INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Robert Nisbet
Alan Britt
Jennifer Burd
Michelle Bailat-Jones
Running Cub
Elisavietta Ritchie
Odimegwu Onwumere
Laszlo Slomovits
Lyn Lifshin
Ramesh Dohan
Silvia Scheibli
Alex Ferde
Richard Kostelanetz
Richard Gartee
Irsa Ruci
Duane Locke
Janet Buck
Nahshon Cook
Jim Daniels
Fred Wolven
Peycho Kanev
Ali Znaidi
Sunday Eyitayo Michael
Karyn M. Bruce
Arsim Halili
Engjell I. Berisha
Muharrem Kurti
Ann Arbor Review
is an independent
International Journal & ezine
Copyright (c) 2015
Francis Ferde
All rights revert back to each poet.
--editor / Southeastern Florida
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AAR history note: in print 1967 - 1980. Irregular publications 1980 - 2004. As ezine 2004 - present. Most of 48 years all together....
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staff:
Francis Ferde
Silver Grey Fox
Running Cub
Fred Wolven
Submissions via e-mail:
NIGHT FISHING
He came a few times, fishing for bass.
Just turned up really, a dour man
(though there’s little option to dourness,
on Newgale beach at night).
The lines would be out, we’d huddle,
and he’d say, “It’s cooling down”
and bring out a hip flask.
We learned about him, how he’d been
headmaster in a Midlands school.
He told us withering tales
of towering bleak estates,
of schoolboys pumping blistering oaths,
of taunts and punches hurled.
(Odd private things: a profligate son,
and some affair – his own? His wife’s?)
The austere retreat to Pembrokeshire.
I saw him once, years later,
in Mathry hall, a bring and buy sale,
he and a dark, pretty woman.
He was jovial, wreathed in bonhomie,
supping his tea and a digestive biscuit,
life and soul of the bric-a-brac.
HIKING TO PORTHGAIN
We’ve all seen them .. in Conti’s or
wherever ..
sprogs of walkers, setting out
to walk long tracts of coastal path,
carting those effing great rucksacks.
And we’ll flick a fleck of cappuccino
from rim of cup to rim of mouth
and think .. For God’s sake, why?
Well? God’s sake maybe? Are they holy men
(and holy girls- sometimes the veriest slips)?
Or is there something to be exorcised?
What justifies the drizzle
of sweat on eyelids, back-clinging shirt?
Maybe some rising sense
that at the brow of Abereiddy’s slope,
the dredge of lung and muscle
has surmounted hill and hardship,
stands them, gasping,
on inspiration’s height.
Robert Nisbet, Haverfordwest, Wales, UK