten wisdom
Inhabitants valiant venture off verdant earth to the celestial
Skyward toward the face and ruins on Mars evidence of alien
Sanctum sanctorum awaits, satori, the ephemeral, the golden
Splendorous contact will raise God’s subtle and divine
shrouding
Stellar enormity belies eminent humanities imminent fated saga
Epochs will pass on emerald planets in the ebony void of space
Eclipsing ancient evidence keeping the enigma of a solitary race
Echoes of past revelations where vast galactic alibis will
astound
Eternally an Eden of stars and vestal planets will be found

{Poem by Jeff Steinle}

Robert D. Lyons

As Daylight Fades

Minutes become hours.
Hours are sprouting to days.
Time slowly withers away with the beating of my heart,
But spreads like my fears,
Which have now become phobias.
Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day,
And to my utter dislike, I am indeed drifting into the arena of the unwell.

Truth is the first victim of the fires of ill perception.
The match has been struck and flames spread like a wildfire in an isolated forest.
I try to embrace the sweet melancholy burns and guide them to caress the fires of my heart:
My inner anguish that turns even the robust rose I touch to the reminiscent atoms of ash.
The scars born from these foreign flames branch off throughout my once pale body,
Hiding my soul like clouds to the March sun.
The wounds of my past have reopened,
And I am watching all my insecurities leak out like a secluded spring.
The scent of blood is in the air,
And my predators are on the prowl,
Thirsty for catastrophe.
Uncertainty has engulfed my goals of bliss
As my thoughts follow these hollow catacombs,
And with terror, I believe myself lost in a world of intangible horrors.

A world in compassed with shades of blue
Where even the tiniest flaw is brought into sight,
From a haze of fluorescent light
Far more perilous than heavens gate.
I am at the mercy of wretched fate!
I never believed in ghost, until I became one.
Sitting in reflection of all the clashes that are far from done,
For I have sat idly by as daylight decayed,
I have yet to see a day without an ambiguous raid.
Helpless, I must stand, as if I am being toyed;
Destined for destruction, never to fill the void.

{Poem by Robert D. Lyons}

Kristyn Marie Taylor

Cartography

I grew out of this--
brackish water, heat and oak trees.
I grew out of soybean soil,
under cotton fields beside Choctaw burial grounds.
My sweat tastes the same as my tears
and my blood, unseen, is
the color of kudzu in April.

{Poem by Kristyn Marie Taylor}

John Grey

These Driven Ones

They wrote and they wrote
while ignoring the lives
they could have lived.
They ate to write. They made love to write.
They grabbed brief snatches of sleep
so they could write while awake.
What they didn’t write didn’t happen.
Who they didn’t write about
couldn’t exist.
But really all that happened was writing.
The only ones who existed were them.
They were snakes chasing some abstract tail
and every length of its body
was the stuff that poured out of them.

From birth to death,
they wrote about themselves writing.

{Poem by John Grey}

Donal Mahoney

Wound in Cellophane

The older women come to coffee
with cookies wound in cellophane.
They talk of children

or their children’s children
or their garden.
Or they simply sew

and watch the young girls trickle in,
buy berry rolls and coffee,
nibble, sip, lick fingers, blow

small parachutes of smoke,
and laugh a young girl’s
world of willy-nilly.


Widower

In the miner’s shack
the vase on the dresser
squats beneath
a giant cactus
planted by hands
flinty and callused.

“When Mona was here,
this vase got roses,
and lots of water.
After she left
I gave it this cactus.
It never needs water.”

{Poetry by Donal Mahoney}

Kenneth Soares

As the Mirror Shatters

As the mirror shatters, the glass falling like rain. So beautiful, So sharp. Like nothing I’ve ever seen. I lose myself, as it cuts me a shower of crimson blood. I don’t notice the pain as I see you over there my perfect angel. You walk over and protect me from the rain. As I see your blood I cry, my perfect angel in pain for me. You hold me tight as I cry in your arms; you’re always there for me. I try to push you away. You’re too good for me. You deserve someone ...better, but you just hold me tighter. You say "You'll love me forever.", and I want to believe. As the rain lets up and I can see your beauty. As I look in to your face I can see the truth. We stayed there til you feel asleep. I picked you up and carried you away with me forever.

{Poem by Kenneth Soares}