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:
St. FRANCIS SINGS IN AN OZARK CAVE
I.
Francis sings Amazing Grace in an Ozark cave.
He likes the acoustics of emptiness, the chance
to sing to the unseen, to hear
each note with crisp edges, uncluttered.
Elias is always the Boy Scout: three
sources of light, a trash bag, water, granola.
If lost, turned sideways, confused by
passage imitating passage—he slits the bag, slips it
over his head, and sits cross-legged—the plastic
pulled down to his knees—the candle
nursed between his legs like tea.
II.
Francis searches the source of breeze
in his face—new cave, wiggle room, a squeeze.
Darkness becomes personal, more pressing—
scalloped walls curving on. The belay
of his voice is roped through the loneliness
like a bowline at his waist. When Elias leaves
work on Monday, he is off-rope, the Boy Scout
heading home, briefcase topped
with chemistry, valence bonding, compound
to compound. He walks the snowmelt
to his silver Nissan, gray
III.
drifts thawing into creeks. At the storm drain,
the run-off sluices through concrete
to a distant spillway. This too is cave,
hypothermic, piped beneath the streets
like a subterranean piano—key by key, note by note.
He listens to public radio on the drive
across Kansas City. A Lexus swings
into the passing lane. The driver has a clipboard
on the steering wheel. He gestures wildly
into his Bluetooth. All the way to the exit
on 435—his hands fly like bats.
Al Ortolani, Lenexa, Kansas