INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Bilall Maliqi
Duane Locke
Eddie Awusi
Silvia Scheibli
Amit Parmessur
Lyn Lifshin
Juan Hongi
Shutta Crum
Peycho Kanev
Fahredin Shehu
Lana Bella
Laszlo Slomovits
Abdulrahman M Abu- yaman
Elisavietta Ritchie
Michelle Bailat-Jones
Keith Moul
Aneek Chatterjee
Tom Evans
Robert Nisbet
Paul B. Roth
Alex Ferde
Alan Britt
Ali Znaidi
Running Cub
John Grey
Jennifer Burd
Fred Wolven
Helen Gyigya
Ann Arbor Review
is an independent
International Journal & ezine
Copyright (c) 2018 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 51 years all together....
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staff:
Francis Ferde
Silver Grey Fox
Running Cub
Fred Wolven
Submissions via e-mail:
PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1 BY BELA BARTOK,
KRYSTIAN ZIMMERMAN, PIANO
Goat hooves tap the ivory.
Wolf the color of winter birches breaches the clearing.
Chipmunks rustle aspen leaves resembling
arthritic knuckles.
followed by wasps coughing up indigestion.
Across a twisted juniper branch a
switchblade of sunlight
stalks a bark beetle stalking a clouded berry.
Elk appears with twelve overcast bayonets.
Two golden topazes blaze forth from the
wolf’s eyes,
wolf the color of winter birches.
White orchid. White orchid. White orchid.
Wolf gnaws celestial hieroglyphs into bare bones.
Elk meanders the sunbaked frozen tundra
before vaporizing inside an ebony forest.
SAINT ANTHONY’S FIRE
(For Hieronymus Bosch)
TV evangelist, the one with the Lawrence
Welk accent and hair
plastered against his skull with the precision of a bricklayer, that
evangelist grabbed my loaf of whole grain rye, the one dated two
days ago, and left me with another whole grain loaf, one dated six
weeks ago, making me wonder which one of us will gallop to
heaven first via our ergot-dotted unicorn of mystical rye.
KINGDOM
Kingdom?
The moon is a young woman
dragging firewood into a psychiatrist’s office.
Every few moments
the woman gazes at the moon’s
satin dress & lilting eyelashes.
During these moments,
blinded by her own reflection,
the woman slowly goes insane.
Kingdom?
A young warrior struggles
inside a coiled rope!
The young warrior stares into the face
of freedom
just before his head rolls
down an endless row of marble steps.
Kingdom?
The cashier at a local supermarket
summons her manager
for check approval.
This same cashier & her customer,
both exhausted by convention,
suddenly crash through
a plate glass window plastered
with detergent, hamburger,
& soft drink ads, to stroll
arm in arm through the balmy
wheat fields of the void.
THE WHITE MOTH
The white moth, with its goldenrod
legs & chest,
huddles
against the concrete step.
Arms loaded with groceries & mail,
I prod him with a key
hoping he’ll flee
to safety!
But he barely moves,
crawls about an inch
before settling down
like he’s depressed.
I prod him again
with similar results.
Eventually, he rolls over
& plays dead.
THE HOUSE FINCH
At the kitchen table shuffling
paperwork on
a Friday afternoon, I’m alerted to singing just outside
our screen door. I shuffle. It repeats. I shuffle again.
It repeats. So I rise from the table to investigate this
serenade & through diamond latticework, below the
dogwood’s ivory blossoms, sits a house finch, blazing
rust with a single lightning flash on each cheek. He
goes again. Short blast of orchestral fire! Momentarily,
even the female abandons her nest, an inverted igloo
of leaves, stems, & scraps of cloth before returning
to a nest wedged into the corner of a neglected
window box.
Three days ago I spied their
tiny eggs, grain-
speckled. Four laid at vicarious angles. I watched the
male flash like a burning coal through the wild rose
bush shading the window box with nest, an inverted
igloo of leaves, stems, & scraps of cloth before returning
to a nest wedged into the corner of a neglected
window box.
The little finch chooses
another dogwood
branch before hopping sideways onto the fence
below the patio lattice. Revived, I enter the kitchen
with lightning splashes like war paint on each cheek.
OVERHEARD CONVERSATION
How’s he doing?
Weeping on & off.
What’s he say?
Wishes he’d done more.
Any regrets?
Wishes he hadn’t wasted so much time.
How much time does he have?
20 years, give or take.
That’s not enough.
Not nearly.
If he could, what would he change?
He questions why he went to war, wishes he
had a job he loved, wishes he’d spent more
time with his family, wishes he’d devoted
more time assisting those unable to assist
themselves, wishes he’d travelled more
& experienced diverse cultures, read more
books, reserved time to understand the planet
& commune with nature, wishes he’d found
time to savor fine wines, digest late string
quartets & attend ADI ballets, wishes he’d
learned mockingbird & dolphin; learning
Spanish was a good idea, but exchanging
pleasantries with a goldfinch would thrill,
wishes he could inhale the pheromones
of an amber wasp scouring the underside
of a broccoli leaf to stalk a pudgy caterpillar
with charcoal rippling both sides of its
liquid lime body just before boring a hole
into that caterpillar’s spineless back,
then leaving & returning four times over the next
twelve minutes. He longs to taste wasp & caterpillar
juices & wishes he was a gold-ringed bumbler sniffing
wind chimes 60 minutes before a tropical disturbance,
&, finally, wishes he could’ve wasted more time lying
in a hammock detailing dragonflies, wasting his life;
& starting tomorrow, he says, the moment he secures
his mortgage, that’s exactly what he intends to do.
Alan Britt, Reisterstown, Maryland