Chantarelle's Notebook

Signs Point To Yes

I used to make life choices, (mostly should
I run?) with a formidable shake
of a white plastic icosahedron
afloat in dark blue alcohol. They make
ten positive responses so Mattel
wanted me to flee, only five negatives,
non-committals respectfully. Held
in desperate meek fingers, black orb that gives
such positive advice is programmed
to affirm my childlike whims, reactive
temperament. Pleased to be who I am,
where I landed — if just to plastic, passive,
at least not to men I shudder to recall.
I ran away with my Magic 8-ball.

 

Kristin Garth is a Pushcart, Rhysling nominated sonneteer and a Best of the Net finalist. Her sonnets have stalked journals like Glass, Yes, Five:2:One, Luna Luna and more. She is the author of many books of poetry including The Stakes (Really Serious Literature) and a short story collection You Don’t Want This. She is the founder of Pink Plastic House a tiny journal and co-founder of Performance Anxiety, an online poetry reading series. Follow her on Twitter: (@lolaandjolie) and her website kristingarth.com

Distance

I allowed you
to sail me over lake beds,
pull me up cliffs,
across broken bridges.
But I could not kiss you
with any trace of thunder,
even when the sun was
sinking into so many oceans.
You told me once
that there would never be
enough sky, but always,
always too many stars.
You wished you could
count them with your heart.
Love was the sacks
of luminous, worthless stones
you made me carry
up and down
blue mountains.

Previously published in Digital Americana, Fall 2012

Grown into the Atmosphere

You had grown into the atmosphere.

I felt your presence
in the invisible morning,
lilies sighing in heaps

on the kitchen table.

I peeled back the air
and blew breath into you,
like the fog that coats the sky in autumn.

Your eyes remained translucent.

Previously published in Belle Reve, March 2015

Now Lucid

What we took from each other
were not counterblows,
but inspiration and blue fire.

Diamonds line our memories
like sizzling constellations.

There will be no more of our
bareback alleyway love,
raw scars ripped open
on rippled shoulders,
mutiny in our mutuality.

We forge the illusions
of our idols, chant to gods
of earth, lust, lions, wars.

There are no more calamities
to weather our shivering nights,
no more bee stings to relish.

If we suffer at all,
we suffer in phantasms, chimeras,
paling next to statues.

If sedition ever spread
its incestuous seed
into the trenches
of our feral gardens,
our tatter would never
traverse the war.

Our malice melts history,
boasts itself in buoyant headlines
forged of burning gold.

We shallow our heartbeats
with gaudy show tunes
and campfire ghosts
from the embers
of childhood convolution.

We steady our heartbeats
with the whispers
of our grandmothers,
breathing endless farewells
through stubborn vintage phones.

Previously published in Zombie Logic Review, July 2017

Your Grandfather’s Cottage

This storybook depot
tells of tawdry baroque fires,
intangible bygones,
punch-drunk operas
embittered in brocade,
settled in sateen damask.

The texture of my shadow–
rawboned with jarring seams,
slavish in the shrieking embers–
rescinds itself in rare revolt.

A rococo relic trundle
imprisons passing passions
inside intricate poppies,
grape-thorned vines,
footboard ornament angels.

Lusty windows yawning,
renegade starlight makes
straight for our thunder,
for once believing everything.

Previously published in Neologism Poetry Journal, November 2017

Megan Denese Mealor echoes and erases in her native land of Jacksonville, Florida. A survivor of bipolar disorder, Megan often incorporates her kaleidoscopic emotions into her writing. Her poetry and short stories have been featured worldwide, most recently in Spillwords, Ginosko Literary Journal, The Stray Branch, and Eunoia Review. Nominated twice for the 2018 Pushcart Prize, Megan has authored two full-length poetry collections: Bipolar Lexicon (Unsolicited Press, 2018) and Blatherskite (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, 2019). Currently, Megan is studying English at the University of North Florida while caring for her autistic son and serving as a reader for several literary journals. She, her husband Tony, son Jesse, and three cats Trigger, Lulu, and Hobbes occupy a cavernous, yet cozy townhouse ornamented with ads for Victorian inventions.

kinder than the sun

insomnia broke me open one night,
and the moon beckoned me out;
so i walked out of the house
crept out like a well kept secret
fighting to be free—
made sure i didn’t creak any of the
stairs on my way in or out,
but i danced in the dew covered grass
to the song of the moon;
and she let the wind dance through
my hair as the crickets chirped
and a distant owl hooted—
years later a little red fox and i
would lock eyes beneath the moon,
and neither of us would let go;
both of us knowing there is magic in
the whisper of the moon—
a light that shines more kindly than the sun.

Linda M. Crate’s works have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies both online and in print. She is the author of ten published chapbooks, four full-lengths, and three micro-chaps. She has a novel, also, called Phoenix Tears (Czykmate Productions, June 2018).

Engulfed

You were a flood after a drought—
my soil had turned to sand. Your waters
surged through fields; my roots were brittle
—impossible not to be swept up in the torrent.

Many think parched ground can swallow
the deluge, welcome it like a lover—
but a few with oracle eyes see disaster
approaching, know the parts of land
that will be washed away.

 

armistice

I.

On Monday during the new moon,
I dreamt my home was a coral castle by the sea—
you had come seeking sanctuary. Refuge.
Your confidant told you I was a healer—g
She had been in need of a remedy months
before you arrived on my shores. How weary
you have been clawing your way through
the misty marshlands, and starving deserts.

I fed you an elixir made out of white daisies,
yellow rose petals and honey—wrapped
your lacerations in gauze, my canopy of herbs
and plants covered you like a shroud, a chrysalis.
I woke before your wounds fully healed.

II.

Full moon reality, another Monday:
we are asked to wash away—
release what no longer serves us, cleanse
our scars with fresh moon water—
anoint them so they shine like stars.

This is the final step in restoration:
say it out loud, how he damaged us both—
how looking back we can’t figure out
why we stayed so long, when his only goal
was destruction, a volcano’s lava consuming
everything in its path. Countless others,
became scorched and annihilated—
their words are lost on the wind, or buried
under molten rock—incidents better forgotten.

We must spill truth into teacups.
Let my words be the catalyst—
there is no other way to begin.

 

Marisa Silva-Dunbar’s work has been published in Better Than Starbucks Magazine, Fevers of the Mind, and Pink Plastic House. Marisa is the co-editor of the anthology “Kirstofia.” She has work forthcoming in Sledgehammer Lit Mag, Analogies and Allegories, and Rough Diamond. Her second chapbook When Goddesses Wake will be published later this year by Maverick Duck Press. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram @thesweetmaris. You can find more of her work at http://www.marisasilvadunbar.com

Leo and the Deer Meat

His freezer’s stuffed with packs of deer meat.
On the first day of bow hunting season
he says he’s out before dawn.

How many kills does it take to fill a freezer?
Changing the subject, he says, Is a beer okay?
Somehow we end up in bed. It’s easier

to forget the deer with the lights off.
He says he never let the deer bleed out;
he’d follow the blood trail and take the deer

down with a well-aimed arrow.
I’m upset he shares this, until he tells me
his wife insisted that nobody in their house

was going to eat Bambi. Shortly after that
she ran off with her therapist, leaving behind
a son, a daughter, and a full freezer.

The children complain there’s no room
in the freezer to store ice cream or popsicles.
One Sunday afternoon he offers to make me

venison stew with red currant jelly and bacon.
It’s tasty, no fat. I cook it until it’s tender.
I see the wounded deer collapse.

Let’s go out, I say. I feel like Chinese.
Over chow mein we run out of conversation.
I heard he died a few years back.

First appeared in US1 Worksheets

 

Burnt Toast

When Bliss and I arrived at her cabin on one of the Finger Lakes,
Ellen invited us to stay as long as we liked, but insisted on
doing the cooking. Not wanting to be rude, we ate the burnt toast
and the mystery stew she’d simmer for hours.

You could adjust the heat on the toaster, we suggested,
believing our earnestness might persuade Ellen to do just that.
You’re right, she agreed, as she scraped the burnt off today’s
cold toast, charred bits littering the floor like dead bugs.

Bliss was a vegetarian, assumed whatever was in the stew
must have come from her garden. One drizzly morning,
Ellen swept up the bugs and put on Wellingtons and a poncho.
Going to check the traps, she said. Never mentioned them before.

Bliss rolled his eyes, but we kept silent―better not to ask
what she hoped to snare. Ellen worked in town, so for two months
we’d slept in, listened to Coldplay, got high, sometimes walked
along the lake until even awesome scenery became an eyesore.

Worse yet, our stash was nearly gone. The idea that Bliss and I
might be eating possum or skunk or god-knows-what was enough
to convince us it was time to leave. That night thankfully no stew―
the traps must have been empty. We told Ellen we’d landed a gig

in Buffalo. Safe travel, she said. The next day she handed us
a loaf of freshly baked bread, yeasty and warm. We trekked
several miles to the highway. With no idea which direction to go,
we unwrapped the bread and ate the whole loaf, every crumb.

First appeared in US1 Worksheets

 

The Awesome Wind, Northern California, 2017

Our world’s on fire. The wind blusters across
the countryside, taunting us to fear its awesome
power, sparks the ember, turns everything to char.

Fire lives inside the tree, hollows out the core.
A squirrel clings to a branch. We watch as fire
inhales, then spits out fur and bone. No relief

until the wind calms and fire sates its hunger.
The sky is not a sky we’ve ever known. Ash rains
down spectral and acrid. We can hardly breathe.

First appeared in Exit 13

 

Nancy Scott is the author of 10 books of poetry and two novels. For many years she was managing editor of US1 Worksheets. Her work has appeared in various journals and anthologies including Misfit Magazine, Edison Review, Kelsey Review, and Journal of New Jersey Poets. A social worker for the State of New Jersey, she memorialized her work in many of her poems. She is also a collage artist and has exhibited her works in many juried shows. More at http://www.nancyscott.net