INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Lana Bella
Laszlo Slomovits
Amit Parmessur
Elisavietta Ritchie
Michelle Bailat-Jones
Yuan Hongri
Yevgeniya Przhebelskaya
Alex Ferde
Karyn M. Bruce
Rajuish Mishra
Alan Britt
Patrick Ashinze
Shutta Crum
Fahredin Shehu
Paul B. Roth
Helen Gyigya
Aneek Chatterjee
Joanie Freeman
Gale Acuff
Robert Nisbet
Fred Wolven
Sreekanth Kopuri
Michael Lee Johnson
Silvia Scheibli
Richard Gartee
Ali Znaidi
Jennifer Burd
John Grey
Running Cub
Peycho Kanev
Ann Arbor Review
is an independent
International Journal & ezine
Copyright (c) 2019
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:
Don’t Tell All Our Secrets
posting our lives
uccessful and not
we see the problems
of telling or not
so best keep our secrets
real or not
Stopping on the Wind-Swept Sand-Swept Beach to Observe
The black-and-white duck hobble into stormy surf
as if one leg were snapped off. He keeps jabbing his head
into onrushing spume as if his neck were skewed from a trap—
He is bobbing in pursuit of invisible minnows and worms
in the sand as though he were one of those gulls
swooping down in the hope of a meal
Were I to wade out to save him, feed him a clam
I have yet to dig, he would swim off, escape, as annoyed
at my interrupting him as I am annoyed if polite about
about various interruptions. I try to write, akin to
leaning into wintery wind blowing sheets of powdery
sand across sand patterned paisley with tar—
I may only be indulging in anthropomorphic fantasies,
ridiculous attempts at identification with his hobbles
into trickster surf, but he may be a trickster duck who
mocks my shambles down his windswept beach—
Driving Advice
Yes, do fear death
on these icy roads
asphalt, tar and dirt.
Death, almighty leveler…
The thought
should humble us.
Still, we cry against
the dying of so many
lights, drive on.
Hours in This Death-Dark Room
Can’t keep insomnia at bay.
Below the window I observe
each ambulance and van
cart the moribund—
still live or dead—
up the road to hospital.
No wonder they call this
the dead of night.
We too are denizens of dark.
Too late for us
to be transformed
by surgeon or by witch
into the merely walking dead
How few more years
or nights remain—
Even Grasshoppers
are messengers
if one lands
in our dish
we carry him out
with immense
gentleness
Much Time We’ve Spent
Chasing Zebra Swallowtails
We can all
be forgiven if
we stumble
into the ditch
our chariots’ turn
into wagons
our dragons
to drays
and still
we pursue
grasshoppers
locusts
mosquitoes
Elisavietta Ritchie, Solomon’s Island, Maryland