INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Gerald Clark
Lyn Lifshin
Paul B. Roth
Ndue Ukaj
Anne Babson
Laszlo Slomovits
Qinqin Huang
Duane Locke
Adhar Maheshwari
Shutta Crum
Odimegwu Onwumere
Anthony Seidman
Chris Lord
Running Cub
Amit Parmessur
John F. Buckley &
Martin Otto
Joanie Freeman
Alan Britt
Jennifer Burd &
Laszlo Slomovits
Sonnet Mondal
Karyn M. Bruce
John Tustin
Jennifer Burd
Michael Gessner &
Daniel Davis
Martin Camps &
Anthony Seidman
Fred Wolven
M. J. Iuppa
John Grochalski
Catherine O'Brien
Joe Milford
Byron Matthews
Joseph Murphy
Dike Okoro
Ann Arbor Review
is an independent
International Journal & ezine
Copyright (c) 2012
Fred Wolven
All rights revert back to each poet.
--editor / Southeastern Florida
------------------------------------------------
Fred Wolven, editor
Submissions via e-mail:
read Lorca
by five snow
blurred the
glass. February. I
leaned against
those chill panes.
Gypsies
burned through the
snow with apples
You in the
other room
I was thinking
don't let
this be some
warmth I can
move near
and never know
IN VENICE, THAT NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER
17 cats ran in and
out windows that
never closed as Hari
Krishna jingled up
from Muscle Beach.
The house I stayed in
quieted by 4 in the
afternoon when every
one left for work. I
curled in a stranger's
yellow terry cloth
robe as if to soak up
some sun color. I
hoped I'd be charmed
in tight jeans and fur
jacket, imagined them
sliced from my back,
butterfly wings, as
angels and truckers
howled foxy and pulled
up close enough to
touch my arms clutch-
ing a bottle of Chianti
or scotch I hoped
would help me flare
and glitter like some
blood sun the Pacific
gulps
VENICE DAPHNE RUN BACKWARDS
the way that sandpiper runs
as close to the water
and then knows, pulls
back, but not
before he's dug
into sea grass. I'm
walking out of branches,
wood, Daphne
run backwards, my own
breakwater this time.
Blue shells, sun
cupped in the arm of some
one who doesn't own
or want to own me.
The leaves he pulls from
my skin are stained
with the verbs of someone
who didn't see what she could.
Salt air chews them.
We dream of Nantucket,
wine in a grey wood
someday. You know I never
wanted a man just
for myself
but didn't know that.
Gulls. Old women
unbutton black coats,
feel the light, dreams moving
in their throat like birds.
They are willow roots
hanging on under
the sand, pushing deep.
In this light, if they
were to unloosen a few
pins they would grow into
their hair, birds blown in the
sun toward cities rarely
found on maps.
LEMON WIND
all day
nobody wanted
to talk
the sleeping bags
were still wet
from the storm
in Cholla Vista
Nothing went right.
But later the
wood we
burned had a sweet
unfamiliar smell
and all night
we could taste
lemons in the wind
NOT THINKING IT WAS SO WITH YELLOW FLOWERS
At night I
dreamed that
same dream,
the one
full of muscles
and thighs
that aren't you.
Later the fear
came back
crossing into
Mexico tho
at first
when I woke up
I thought it
wasn't true
the air was so
bright and
yellow flowers
were falling
from the
pepper tree
like suns.
JUST AFTER FORSYTHIA, AFTER ICED RAIN
Rattle Snake Mountain
pokes up thru the clouds
and we drive past pastures
and tangled orchards.
Trees squeak, green fur
in the wind sounds like
dolphins calling. Above
a field of trillium, the
Liz Taylor of wild flowers,
a nipple hill of snow
dotted with may apple
and blood root. Indians
used it for war paint.
Wintergreen we pick for
tea. Deer berries and
yellow lady slippers. In
this quilt of pastels, I
think of what the blind
would smell, the musky
damp wood, the earth
opening. I think of those
on the island where no
one sees in color seeing
70 shades of grey in
the leaves and as the
light goes, the glint and
shimmer, the texture of
petals in near darkness.
WHITE TREES IN THE DISTANCE
a white wind of
petals, maybe snow.
The longest I've
been so close to
you on the sheet
of paper. Like your
death, these poems
about you, a wild
surprise. The last
page in the note
book, still I think
I'll need another
notebook before I
can let you go.
HAVING YOU COME UP AFTER SO MUCH TIME
thinking what it
would be like re-
reading your letter
like a map, I folded
September, then un-
folded it again. I
thought I was
ready but it was
like thunder you
hear on the phone
when you're talking
to someone where
the storm is. You
know it's coming,
moving east like
most weather but
you still wake up
startled, dazed.
When it breaks, the
rain on the glass,
the lightning that
makes the room
even darker.
Lyn Lifshin , Vienna, Virginia