 |
in this issue... |
Personal Essay |
Short Meditations |
| Short Story Monster in Your Forest By Brian Jefferson |
| Social Commentary Behind Closed Doors: The Secret Consumption of Sex By Angela Jones |
| Confessions The Conversation I Will Never Have With Chuck Klosterman By Ellen Killoran |
| Ethnography Selections From the (not so) Secret Life of Blogs By Robin Lester |
| Selected Poems Truth be Told The Plaintiff By Israel Loeb |
Poetry |
| Selected Poems Sky Spot Asbury Park Summer Day I Hate to Eat Fish By Steve Newman |
| Politics & Religion Defining Secularism By Serdar Paktin |
| Selected Poems Ode to Atheism Images of Philosophy, Pt. One By K. Jody Rucks |
| Prose Poem War Porn 3: i like america and america likes me By Roy Scranton |
| Memoir The Russian Army By Justin Wolf |
Selected Poems
By Steve Newman
Sky Spot
sky spot
death of a star
so long ago
racing through space
for so long
noticed/not noticed
and gone -
if a cataclysm passes
unmarked
what of me
stranded on shore
by receding tide
dragging through formless sands
then gone.
if me be so brief
why do I dig
my nails in so deep
Asbury Park Summer Day
the pizza place was hotter than the street
an anteroom to hell
a thin blond with teased hair
and vertigo smile
for all whose eyes brushed hers
paced and waited for the bathroom.
“she’s waiting to do her crack,
another fuckin’ crack ho’.”
I looked at her
her grin so wide
her eyes so sadly deep
with nothing but pleading
and deadly anticipation.
and I remembered.
I knew her mother.
she was a go-go dancer
in a rundown, dirty bar.
on route 9 south
where the music went one way
and her body another
her movements were of
a dancer’s dream gone cold
inside her head
she danced with gods
her eyes dead, so dead
and I knew her grandmother
I saw her on the train once
in the middle of the night.
her face scourged by the
relentless river of life.
her lips, so close to my face
speaking in a tongue
heavy with years lost and alcohol tainted
so that all I understood
was her trying to reach to me
and all I could feel
was my own fear.
I Hate to Eat Fish
I hate to eat fish
more than any other dish
it is of fins that I wish
to never ever
be served
garnished with
fanciful relish
or any other
nouveau riche
idea of food as art.
I hate to pick out bones
from between my teeth
or the back of my throat
or watch some forlorn
sad eyed bass or trout
or cousin of Charlie the tuna
remind me
with eyes cold of tears
of the great sacrifice to my
pleasure and health that they made
and I am supposed
to savor
and cherish
and appreciate
as for fish sticks
or cakes
or croquets or croquettes
whatever that is
they are the hot dogs of the ocean
and I have a notion
filled and flourished the same.
Growing up, I threw out and up and hid
more than I swallowed
but that is for another day.
All I know
that while I crave red meat tinged black
and liver chopped and floating in onions
fried deep
and butter injected potatoes
it is of greens lusted by giraffes
and fish filleted for bear
presented as a master work
a painting for my eyes
that will grace my plate
though tempt yet not please
my palate.
***
Steve Newman is in his third semester of the Psychology grad program at the NSSR. Father of two; grandfather of two; he holds that it is the journey that counts - the destination is the same for all. A wounded healer – “if you haven't been in the mud, how do you know how to get it off?” Believes that most things in life are transitory illusions and the only thing that has real value is love. You find it - work like hell to grow it and keep it!