Featured Poet #16

POETRY:



Fragment from a Nonexistent Yiddish Poet

Ida Lewin (1906-1938)
AlwaysWinter, Poland

29.

I think she must be Death—
the one who knocked today,
a stranger with her box
          of poisoned sweets
to sweeten me.
The locks screeched
like a child when I let
her in. They knew her voice,
wet and green as snot.
The hallway knew
her too. How could it not?
She dragged her shoes
across the knots,
                    as if her soles
had memorized the wood,
as if her feet
or feet like hers had stood
in that same spot before.
I took her sweets but watched
her sharpened fingernails.
A treat               she hissed.
I choked on chocolate filled
with wine, purple-black
as iodine.



Fragment from a Nonexistent Yiddish Poet

Ida Lewin (1906-1938)
AlwaysWinter, Poland

32.

In the city of machines,
the trolley track transforms
into a river. I follow it,
the dirge of humming rails
     more liquid-resonant
                    than any Vistula.
There’s meaning in metal,
although the books proclaim
that only stone can answer
to our exile          only glass
is vessel for the soul.
I do not weep beside
this Babylon, nor drown
the way my mother might
have done. I am the modern voice
and this my lamentation,
          a current borne
on electricity and steel



Bio: Jehanne Dubrow

Jehanne Dubrow’s work has appeared in Poetry, The Hudson Review, New England Review, Shenandoah, Barrow Street, and Gulf Coast. Finishing Line Press published her chapbook The Promised Bride. Her full-length collection, The Hardship Post, won the 2007 Three Candles Press First Book Prize and will be published in late 2008.



Featured Poet #15

POETRY:



Drunk Driving Lessons from the Miraculous Alcoholics

When the miraculous alcoholics gun their engines
And drag race the wrong way on a one way,
Their arms and legs suggesting street signs need to be revised,
Police agree their impaired motor skills provide more thrilling rides
And are so happy for them, especially as they take air over bumps
In the backwoods or hills. They issue no DUIs.
It’s a miracle they’re still alive, the way they’re swilling
Vodka, gin, whiskey and vermouth, their garage
A bottle collage, a private liquor store. Boozed
Up dipsomaniacs, reckless from Kalamazoo to Duluth,
No small miracle it is they find their way home at night.
What nerve they have to whoop out loud,
Honking at the cops, swerving with delight.


Festive Pastimes of the Miraculous Alcoholics

The miraculous alcoholics spool whirlpools
And spin them on their hips like hulahoops,
Whereupon they appear to be drowning.
Slack as kraken, they’re the type rumored to mutiny,
Hands daft as masts, blasted captains, dabbling damned Ahabs.
Their every revolution circumscribes Bermuda Triangles,
To hear them tell it, as they recline, dangling legs
Over ship railings like the skinniest of fishing poles.
Sinfully drinking flips and swinging eggnogs,
A coastguard of poltroons, mugs foaming with rumfustian,
Albatross tossed into the sea, unsold on omens,
Spies to the last man, rebelliously seeing right through
The veritable spyglass of piracy.


Bio: Matt Schumacher

Matt Schumacher recently published a first book, Spilling the Moon, and won the Well Lit Press Chapbook Contest with a short version of a second book, Fire Diary. Poems have recently appeared in ZYZZYVA and Green Mountains Review’s American Apocalypse Issue.



Featured Poet #14

POETRY:



The Preacher Man Saves Lily’s Soul (1914)

I. The land is as the Garden of Eden before him

Isaiah Jackson flee Mississippi,
steamer to Providence, raise up he voice
in a fire of holiness, shout out
salvation abroad—
          pour down Spirit
          pour down!

The preacher man plaster revival
on lampposts, plant him a tent
in a field—
          pour
          down Spirit
          pour down!

The Whore and the Horseman, they ride against nations.
The love of all people gone cold—

          pour down
          Spirit
                    pour
                    down!

II. Gather the people, sanctify the congregation

Isaiah set they soul afire. Lily wake, clapping hymns
to the night. Her sister sigh out of sleeping,
the dark air all live-up with light. They follow they mother
to the white tent cross Bain Town. Dark fingers lace white.

Isaiah call down Father, Son, and Holy Fire:
          Raise them stones up, scorpion-walker,
                    Raise up people in his name!
          Take that cross up, serpent-handler,
                    Cast out demons in his name!

When news headlines strike young men afire,
Saiah cry out, Take arms up and fight!
He raise he flame-voice up in prayer.
          Blaze down Spirit!
          Catch light!

III. I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh

Lily watch the preacher face ignite.
The world catch fire, Lily flame and fall,
and new words sparkle from her mouth.

She come home from the meeting Christ-ridden, bright.


The Carpenter Seals Lily’s Widowhood (1943)

While Nassau fixed its eyes on dukes and counts
and murdered knights, while every mouth was fat
with feathered corpses, cindered beds and fingerprints
on screens too charred to trust, with forearms scarred and burned,
with shady gumshoes, Nazis, Dagoes, Swedes and Jews,
diverted lawyers, loyal wives — Eddie faltered in the heat.

Each day his limb-bloat hardened. Poison twisted in his gut.
His skin grew deadleaf dry and black like clouds drawn thick
across the sky. He couldn’t piss; he couldn’t sweat; and when his heart
made flutters in his chest, he whispered, Love, my house is burning.

Lily checked the stove, the yard, the sky, and whispered back:
No fire here. But Eddie smiled. He knew the truth, and lacked
the words to tell it. The doctor stopped at the bedroom door
and beckoned Lily, shook his head. My dear, he said, no fire there.


Bio: Nicolette Bethel

Nicolette Bethel was born and raised in Nassau, Bahamas, where she currently resides. She is a playwright, poet, fiction writer and anthropologist. Her work has been published in The Caribbean Writer, Calabash, Eclectica, Words-Myth, Trespass Magazine, The American Poetry Journal, The Avatar Review, The Barefoot Muse, and elsewhere.



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