Author: chantarellesnotebook

the warmth of burning

we need fire—
to shine a little brighter,
to feel a little warmer.
gathered for a friend’s birthday,
we each search for flame.
is there no match in the cake box?
does anyone have a lighter?
in the dictionary of fire,
there is no word for progress.
humanity evolved with fire,
but fire itself has never changed.
no one returns from being burned.
a witch is simply another word
for one who cannot come back.
still, we need fire.
we need something to burn.
why do we celebrate birthdays?
is it to snuff out electric light,
light candles,
& sing songs?
the first person to discover fire
stood before the vast, consuming blaze,
mouth agape,
terrified—
wondering if this inferno
could exist inside them.
they returned to their people,
mimicking the flames,
& were embraced gently.
the patterns of smoke
left their mark in fingerprints.

 

deer and the glass

on a clear day, in the biting cold,
from afar, the cry of a deer.
into the hollow of its antlers,
the cold seeps in.
unable to drive it away,
unable to welcome it,
the deer walks,
feeling the cold,
now one with its antlers.
sometimes, it cries as it walks,
though no one listens.
& if anyone might be listening,
it falls silent,
its untouched cry
still pure.
on a clear late-winter morning,
i opened the window,
& the chill touched my face.
even after the cold freezes & dies
inside the antlers,
the deer trembles still,
shaking its head,
its antlers swaying,
two arcs of quiet burden.
i, without antlers, cannot know
the cold they carry.
i walk,
the cold walking beside me,
tapping, tapping.
on the table,
a glass shivers at the flick of a nail,
its soft cry fading,
until it blends perfectly
into the stillness around it,
settling into silence.

Jennifer Choi is a passionate high school student. Her work has previously been published or is forthcoming in Altered Reality Magazine, Academy of Heart and Mind, and Culterate Magazine among others.

 

Danang 1967

The dresses they wore,
long silk affairs
in residential streets
shaded by trees.
As if snatched from sky
to earth, blues and greens
yellows and golds,
silken rainbows
with backdrops of white
where in daylight and dusk
you wouldn’t know war’s
destruction, war’s ashes.

The long dresses of girls
and women in doorways
of houses, shops.
Silken rainbows on the path
along the river.
I took her hand
as she stepped from the barge.
Her dress of orange rose
with the wind to reveal
a backdrop of snow
in this city where
snow never fell.

Peter Mladinic’s most recent book of poems, Maiden Rock, is available from UnCollected Press. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, United States.

After almost twenty years

I.

in your orbit I realized you were never the sun—
or that maybe I was actually now in some distant
galaxy and you had become a red giant surrounded
by gas planets. Light years away, I developed rituals
to stop worshiping fading stars, found something
more sacred. You always praised a person’s evolution.

II.

Here is the moment of truth: One winter morning I woke up.
I knew I couldn’t attend another party where you and your besties
eager to be sucked into a whirlpool of booze, shared stories
of shitting stars after a weekend bender on ecstacy and cocaine.
It occurs to me, your ex was the more interesting one at your parties.

III.

You present us with Barbie birthday cake—a cake you and #becky
both dreamed about, coveted. Some jokes have the same punchline.
Barbie has been defiled, is now drowning her youth
and reality in whiskey and vodka. Barbie is vomiting
sprinkles onto purple fondant. Barbie is smeared makeup,
from sweating and purging. Barbie is a glutton for alcohol
and the dizzy mess it creates. Barbie is a true mirror.
Your Barbie is another flashing warning sign.

IV.

On the drive home, I tell our friend, next year
I will prepare you a feast, and we won’t have to pick
at the fast food your bestest orders mostly for herself.

The menu:

prosciutto and sweet pea crostini
rack of lamb with figs and pomegranate glaze
sticky apricot chicken thighs
ratatouille tart with dollops of goat cheese
semolina, pistachio and rose cake

Upon reflection, I wanted you to see me.

V.

My therapist asks if I enjoy being a spectator.
Not really.
I courted loyalty over the years:
unfriended those who fell out of your favor,
tolerated your sycophants. Wondered why
you kept such insipid fools around.

Realization is a switch:
Their adoration a banquet; you have a never-ending
appetite for constant, desperate displays of worship.

VI.

Memories of slights and offensives
stack up: birthdays you didn’t show up for,
never came to tea at my house, or visited—
I want to say, we are both at fault here,
but I don’t like lying to myself.

VII

I am sickened by the narcissism of one of your followers,
(for years, I wondered how you never noticed their patterns).
I am spitting seeds of truth: another friend is submerged
in grief, here comes the navel gazer to interrupt the conversation,
take detours to show how they minisculely can compare, they lay
a thousand subtle insults at the feet of the anguished.

Others notice, but say nothing. One of our friends encourages me,
but will not enter the fray. No one dares spark your wrath.

I have just learned to let my voice carry beyond the confines
of my throat; I am learning how not to be afraid.

VIII

You send me to the corner to think about my words,
Let the scheme continue.

I see the root: this is not my home; I was always a tentative
guest. I book a train ticket, a room on a spaceship to speed
through the universe.

IX.

You believe you are a master of shunnings.

Leaving me alone in silence always gives me clarity.
Others have made the same mistake before you.

X.

Tell me how you didn’t see this coming.

XI.

After I walk away, I dream. Versailles is a metaphor:
Beautiful. Glittering. I’m invited to stay the night.
I leave; it’s filled with too many ghosts. They remind me,
courtiers used to piss and shit in marble hallways.

XII.

Maybe you will never say my name again. Let me be forgotten,
never brought up. Maybe your grudge will be buried deep
in the pores of your bones, working—eating its way through
them like osteonecrosis. Maybe there will be reconciliation,
though I doubt it. I prefer to exist thousands of light years away.

 

Marisa Silva-Dunbar’s work has been published in Dusk Magazine, Querencia Press’s Winter 2023 Anthology, and Not Ghosts, But Spirits Vol. 2. Her second chapbook, “When Goddesses Wake,” was released in December 2021 from Maverick Duck Press. Her first full-length collection, “Allison,” was published by Querencia Press in 2022. She is currently working on her third chapbook and a hybrid memoir. You can find her on all socials @thesweetmaris. To check out more of her work go to www.marisasilvadunbar.com

Moon Landing
for Jason Ryberg

it’s taken me eighteen months
to get you to understand
how with only one eye
i need twice as much light
to read a book
or catch the outline of a girl’s face
on a wide screen tv
after the sun has gone down
how going to the movies
is almost too much trouble now
after i spent the entire summer of 1988
sitting in the dark
in uncomfortable wooden seats
just waiting for the lights to dim
my cousin amanda
always getting up to pee
just as things got good
the sound of her hand me down shoes
sticking to the floor
as if she was walking
on the moon.

 

The Nazis in Mayberry

jason & i joke
about the dark underbelly
of americana
andy griffith with a pillowcase
over his head
aunt bee
& the master race
cooling peach cobbler
on the window sill.

 

The Panorama of Her Fingers

her tiny body
waist deep in water
an orange blossom
falling into the sun
her soul dangles
her red hair burns.

 

John Dorsey is the former Poet Laureate of Belle, MO. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Which Way to the River: Selected Poems: 2016-2020 (OAC Books, 2020), Sundown at the Redneck Carnival, (Spartan Press, 2022, and Pocatello Wildflower, (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2023). He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.

let me fall in love

autumn’s tongue
is already
licking september,

i am not sorry for it;

the warmth of summer
is often scalding like a
boiling pot on the stove
and it’s not enough to
sweat it wants to crawl so
deep down you want to unravel
your skin and walk around
in your bones—

let the pumpkins and the leaves
rescue me from the oppression
of heat and insects,

let me fall in love with the world again.

 

to kiss the clouds

between the earth and the moon,
suspended in a gasp of
burning stars;

i make a thousand wishes
for you—

maybe i needed a thousand
and one or perhaps i poured too many
oceans into the sky so the birds
have become fish that have forgotten
what it is to swim,

but at least they have their songs to
give them comfort;

i have this big, heavy emptiness
full of memories and desire and longing;
what am i meant to do with all these
pink sunsets and white roses
if i cannot surrender them to your loving arms?

maybe it’s time to build a ladder
to the moon,
i have known the thrush of silver before
so it will not hurt me;

let me kiss the clouds and perhaps
i can find a sun that is actually mine.

 

Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer whose poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has twelve published chapbooks the latest being: Searching Stained Glass Windows For An Answer (Alien Buddha Publishing, December 2022).