INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Richard Kostelanetz
Karyn M. Bruce
Duane Locke
Lyn Lifshin
Rich Ives
Chris Lord
Anton Gojcaj
Donal Mahoney
Laszlo Slomovits
Alan Britt
A. J. Huffman
Bhisma Upreti
Ali Znaidi
Paul B. Roth
Joan Colby
Rexhep Shahu
Catherine McGuire
Michelle Bailat-Jones
April Salzano
Kufre Udeme
Jane Butler
Jennifer Burd
Peycho Kanev
Joanie Freeman
Jennifer Burd &
Laszlo Slomovits
Frederick Pollack
Fahredin Shehu
Holly Day
Serena Wilcox
Ndue Ukaj
Running Cub
Fred Wolven
Allison Grayhurst
Rose Mary Boehm
Michael D. Long
Jim Davis
Christopher Dungey
Bobbi Sinha-Morey
Jason Ryberg
Douglas Polk
Janine Canan
Ann Arbor Review
is an independent
International Journal & ezine
Copyright (c) 2013
Silver Grey Fox
All rights revert back to each poet.
--editor / Southeastern Florida
------------------------------------------------
staff:
Francis Ferde
Silver Grey Fox
Running Cub
Fred Wolven
Submissions via e-mail:
Some afternoons, in a certain
mood, there's a word, a name
I have to remember. Some
times its for no reason: the
twins I never could remember
till I thought of cameras in the
attic: Garret and Cameron.
Yesterday it was the ramshackle
casino, it's name over the lake
where, for the first time, in
white shorts and tan legs, my
heart banged: would I be
asked to dance? And what of
"The Mocking Bird" with its
kiss her in the center if you
dare. You have to remember,
I was the plump girl with
glasses of course I didn't wear
those nights so a lot blurred.
I was the girl who won science
contests and art awards. To have
boys who didn't know I was
brainy, ask will I...was like
heroin. "Ramshackle Pavilion"
in a lost student's poem sent me
to Google, to Lake Dunmore,
Branbury Beach: nothing. I knew
it burned down as if it never had
been there. Chimney Point? No.
With so many of my friends
going, the name of this dance hall
where I first felt pretty is a comfort
I'm starved for. I e-mail Vt tourist
sites, history sites with little
hope until in a warm tub I think:
diary, the little red one with a
lock that never worked there
near the bed. I turn to Augusts
and there it was with sever
exclamation points and what I'd
been hunting for in so many
ways: Cove Point.
PHOTOGRAPH
When I can't find the photographs
of my mother, it's like losing her
again. There she was, her teeth
still white, raven hair the Charles
River wind sweeps away from where
she was laughing with the man who
wrote, "to my angel from her
Arthur," on the bottom. You know
he is real in poems I wrote about
this shot, wondering if there is
a similar one in his (if he had them)
kids' attic, signed Teddy, the name
my mother chose. This photograph
of the 2 laughing, on my refrigerator
upstate is a piece of my body and
not finding it is like seeing lines
on my skin grow deeper. My mother
must have been mid twenties, her
perfect smile, her gleaming. She was
about to buy a new camisole this
tall man was sure was for him. With
out her smiling and free, the shreds
of laughing left in the mirror,
harden, clench. I want my mother
in that photograph before the lines of
her face began drawing back, when
you could still see the joie de
vivre everyone wrote she had in her
college yearbook. When I can't
touch this photograph, I lose
a piece of myself that held her.
MONTMARTRE
Haven't you wanted, sometimes, to
walk into some painting, start a new
life? The quiet blues of Monet would
soothe but I don't know how long I'd
want to stay there. Today I'm in the
mood for something more lively,
say Lautrec's Demimonde. I want
that glitter, heavy sequin nights.
You take the yellow sunshine for
tonight. I want the club scene
that takes you out all night. Come
on, wouldn't you, just for a night or
two? Gaslights and absinthe, even
the queasy night after dawn. Wouldn't
you like to walk into Montmartre
where everything you did or
imagined doing was de rigueur,
pre-Aids with the drinkers and
artists and whores. Don't be so P.C.,
so righteous you'd tell me you haven't
imagined this? Give me the Circus
Fernando, streets where getting stoned
was easy and dancing girls kick high.
It's just the other side of the canvas,
the thug life, a little lust. It was good
enough for Van Gogh and Lautrec,
Picasso. Can't you hear Satre on the
piano? You won't be able to miss
Toulouse, bulbous lips, drool. Could
you turn down a night where glee
and strangeness is wide open? Think
of Bob Dylan leaving Hibbing. A little
decadence can't hurt. I want the swirl
of cloth under changing colored lights,
nothing square, nothing safe, want to
can can thru Paris, parting animal
nights, knees you can't wait
to taste flashing.
AFTER 15 YEARS
its like not even one year is over.
When I couldn't find your photo
graph it was losing your skin
again. It was there, the
one with your teeth still white, you
laughing near the Charles. When
I had you, I didn't look ahead.
Alive, I couldn't imagine
you wouldn't always take the
car, bus or train to do any
thing you could: make
me tea, stay with some cat
you always wanted more from
as you did me. If you have
a new world down there,
under the roots of trees you
probably have too many phone
calls still. One friend says a
lady bug means her mother is
near. Or when a doll falls
off a chair it's her mama talking.
I believe in little I can't see
or hold tho I have wondered
about words on a sheet of paper
the wind picks up and slams over
cars, as if that came from you.
I don't know if it's good not to
let the dead go, to imagine
they'll be a sign when there never
has. You've never come back
except in dreams where when I
wake up and you're still missing,
you're the photograph I can't stop
looking for, making the hole
where you aren't deep enough
to fall in.
Lyn Lifshin, Vienna, Virginia
Niskayuna, New York