The Bicycle Review
Issue #20
15 February, 2013
Poetry and prose by Shaquana Adams, John Bennett, William C. Blome, Don Kingfisher Campbell, Sue Connaughton, Anton Frost, Kate Ladew, Rick Lupert, Tennae Maki, Christopher Parks, Paula Persoleo, Kevin Rabas, Anina Robb, Josh Ruffin, Alex Schmidt, Mike Sukach, Tommy Swerdlow, Brent Terry, Hannah Webster, A.D. Winans, and Gerald Yelle.
Photography by Kristin Fouquet.
Original artworks by Andrew Sedberry.
These works are the property of the authors and artists, and ought not to be fiddled with for profit.
15 February, 2013
Poetry and prose by Shaquana Adams, John Bennett, William C. Blome, Don Kingfisher Campbell, Sue Connaughton, Anton Frost, Kate Ladew, Rick Lupert, Tennae Maki, Christopher Parks, Paula Persoleo, Kevin Rabas, Anina Robb, Josh Ruffin, Alex Schmidt, Mike Sukach, Tommy Swerdlow, Brent Terry, Hannah Webster, A.D. Winans, and Gerald Yelle.
Photography by Kristin Fouquet.
Original artworks by Andrew Sedberry.
These works are the property of the authors and artists, and ought not to be fiddled with for profit.
Bicycle Review #20
This is my first occasion to mourn the passing of Jack McCarthy in print. Jack will be missed by all who knew his work, or were lucky enough to see him read. His picture will be up on the home page to remind us of him and his poetry, until the next Bicycle Review pedals its way into cyberspace.
We've managed to avoid this being what A.G. Bennett called "the Blokes' Issue". I'm glad of that, and I think I'll just leave it there, as I'm sure not everyone reading this has also read Issue #19. For those of you who did, "Mission Accomplished".
How long will it be before those words don't make us think of a certain smug former U.S. President? How long will it be before virtually anything we say will be associated with some meme or pop culture reference? It's tough to be a writer now, what with so much association to avoid.
A good writer, anyhow, and we've got plenty of those for you in issue #20. Rick Lupert returns, pondering what's okay to do in a poem, among other things. I've noticed that a lot of Rick's best poems are set in restaurants for some reason. I feel like I've eaten meals with him all around the world. Other returning authors and poets include John Bennett and Gerald Yelle.
As usual, though, the Bicycle Review #20 is largely comprised of work by people who've never published here before. It just so happens that this time around one of them is A.D. Winans. Winans is somewhat of a legend here in the Bay Area and beyond, so naturally we were thrilled to be able to select a couple of his recent poems for you to read.
There are a ton of other great authors, too, from the up-and-coming, to the unknown, to etc. We also want to welcome back Kristin Fouquet, whose photographs were featured in the very first BR, and we're pleased to introduce you to the Steadman-esque stylings of painter Andrew Sedberry.
Well, I'm way behind deadline, so I guess that about covers it. Enjoy.
Share the Road,
J de Salvo
Pink and a Dress
Her skin stretched over her back
like a rubber band might harness a sling shot.
Bones with sharp angles
protruded from her frail frame.
She was a pretty young woman but she could have been down right lovely
had it not been for her emaciated form.
Her bare leather hands and dry flaking finger tips
didn't help her looks either.
All around, weather beaten and worn,
her skin did little to disguise the filth that had stuck to it.
Sand and dirt had also attacked her once pale pink dress.
The first time that she put on the dress,
it had been lined with lace and tulle.
The delicate fabric had wrapped around her arms and chest,
creating a beautiful feminine bodice.
The tulle had been the same color
and it originally shot out from her waist and fell to her ankles.
There were rips and tears everywhere on that dress.
Having never had much stretch in the first place,
even the once fitted lace was baggy along the back zipper.
On that day,
her hands matched the color of the dress.
Same with her hair,
which was once long golden brown, now stripped of color.
It was also stripped of volume.
Her locks were now as limp as the tulle at her feet.
It had been almost a year since she last took off the garment.
It wasn't because she didn't have anything else to change into.
It was because she didn't want to.
To her, the prim dress hadn't aged a day.
She felt the same as she once did.
She felt just as she did, the first day she wrapped her arms around her back to zip up the dress.
Copyright 2013 by Tennae Maki
FATHER DIVINE
no one but older folks remember
Father Divine
a self-educated black preacher
who started his own church
and declared himself
God
with a flock of true believers
most of them white women
who gave up their life savings
to sleep with
God
He drove a big Cadillac
and had a white wife
who didn’t mind sharing him
with other white women
but even if she had
how could she have argued with
God?
when he died
the newspapers ate it up
and his congregation gathered
at the grave site waiting
for weeks
for the resurrection that never came
and the media took great joy
in mocking the flock
writing them up
for the fools they were
but how many women out there
reporters included
can claim they fucked
God
Copyright 2013 by A.D. Winans
Bay Area Day
It is a perfect San Francisco Bay area morning
here in the San Fernando Valley
I would use the phrase June Gloom, but it is cliche
and I am against the use of that in poetry.
I am also against the word cliche.
The Bay Blend coffee I’m drinking is so dark
It makes black people...
no wait that has the potential to be racist.
It is so dark, half of a zebra started a pride movement.
It is so dark, the moon refused to appear in this poem
because it felt like a poem image whore.
It is so dark, the evil inside me cowered inside my heart
until it thought the danger had passed.
These are the days you want to look out your window
and see a bridge going anywhere.
I’ve been told using the word anywhere in a poem
is inadvisable. So if it makes you feel better
oh publishers of words, oh contest judges
ignore that last line.
In the mean time, which is an unfortunate cliche
and irrelevant since we weren’t in the middle
of describing an event, I continue to drink the coffee.
Careful not to say I am drinking the coffee
as once in 1990 a visiting college professor told me
to never end words with ing.
I am considering redoing this whole thing in five line stanzas.
In the mean time. Shut up.
Have you ever had a morning like this?
I have, though you’ll just have to take my words for it.
Copyright 2013 by Rick Lupert
Valentine's Day
In all sense, which is only a foot-bridge
across the brook by the hangers-on,
I think of loving as loitering.
I’ve hung around the idea, wholly,
the way I hang around the bleachers;
underneath, light and bodies cast lines
that score me in two, I call lost things
mine. People release in bits: change,
an earring, a glove. The dripping,
the suckling away leaves
parts, odd rocks I’d skip
for footing. Is it better to loose
everything at once?
Even my virginity I let slip in bits.
It’s not the first time I counted, but after,
when I was alone, scratching the ground
with my tennis shoe. I didn’t sense
anything missing, any reason to push on--
only the boy I left behind on the bank
pointing, you are going to fall.
Copyright 2013 by Anina Robb
FUNERAL ON FAIRFAX
there's a funeral on fairfax
deposed countesses are spitting
chunks of seeded hebrew
dragging rheumatic husbands
to a suicide of stuffed cabbage and piano music
rummaging in piles of unwanted
cossack flatware
loaded in a holocaust garage.
better get there quick
before sharona yemenite she bitch
claims it all as a great day
for the albanian communist party.
there's a funeral on fairfax
the rabbis are looking to score
we've just returned from 4 days of china
the weather was incredible
it snowed huge flakes of geisha girl
but now we're back
& israeli wenches
with eyes dyed brown murder
want to fuck me dry & feed me pita
or blare falafel arias
on the hot rod stereo
of their jerusalem toyotas.
there's a funeral on fairfax
the downstairs garbage
is angry hypodermic
there's heroin in the rye bread
beware of bad boys from marseille
the insane girl next door
screams from the dungeon
of her halfway house day dream
"i need to wash my hair"
which sets off a shotgun
of hasidic ballet.
there's a funeral on fairfax
pontiacs grieve
in front of chabad house
an ancient tugboat
with iron forearms
sorts through her bag
of serious onions
she left her teeth to the austrian border
she left her soul to the pawnshop of dachau
she hands her heart to a korean cashier girl
& searches her purse for the pennies of warsaw
there's a funeral on fairfax
i have just crawled out from under
the rock of a 20 hour sleep
& am dragged telepathic
through the mondelbread street
to prayer ground holy land
sam & ruby kosher butter
where i davin before
a sacred breast of veal
or have my chosen shoes fixed
by maury the maven
a million ghosts of ellis Island
a billion years of jew
buying the same terrified flannel pajamas
watching their women
grow strong as they wither
soon I will checked bruised cantaloupe
in bargain fair sandles
soon I will weep over checkers of gibberish
& when I'm gone just tuck me
in the womb of a poppyseed chala
ignite the mystic carraway
& lay me in state at famous bakery
next to the seven layer
of my childhood best behavior
there's a funeral on fairfax
it's mine.
Copyright 2013 by Tommy Swerdlow
Eye
1. Lie down and close your eyes. Think hard now. I have toes I have toes I have
toes. If it is not painful then you are not doing it right.
2. A toe touches a tow touches a toe a heal touches the bed and a blanket
touches the top arch. Calves touch mattress and the skin behind the knee
touches itself
3. Imagine that you can close a lid over your body, like the heavy oily lid of an
eye. You are dark and wild with the possibility of sight-touch without seeing
or feeling. Return your body to the amber clutch of your skin.
Copyright 2013 by Hannah Webster
Owning China
When I was two years old they circumcised me, and when I was seven they enrolled me in Catholic
school. Then they put my dog down after shoving my goldfish down his throat and cut off my ear
lobes and two toes from each foot. After that they stopped talking to me.
I learned to cope by pretending to play bit parts in B-movies--like the elevator man who when the
door opens says, "Going up." The door closes, and up we go. But the elevator is empty except for me-- someone missed his cue. The door opens again on the thirteenth floor and "Going down," I say.
I gave up on the movies and got a job as a caddy on a Forrest Hills golf course, and one day the man
I was carrying clubs for yanked an Uzi out of the bag and began blasting crows out of the surrounding
trees. Then he dropped the Uzi to the grass and broke down sobbing. I suggested a two iron.
He took the two iron and made a hole in one. He did it as if it was no big deal, but after the 18th hole
he tipped me big and asked if I was free tomorrow. Asked if I was free tonight. Asked if I knew how
to drive, if I'd like to be his chauffeur and live over the garage, date his daughter.
To make sure we understood each other I told him about my ear lobes and toes, my circumcision and
Catholic education.
He looked puzzled. "What's that got to do with the price of China?" he asked.
"Tea in China," I said.
"So? I'll buy it anyway," he said. "How much are they asking?"
"A lot," I said.
"You drive a hard bargain," he said. "I like that. How much?"
"I don't know," I said. "I don't think China's for sale."
"Of course it isn't!" he said. "I already own it! I was testing your loyalty. Loyalty's the only thing
that counts in this dog-eat-dog world."
"I'll do it!" I blurted out, overwhelmed with emotion. "Do it all! Carry your clubs, date your
daughter, drive your limo, live over your garage!"
This was my chance to step out of history.
"Yeah, yeah," he said.
I was afraid he was having second thoughts, but then I saw that he'd already moved on to something
else.
He handed me the keys to the limo. "Put the clubs in the trunk," he said. "Put on the chauffeur's
cap and sit behind the wheel with your hands like this." He extended his arms and gripped the air
where 3 and 9 would be on a clock. "Look straight out the windshield. Don't blink. Wait for my
return."
He walked off toward the Club House.
I pulled the bill of the chauffeur's cap low over my eyes to keep the sun out. I grabbed the wheel at
3 and 9. I didn't blink.
This was a man free of doubt and introspection. This was a man with his ear lobes and toes intact.
This was a man who owns China.
Copyright 2013 by John Bennett
TRYING TO FIND A COMMON BOND
this young kid visited me
from some small town in the South
or maybe the Midwest
I'm not really sure
I was half-stoned
and don't care for visitors
much these days
and I bought him a drink
and managed to bum him a joint
and talked about the old days
when North Beach was alive and well
but he wasn't totally satisfied
he wanted a woman
he wanted me to get him one
as if I were a pimp and worse yet
I was forced to tell him
I can't even get one for myself
but he wouldn't believe it
he had read my poems
he had seen my book
Venus in Pisces
and maybe because I had known Bukowski
he felt that some of his magic
must have rubbed off on me
when he went to play the jukebox
I excused myself and went
to the bathroom
& contemplated telling him
that we all lose it
someday somehow some where
& that it would happen to him too
sooner than later
if he insisted on believing
in fairy tales
and when I was through
relieving myself
I stepped out into the back alley
& breathed in the fresh air
& there was this dog
at the back of another dog
humping away with
his tongue hanging out
and the other dog looking bored
more or less
and I went back into the bar
and against my better judgment
put a quarter into the public telephone
and dialed the number
of this woman I knew
who liked to fuck young guys
but all I got was a busy signal
and I knew as I headed back
to the table that the
kid would return home
and write a poem about how
I had failed him
and I would go home alone
and write another poem
about how life had failed me
in this we shared something
in common
Copyright 2013 by A.D. Winans
Colby's Breakfast and Lunch
I
The sign in the door says No Politicians, No Exceptions.
So I am here to report, America, that my only agenda
Is to put coffee inside of me. My pledge to you, citizens
of New England, if you bring me eggs and anadama bread
I will put it directly in my mouth for the betterment of all.
My fellow morning diners, let me into your kitchen and
I will give you my credit card, as long as you promise
to give it back after conducting the transaction which
pays for my meal. The future is ours, Portsmouth.
God bless you, your mighty coconut, pancakes,
your vegetarian sausage. We’re taking back breakfast,
one vittle at a time.
II
Colby's is slanted.
You feel at any moment you
and your breakfast might slide out
the front door onto Daniel Street.
III
Another sign says No cell phones, be polite.
I try to explain to the waiter I am just writing poetry.
He says it's okay and tells us the story of the fist fight that
occurred when one patron was furious at a loud woman
on her phone at a different table. He doesn't like it when
he sees a table full of people not looking at each other.
I spend the rest of the meal staring into Addie's eyes
and hoping to God I can make the coffee into my mouth
without looking.
IV
You can tell the tourists, like us,
all who head to the front door
only to see the sign Please use Side Door.
The quick turnaround shuffle to the side entrance
a dance the locals never do.
V
Andrew tells us the story of Anadama Bread
A fisherman came home, frustrated with the
mush his wife, Anna, had made, made a dough
out of it with flour and molasses. While it baked
he sat by the fire muttering Anna, damn her.
Anna, Damn her. The bread was so delicious
the neighbors baked it too, and then all of
New England. From hated mush to beloved bread,
Anna should be praised for the inspiration.
VI
Do I pay here or at the counter I ask Andrew
However you want, he says, It's just me and Julie.
So anything goes? I ask.
Anything goes. he answers.
Copyright 2013 by Rick Lupert
The center of the room
I pulled the table into the center of the room. I pulled it
to avoid the image of a racehorse breaking its legs.
I pulled it into place, into the center. I pulled days and weeks onto it;
dust and the shattered moth wings, the flushing of the toilet.
Pulling at the center of the room, I heaped it
onto the table: a mess of books, wreaths pulled
from the neighbor's garbage, the topsoil and driftwood collections.
A tangle of lights lies on the floor, a space heater poses like a lion.
And somewhere, a completed puzzle floats like a glazed fossil.
I pulled a page from the wreckage and doodled a lightningbolt.
I am waiting patiently. I am expecting no one, but I am prepared.
I pull the blood of my heart like a bell rope over the table. It is
musical, it is the heap of all my joy.
Imagine someone sees it. Imagine beautiful continents
being understood. Think of oblivion.
Think of the cleanliness of the ceiling, the silence of wall
meeting wall. Think of looking into my eyes.
I pulled the lives
of suns and goddesses onto the table. I pulled
a horse from my mouth.
I pulled waves from a single heartbeat.
It is a mess of heaps and absence. My little mountain.
My open windows. My wooden cyclone.
I am pulling my laughter over it now.
Copyright 2013 by Anton Frost
Counting Sheep
You don’t know why
I get angry even though
sometimes
you force me to orgasm
when I say I’m done, fall asleep
with your fingers inside me,
shove them in my mouth, leave
them there while you doze.
Then you mutter “I love you”
between snores.
So how do I pull
my breasts from your beard
even when it scratches?
Copyright 2013 by Paula Persoleo
CNN UNIVERSE
Beirut car bomb kills 8
Charred buildings, smoke in air
Chaos in the streets
Photos: aftermath of the blast
Rover spots shiny objects on Mars
Meteor lights up sky in California
Taliban threaten reporters
Beheaded for refusing to be prostitute
Dad in disbelief over son's terror arrest
U.S. contractors drunk on tape
Four women shot at Florida hair salon
Parents: man mocked disabled kid
Will Cain: Room for GOP at colleges?
Court: Fort hood suspect can be shaved
Elephant crushes Australian zookeeper
Man dumped, wins $30.5M lottery
Two-time rape victim fights for justice
Justin Bieber's mom on raising the star
McJordan BBQ sauce sells for $10K
Youth coach hits ref in face
Coroner: Heroin killed son of NFL coach
Duck lives with arrow in head
Cheerleaders OK'd to cheer God
Copyright 2013 by Don Kingfisher Campbell
Mark My Word and the New World Order
“Mark my word,” his mother used to say, “If you don’t eat your meat you can’t have
dessert.” Mark would not eat his meat. He thought it tasted rank. He liked toast. He liked
ginger ale. He was a carbohydrate metabolizer. He turned compound sentences into
complex enzymes. He turned professional at the age of eight. He ate nine kinds of Special
K. People thought he was weird.
Then he made friends with other kids who didn’t like meat. They started a blog. Then
they made a Facebook home page. They made friends by the thousands. Actually,
Facebook limited the number of friends that Mark My Word could have –Facebook
didn’t want anybody becoming so powerful they could take over the world.
Mark got around this by setting up different accounts all with the goal of “Meat Leavers
of the World Unite!” There was Upchuck Charlie, there was Betty No Bones, Chicken
Free Coachella and Meatless Moe. There was Porkless Pavlov, Unroarean Hog –they all
maxed out on friends
and soon they were on the news: Mark My Word –spreading the word about the coming
wave of vegan domination. It gave rise to reactionary forces. There was the Pure Protein
League: the PPL –celebrating a million years of minds and bodies made strong by meat
and meat products. There were groups that stockpiled guns and swords. Dehumanizing
slogans appeared. Tension mounted. Civil war seemed imminent.
Suddenly, before a shot could be fired, Mark and his followers backed down. What could
they do? If they wouldn’t eat meat they certainly wouldn’t stab or shoot their fellow
humans. But some of them wanted war. They said they only gave up meat because they
didn’t like the taste, not because they didn’t believe in killing.
Copyright 2013 by Gerald Yelle
The Penguin Who Longed for the Mountains
Fred asks Sam and Leonard to walk with him as far as the sea and each agrees. It’s slow going for awhile and Fred stops, looking back at Sam and Leonard. Sam is looking at the camp. Leonard is looking at the mountains.
“Come on,” Fred says.
“I’m going back to the camp,” Sam says.
“How will you get fish at the camp?” Fred asks.
“Nevermind,” Sam says and begins walking back towards the camp.
Fred and Leonard go a mile towards the sea when Leonard stops, and turns to his left. “I’m going to the mountains,” he tells Fred.
“Why?” Fred asks.
“Because they’re there,” Leonard says. “Because they’re there.” He begins walking towards the mountains.
Fred watches him for a moment. “Well I’m hungry,” he says to himself. “I’m going to the sea.” He does.
So Leonard is walking towards the mountains and it’s slow going for awhile. The mountains are very far away. But he can see the blue and pink of them glitter in the yellow of the sun and this makes Leonard want to get to them even more. He walks and he walks and he walks. He thinks he walks farther on his way to the mountains than he has ever walked to anywhere before. And he’s not even there yet. He walks and walks and walks some more and walks right into a people camp. The hammer of hammers and sawing of saws is very loud to his ears and Leonard almost stops. He can smell fish. But there will be fish in the mountains, he thinks. Then he thinks, will there be? Then he thinks, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to the mountains. So Leonard starts walking again towards the mountains and walks right into a person.
“Hey, penguin,” the person says.
Leonard nods and steps around him.
“Hey, penguin,” the person says.
Leonard nods and keeps walking towards the mountains. He makes it fifty yards before the person calls, “Hey penguin.”
Leonard stops and turns to nod at the person.
“Where are you going?” Asks the person.
Leonard points to the mountains, and begins walking towards them.
“No, no, no,” the person says, and catches up with him. “Penguin, stop.”
Leonard does not.
“Penguin, you must stop,” says the person, and steps in front of Leonard. “Do you know how far away the mountains are?”
Very far away, Leonard thinks. I am walking towards them.
“Look,” says the person. “You won’t get there. You’ll never get there.”
Leonard doesn’t know if he will get there, but he is walking towards the mountains, and resumes doing so.
“Hey, penguin,” the person says. The person shakes its head. “Penguin,” it says, putting a hand on Leonard’s shoulder. “You’ll never get there.”
Leonard nods and begins walking towards the mountains. He does not get very far when hands suddenly pick him up and begin walking with him in the opposite direction of the mountains. Leonard is too surprised to do anything else but be carried and in a short while finds himself sitting on a sofa in a very warm place. He looks around at the quilts covering the walls, a whirring machine next to him. It must be where the warmth is coming from, and this must be the person’s home. Fred had once told him about homes.
The person is sitting down in a chair opposite Leonard, two coffee mugs in its hand.
Leonard holds up his flippers and shakes his head. The person seems embarrassed and puts the mug on the low table in front of them. On the side of the mug is a picture of a penguin.
“You have a picture of me on your mug,” Leonard says.
“I don’t think it’s you.”
“It looks just like me.” And then Leonard says without hostility, “How do you know it’s not me?”
The person bites its lip. “I don’t know. Do you remember having your picture taken?”
Leonard says nothing and crosses his feet with some difficulty. He looks out one of two windows situated directly in the middle of the wall. He can see the mountains. The blue and pink of them glitter in the yellow of the sun. Leonard hops down from the sofa and begins walking towards the door.
“Hey, hey, hey,” the person says, stepping in front of him. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m going to the mountains,” and Leonard keeps walking.
The person picks him up again and deposits him on the sofa. “You are not going to the mountains, penguin.”
Leonard crosses his feet and looks at his picture on the side of the mug.
The person begins pacing in front of the whirring machine where the warmth must be coming from. “What is in your head, penguin?” It says. “Why do you want to go to the mountains?”
“Because they’re there.”
“Because they’re--” the person breaths out through its mouth. “Well that’s no kind of answer.”
Leonard shrugs and looks at his picture on the side of the mug. He looks out one of two windows situated directly in the middle of the wall.
“Oh no,” the person says, following his gaze. “There’s no way you’re leaving this room before we have a talk, penguin.”
Leonard shrugs again. He really wants to walk to those mountains.
“Look,” and the person kneels down next to him. “I’ll be honest with you if you’ll be honest with me, okay, penguin?”
Leonard nods.
“I’m not even supposed to be talking to you. I could get in trouble, actually. But I’ve seen this kind of thing before.”
“You could get in trouble?”
“They tell us not to stop a penguin. Not to hold a penguin up, even if we know the penguin is in danger.”
“You’re holding me up,” Leonard says.
“I know,” the person sighs. “But it’s only to help you.”
“If you want to help me walk to the mountains, you can open that door.”
“I’m not opening the door, penguin.”
Leonard says, “Who told you not to hold me up? Another person?”
“Yes, another person,” the person answers. “A few other persons. They’ve been here much longer than me, so they know what's what. But I couldn’t let it happen again.”
“Again?”
“Yes. Not again. See, a few years ago I saw another penguin walking towards the mountains. I didn’t stop it, even though the mountains are hundreds of miles away and I knew it wouldn’t get there. I didn’t stop the penguin.”
Leonard blinks his eyes. “What did they look like?” he asks.
“Well,” and the person doesn’t say anything for awhile.
Leonard taps his fin on the arm of the sofa. “My father told me my mother once walked to the mountains. He never saw her again but he was sure she got there.” Leonard looked out one of the two windows situated directly in the middle of the wall.
The person continues its silence for another while. “Penguin,” it begins hesitantly. “You say your father told you your mother walked to the mountains?”
“Yes. During my incubation. My father said my mother walked to the mountains. He’s sure she got there.”
“But he never saw her again?”
“No. Never.”
“I see.”
Leonard looks at his picture on the side of the mug.
“Penguin,” and the person is sitting beside Leonard now, not looking at him. “If your father never saw your mother again, then how can he be sure she got to where she was going?”
“He is sure,” Leonard says. “She told him she had decided she must go to the mountains. And my father said that when my mother decided on something she meant it.” Leonard nods to himself. “She decided to go to the mountains. My father’s sure she got there.”
“So you never met your mother, penguin?”
“No, but my father drew me a picture of her.”
“Mmhm,” the person says.
“She looked very nice.”
“I’m sure she was nice. I’m sure your mother was very nice, penguin.”
Leonard nods and looks at his picture on the side of the mug.
After more than a few moments, the person says in a very sad voice that makes Leonard look up, “I’m sorry you never met your mother, penguin.”
Leonard blinks his eyes. “It’s okay.” He puts his fin on the person’s knee. “She got to where she was going.”
“Yes,” says the person and stands up quickly. It walks towards one of the two windows situated directly in the middle of the wall. “Before, you told me I could help you, penguin.”
“Yes,” Leonard says. “I said if you opened the door you could help me walk to the mountains.”
“And I want to help you, penguin. I really do.” The person spends a few seconds looking out the window. Then, with a deep sigh that raises its shoulders up and down, the person reaches out its hand and opens the door. Stepping away, it keeps its head down.
Leonard looks at the person. He looks at the door. He looks at the mountains glittering outside the window. He looks back at the person. Leonard uncrosses his feet and hops down, walking over the threshold and into the cold.
The person watches the little penguin waddle past the rows of huts and generators, past the muddy tire tracks and into the pure white of untouched snow. Every few yards the penguin falls to its stomach, sliding with determination, little feet propelling the shiny black body forward. Beyond, the person watches the blue and pink of the mountain glittering in the yellow of the sun. The person gives one last sigh, and turns away, closing the door. Picking up the still warm coffee mug, it holds it up to its eyes, looking at the picture on the side of the mug. “Maybe it is you,” the person says. “Maybe it was you all along, penguin.”
Copyright 2013 by Kate Ladew
Cool Gray
Discombobulated as a Rubix cube and tangled comb all rolled into one.
Left bamboozled from unforeseen disaster,
was black as the darkest universe,
down, deep as the tree roots,
vacant as dead eyes,
Summed up, left dead, exploded.
Black bits stain the ground
exposing white.
And I am left with a cool gray…
Copyright 2013 by Shaquana Adams
At The Poetry Reading Where I Imagine Dogs
Our neighborhood scholars
who live in the third person
patrol in panoptic circles
about their garrisoned yards at night
who nuzzle the soiled paragraphs of earth
decipher signs of the dark
discern one car from the next
know what's wrong in the house down the street
lick wounds, theirs or another's because it's a wound.
I'll never be as good as that I think
listening from the back of the room
where I should be
patrolling around chairs
nuzzling bared ankles
deciphering pauses
discerning breaths
knowing the ineffable
licking tendered hands.
At least the dogs know your life is not a literary event.
Copyright 2013 by Mike Sukach
Straight as an Arrow
This is a new
occupation for you,
old friend.
A new position:
Suit and tie.
You always tried
to avoid such things.
Now you are
straight as an arrow.
Such a Somber
look upon your face.
All these people
talking about you,
pointing at you,
frightened to say anything
in your presence.
None of them are sure
where you really are.
Your money worries
are over, buddy.
Full security
in perpetuity.
You are set for it,
Baby.
Set for
evermore.
Copyright 2013 by Christopher Parks
Various Adjustments can go Either Way
Smack me in my Margaret
thighs, if you have experience with such
revitalizations. The switching
of my leg parts
with like parts from women
has toggled all it could
of my perception. Pumps
and tights frothing into the night like
a star impudently loosened
from the sky, panties
like a stem-less martini glass, raising the right moods
in the wrong hankerings.
But these thighs have turned
delusional and slack
like melon flesh molded primp
and apathetic. You know
a person with experience
wouldn’t seem behindhand, wooden,
and smell of desperation.
I might feel never again
if I’m not hit at the right snick,
especially by a body of old Lincoln Logs.
A overused butt
and pass will hardly produce
enough leverage to arose image and multiplicity
in the blood. Not to say you’re immature,
we all perform switches
with childish materials here and there,
but hopefully with
less contingency than fear.
Copyright 2013 by Alex Schmidt
THE ORIGIN OF WISDOM
After the wisest person in the world died, scientists peeled open her head like a canned
ham.
Each slice of her brain revealed a stratum with its own identity: sandy mounds; jagged
outcroppings; green ovals floating in clear fluid, like olives in martinis.
Within the nucleus, they found a tiny heart.
Copyright 2013 by Sue Connaughton
Russian Spies
I am only falling in love with Russian spies
Nothing else will do
A Ludmila or possibly a Zoya
To crack the code
find the map to my dingy attic
and make me bullet stuffed pyroshki
A Svetlana or an Olga
to look at me with dead gray eyes
A pure heroic love
A people’s love
A love devoid
of all emotion
A bond based on effort and espionage
And Trotsky always in Mexico
Playing chess with Roberto Bolano
And Catinflas
I am only falling in love with Russian spies
Women who are capable
Of unearthing my microfilm
From a Rosenberg pumpkin patch that matters
Dried flowers everywhere
Peasant aprons
automatic pistols
the byzantine embrace
of Evgenia, or Malvina
still on the right side
of her hips going
totally Chernobyl
Riding that sad old Stalin train toward the east
Gulags and picnics
All Jewish dissidents rounded up
But not me…
I’m in love with Oksana
I have protectsya
And I have learned to be kind
And not give a fuck
What happens to you
And the sad train
Doffs its smoke hat
To the last Tarkovsky sky
Who could not be sentimental
With Tatanya showing you
The cyanide capsule
between her teeth
for the state she was only ready
to be loyal
but for me
she is ready to bite down
and revalue everything
Kindness is so subjective
during a cold war
and niceness
so overrated at all times
I learned that from Nahdezda
She told me
To not be so easy on myself
And that torture
Is alchemy
that what is important
is to stay calm at all times
there is nothing to worry about
none of us
Get away with anything
Never
Ever
Not even the children
Not even the Romanoffs
Not even the West
And she sticks the clip
In the handle
Of her Makarov
puts on her trench coat
and her medal of St. Vladimir
And tells me she will be home
to make dinner
and I am going to
let her make dinner
and when she walks back in that door
and presents me with my entire dossier
I am going to thank her
And read it calmly
And either she will shoot me
Or we will eat
Copyright 2013 by Tommy Swerdlow
Psychic Sidekick
Dude rides shotgun 'cuz he's got shit to say, and somewhere things are coming to pass.
There's a fester in Woonsocket, says he, my eyebrows arching all WTF, but he just nods,
glowing all-knowing: rotund, oracular down at the Taco Bell. Just you wait, bitches,
and sure enough, 2+2 adds up to athlete's foot, an epidemic at Woonsocket High.
Nostradumbass, they mumble when he whispers, Beware asparagus studded with shrimp! Then the special salad kills 10 down at Applebee's. Oh, he knows, he knows, and when he speaks, he glows. He can predict the finale if you can decipher the code. He can murmur the tumor, the love that grows inside you. He knows the numbers, but never the score.
Boatsboatsboats! he screams, and we scan the horizon for rain.
Copyright 2013 by Brent Terry
Hotel Glasses
When I drink tap water from a hotel glass
I think of Claire. It's her kind of glass.
A sturdy one with deep, thick ridges,
a glass from the Baltimore downtown. Drop it,
and it will bounce. The hotel was closing,
so we got a set of glasses together
and a coffee table with a glass top.
Claire said she'd take the glasses,
and I could take the table when we split.
It happened last winter. I came home,
and those glasses were all gone.
That table, too.
Copyright 2013 by Kevin Rabas
CORDON SANITAIRE
Douglas MacArthur acquired a sharp dislike
of guys Manchurian from his Scottish dad,
and it came as no surprise to Mac’s hen’s-teeth-scarce kin
when they heard he was begging for Mustangs
to do fly-bys and tinkle radioactive waste
along the bonnie gray banks of the Yalu.
A cousin once opined Douglas never really thought
Chink volunteers would halt or slow
their strolls across the pretty bridges;
only, by glowing in the dark, they’d become fair game
for even reservist rifle companies.
As for Chicom lassies who sometimes tagged along,
Doug looked at them this way: those who survived the fray
would sport phosphorescent privates for life.
“Shit,” the old five-star muttered, “that’s more exciting
than any oriental pussy I ever bagged in the Philippines,
the District of Columbia, or the Waldorf Astoria.”
Copyright 2013 by William C. Blome
Just Married, We Discuss Growing Old
It begins with remembrance, which I often read
we’re inching ever closer to
extracting actual snapshots of. Literally—micro-
stroke a living synapse, construct
image from spark, capture a square
of a man’s past on 5 X 7 communion
wafer thick glossy. Imagine,
a grant writer acquaintance tells me,
the giant strides forward now
possible. Histories of memory
loss patients shuffled and flourished
by orderlies like flash cards. Take in the bell
curve of her naked back, the bathroom
sink, shock of porcelain
wavering warmth. The idea is
sight triggers its brother senses
the heart helps the brain reach for.
Fifty years on I’m sitting
beside a stack of windowpanes
looking out a window. At the trembling
lip of Atlantic surf you lay
taking foam between your thighs, smiling,
it might be god, it might be all the darkening
field you actually see.
Copyright 2013 by Josh Ruffin
True to His Dreams
I do it over and over. I get on the train with no ticket and hide in the john. I wave my fist at the conductor when he throws me from the platform between cars. I follow the tracks back to the station and do it again.
Now and then there's a new conductor and I tell him about the sick wife, the dead children, the rabid dog. Nine times out of ten he takes me to the bar car and buys me a drink. Lets me ride to Peoria. Slips me a five spot and tells me to go home, start again, try harder. I will, I say, I will. And then I do it again.
How long has this been going on? About as far back as I can remember, around the age of two. I climbed into a livestock car on the Lionel train set my big brother got for his birthday. I did it at night when the house was dark. First I had to take out the plastic cows and set them on the plastic infield grass. They began grazing and mooing, not loudly tho, they were so tiny and plastic. Still, I admonished them, and they stopped. They knew I was the one who had set them free.
I kept my pajamas on but took off my slippers. I went in feet first and curled into a ball. I put my thumb in my mouth, a habit I have to this day.
It was the first train I got thrown from, or pulled out of, as the case may be, and it was no easy task. They had to grease me with butter. My father was set to tan me good when they finally got me out, but my mother stepped in. "He's just a child!" she said. "He doesn't know any better!"
"The back of my hand will teach him a thing or two," said my father, and my mother pulled me tight to her dressing gown, bird's-egg blue with a red fluffy collar.
Other than that, I was never much trouble. I played war alone in the forest behind our house and died many deaths. I came home missing arms and legs and with a chest full of medals. I married Goat Girl, who, they insisted, did not exist. They said the same was true of our two children, born with war wounds and dead by the ages of six and two.
The rabid dog was another matter. He bit my father and they put him down, and that's when I hit the road.
Copyright 2013 by John Bennett
vivisepulture
The weight of the earth is killing.
Do not eat its cabbages
They are deadly with ashes.
I am floating in a swimming pool
Behind a roach-spell motel, a cardboard
Train car “The Adicus Finch” stuffed
With red velvet rolls through the bitter-blue
Water. I hold my breath inside of him. I run
My hands over the oily velvet. I rummage
For pockets of air.
Copyright 2013 by Hannah Webster
Moments in the History of the Struggle When the Whole
Noodle Toppled on its Side
You said the drummer wasn’t the only one in the hamlet who was
amused when lovers whispered one another’s secrets in his ear.
You said
it was for his benefit, their desire to drown in the lair of wide
bodied want –but he recorded it in drumbeats everybody
listened to, though his influence eventually faded to a golden glow.
Critics said he lost it, his fingers arthritic, beginning to bend,
everything beginning to dodder.
It’s like you were saying: You were with him in the beechnut’s
umbrella and you didn’t answer his calls –or you did and the
music overlaid it.
You had this sinking feeling that your chute wouldn’t open, but
the drummer never drifted into mantis land without protection.
He wanted to see if you wanted to ride down branches in the firs.
You were worried about the stew meat you could’ve marinated.
His goats ran their herders ragged, eating bark off acacias,
leaving the commons worse than anyone could have predicted.
Then they ate the skin off his gong. They had to ice-pack
a lot of ax wounds after that. They had to beg for the crumbs they
normally got for nothing.
Nothing made him jump like the chance to mix the large
with the small so his boss wouldn’t double him up for his trouble.
Copyright 2013 by Gerald Yelle
Haiku
Ever play Strip Frank
O’Hara? You read his poems
then take off your clothes.
Copyright 2013 by Rick Lupert
The Bicycle Review #20 was edited and curated by J de Salvo and Jeff Kappel.
