INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Silvia Scheibli
'Deji W. Adesoye
Chris Lord
Ali Znaidi
Paul B. Roth
Umm-e-Aiman Vejlani
Lyn Lifshin
Laszlo Slomovits
Naim Kelmendi
Richard Kostelanetz
Anton Gojcaj
Duane Locke
Jennifer Burd
David Ishaya Osu
Steve Barfield
Miguel A Bernao Burrieza
Richard Gartee
Violeta Allmuca
Alan Britt
Fred Wolven
Ilire Zajmi
Running Cub
Donal Mahoney
Fahredin Shehu
Peter Tase
Nahshon Cook
Al Ortolani
Alex Ferde
Anton Frost
Michelle Bailat-Jones
Lazlo Slomovits & Jennifer Burd
Karyn M. Bruce
A. J. Huffman
Michael D. Long
Ann Arbor Review
is an independent
International Journal & ezine
Copyright (c) 2014
Francis Ferde
All rights revert back to each poet.
--editor / Southeastern Florida
------------------------------------------------
staff:
Francis Ferde
Silver Grey Fox
Running Cub
Fred Wolven
Submissions via e-mail:
ROSE
when it’s behind my knees
you’d have to fall to the
floor, lower your whole
body like horses in a field
to smell it. White Rose,
Bulgarian rose. I think of
sheets I’ve left my scent in
as if to stake a claim for
someone who could never
care for anything alive.
This Bulgarian rose,
spicy, pungent, rose as my
16th birthday party dress,
rose lips, nipples. If you
won’t fall to your knees, at
least, please, nuzzle like those
horses, these roses, somewhere
IF THOSE BLOSSOMS DON’T COME
if the tangerine doesn’t
fill the house with thick
sweetness. If you put
your hands over your
ears one more time
when I’m talking. If
there’s another month
of wanting to sleep all
day, the cat the warmest
sweet thing I can imagine.
If this damn rain doesn’t
let up, I’m going to
have to rewrite the story
you’ve got in your head
about us and I don’t
think you will like
the ending
LETTER
the other day made it
hard not to think of
you reading in rooms
with strange light
and magical ceilings
so with water crashing
near the bed and a
green wind biting
the glass I wanted
to send you in the
damned poem. You
could press it
against a small cut,
it could make prisms
in your window spin
ivy into 12 slices
of the room. My
Swedish ivy is
dying, I forgot
what you said it
needed, but not
the rest
HOW IT SLAMS BACK, A LETTER USED AS A BOOKMARK
who could figure out
love? Not the old
blues men with
their whiskey and women,
women who’ve changed
the lock on the door.
Not Robert Johnson,
busted and poisoned.
Blues all around the bed,
the blues dogging,
dusting his broom.
How could some old
words make me remember?
Baby, won’t you follow
me down. Old words.
No words. Even before I
started thinking of
him I knew if he
read this it was way
too late
THE WAY YOU KNOW
suddenly something is very
changed. It’s like that
snow smell in the air.
You’ve noticed it,
haven’t you? And know
the way it sends you
tumbling to decades ago?
Smell is the one sense
that can’t be censored.
But sometimes just
a word in an e mail, the
slightest dry brush
of lips lays the whole
scenario out. One shrug
of the shoulders of the
man my mother loved,
one I may have a Yiddisher
name but that doesn’t
mean I’m not goyim
and my mother knew,
as I do, tho we go on
living quietly
BLUE AT THE TABLE IN THE HOT SUN
give him a shot of light,
give him ragged glass
to escape thru,
black cat blues dogging
the bed
He, ok, it’s you, hell bound,
in a hurry. You’re pulling blue
out of the strings. Mama’s got
a brand new. It’s the table
in the light. Cat on the chair
with night scratching
Wind rattles the panes,
rattles gone love thru your
spine. Your baby’s
changed the lock on the door
If you’re still singing,
earth fills your lips
Lyn Lifshin, Vienna, Virginia
Niskayuna, New York