Chantarelle's Notebook

An Art Deco Intertitle Says She’s Sad

The oversized eyes & emotions don’t translate
in the era of high definition,
surround sound which only exaggerates
the decibels of this desperation,
the thud of platform Mary Janes, shin bones
collapsing alone on reproduction
Victorian fainting couches to moan
in iPhone Voice Isolation mode one
too many Facetimes & modernity
makes one incomprehensible in DM’s.
This suffering belongs in a silent movie
with photoplay accompaniment — then
the muted howls won’t bother you as bad;
an Art Deco intertitle says “She’s sad.”

Kristin Garth is a Pushcart, Rhysling nominated sonneteer and a Best of the Net 2020 finalist, the author of a short story collection You Don’t Want This (Pink Plastic Press), The Stakes (Really Serious Literature) and many more books.

The peach is bruised

on the dull kitchen countertop,
a lesson in what neglect can do,
what the lack of touch leaves
behind, in the wake of a silence
deepened when one body finds
an escape plan, when resentment
steeps like tea in boiling water on
a morning that has become an
emptied milk carton—the piles of
junk mail left on a chair to tumble,
a reminder in name only, that he
lived here, that you once were the
pulse in his veins.

These necessary violences

The broken stems of rotted flowers
poke up from a kitchen trash can,
the aftermath of a masquerade,
how death is never as pretty as we
paint it. Touch sensation becomes
a phantom to fingers, muscle memory
in early onset dementia—love is a
painting on a wall, a throwaway novel
in a dollar store. The heroine has
taken up arson, will cross her legs
and watch the field burn from her
window. No love letters remain.
The cleansing ritual begins.

Taylor Emily Copeland is a poet from Eastern Pennsylvania. She is the author of two chapbooks: “Caffeine kisses and long sleeves” and “Monarch”, and a micro-chapbook, “The girls no one can find”, all available from Maverick Duck Press. She is a four time Best of the Net nominee and also was nominated for Best of the Web. She reads obsessively, likes pink things, drinks too much coffee, drives aimlessly and falls in love too easily. She is unashamed of all of it.

This Human Desert

can’t fly over a single line
in pahoehoe
a lost river
a mother buried
the flow
strong enough
to decide
something i can’t see.

You Ride Outside Cities

magpies swooping illusions
highway eyes after rain
trap the river yodeling something
blood mountains
are nothing more than a fist
barking dogs
among the clothesline.

John Dorsey lived for several years in Toledo, Ohio. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Teaching the Dead to Sing: The Outlaw’s Prayer (Rose of Sharon Press, 2006), Sodomy is a City in New Jersey (American Mettle Books, 2010), Tombstone Factory, (Epic Rites Press, 2013), Appalachian Frankenstein (GTK Press, 2015) Being the Fire (Tangerine Press, 2016) and Shoot the Messenger (Red Flag Poetry, 2017),Your Daughter’s Country (Blue Horse Press, 2019), Which Way to the River: Selected Poems 2016-2020 (OAC Books, 2020), Afterlife Karaoke (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2021) and Sundown at the Redneck Carnival, (Spartan Press, 2022).. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and the Stanley Hanks Memorial Poetry Prize. He was the winner of the 2019 Terri Award given out at the Poetry Rendezvous. He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.

Everlark

We sit in the doorway and watch the summer storm,
as it overtakes the mountain. Rain is supposed to be
a rebirth, healing. The primrose blossoms he planted
under the window, catch the drops before they soak
the earth. They’ve been waiting for this type of downpour.

I can’t help watching him as the thunder rumbles
deep in the hills. He doesn’t fear storms—
is a soothing presence, a balm that I find
when I need it most. In these last few months
I’ve come alive, unfurled. I reach for him—
we’ve grown back together. His lips on my neck,
my hands in his hair; in this moment we are real.

Liminal Space

Between dreams and being awake,/ I hold my breath. Wait. The flicker/ of fluorescent lights, neon signs;/ an empty gas station in the mist.// Take a walk with me through an abandoned mall/ —we have been here before when the arcade/ called our names and we followed the carpet of stars./ The thrum of hearts and slushies melting, creating pools of sugar;/ the drip drip never stopping.// We were gods here/ idols in the now empty food court;/ chairs and tables tipped in a resting tableau./ Sbarro can’t save us now, as we fade into oblivion.// Let me cradle this nostalgia overgrown with philodendron.

Marisa Silva-Dunbar’s work has been published in ArLiJo, Chantarelle’s Notebook, Pink Plastic House, Sledgehammer Lit, Analogies & Allegories Literary Magazine. She has work forthcoming in The Bitchin’ Kitsch. Her second chapbook, “When Goddesses Wake,” was released in December, 2021 from Maverick Duck Press. Her first full-length collection, “Allison,” was recently published by Querencia Press. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram @thesweetmaris. To check out more of her work go to http://www.marisasilvadunbar.com

This Is Not The Bluebird Poem

If you read the poem seven times
on an electronic screen of any kind,
computer or telephone, she will climb
out of a digitized hole her verse designed
with each tap of a lowercase “i.” Her wee
fingers the architect of a portal
you would never suspect amidst twee
bluebird imagery that lulls a mortal
into complacency until eyelids
flutter and you might miss a dot of “i”
increase its radius, notice limbs have slid
through gorilla glass, black unblinking eyes,
long legs, last, convey a wraith you can’t outrun.
Be glad you did not read the bluebird one.

The Bluebird Breathes

Spy the shivering bluebird in a drift
of snow. It is alive you only know because
fear agitates its paltry plumes as you lift
it from an icy tomb where it was
resigned to die. It shudders in your mittens
as the sun grows nigh enough to liquify
its intended fate. Some kindness is forbidden
you have recognized too late as it plies
its beak against a rosy cheek, opens
each freckle until crimson droplets meet
to obscure a fleeting humanity.
Flock who wait in dead dogwoods discrete
to devour leisurely, you never see
behind the crimson veil of your own gore
that nurtures beauties you should have ignored.

Kristin Garth is a Pushcart, Rhysling nominated sonneteer and a Best of the Net 2020 finalist, the author of a short story collection You Don’t Want This ( Pink Plastic Press), The Stakes (Really Serious Literature) and many more books.