INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Paul B Roth
Duane Locke
Alan Britt
Silvia Scheibli
Steve Barfield
Duane Locke
Alex Ferde
Kristina Krumova
Richard Gartee
Lyn Lifshin
Gale Acuff
Alicia Mathias
Sunday Eyitayo Michael
Running Cub
Laszlo Slomovits
Shutta Crum
Solomon Musa Haruna
Elisavietta Ritchie
Yuan Hongri
Helen Grigya
Fahredin Shehu
Karyn M. Bruce
Michael Lee Johnson
Keith Moul
Jennifer Burd
John Grey
Rekha Valliaypan
Fred Wolven
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:
WILD PARAKEETS OF FLORIDA
(For Duane Locke)
He
parted the wall
so that we could enter.
He melted mortar from the bricks
supporting our future superstitions.
Ultimately, this allowed us to enter.
But, once inside,
we realized that genocide is a disease
more rampant than AIDS,
genocide ancient as DNA.
And now we’re petitioning
what new stadium, exactly,
which new sports franchise,
while our children
slumped in overcrowded classrooms
are herded by underpaid sheepdogs?
This can’t be why Blake
parted the Red Sea.
I’m telling you,
Blake was an escaped convict
from the 18th Century
with nowhere else to go.
He reminds me of a poet
who once watched pale blue parakeets
blistering the pine trees
of St. Petersburg, Florida, 1969.
REMEMBERING A LINE BY DUANE LOCKE
He noticed white on white in the architecture of the
Taj Mahal, well not only monochrome sensibility, not
just, but as commentary, observation about history,
a sensibility jab at the man who took credit for the
most extravagant birthday gift in the known world.
Nowadays, creeper frogs & angels dangle his ribs.
Gentle but firm grip on his esteemed one-legged lover
filled with an Australian mistress, ageless flirtation, as
he invites the moon to dinner on a round glass table
in his overgrown suburban jungle jammed with post
immanentist art, cheetah dragonflies, & sacred katydids.
LINGUISTIC REALITIY
One must sail beyond the existential
event horizon of faith, how ironic, to
discover words that digest reality.
One must inhale jasmine pheromones
through West Palm jalousies at the
very moment July humidity sweats
her hips against a cataract moon.
One must sniff, each word the way dogs
greet one another, the reason words
were invented in the first place.
BRANDO’S WOUNDS
Brando buckled four filthy knuckles
against the stained underside
of his southern sheriff’s fedora—
gaze of granite, notwithstanding.
Answered, Whaddaya got,
Remaining true to his core,
and rode his Appaloosa through
the Mexican Diaspora,
championing Native American
dignity along the way.
He spat upon injustice the way
Locke spit after that freight
conductor waved his native cap
from a train packed with cows
Mooing their way to slaughter.
GRIEF, STAGE TWO
After my third shot of 1800 Reposado
I hit the second state of grief, you
know the one that tears the roof off
the place, the one that cracks a crooked
hickory cane upside the head of fate.
After my third shot of 1800 Reposado
I feel the knot that twists around glands,
exocrine, endocrine, adrenal, & pituitary
glands, plus sinews with amnesia.
After my third shot of 1800 Reposado
blood that flows like lava through my
oxidized veins begins to crash like a
suicidal wave at Nazare, Portugal.
After my third shot of 1800 Reposado
I hit the second stage of grief, you
know the one that tears the roof off
the place, the one that cracks a crooked
hickory cane upside the head of fate.
Alan Britt, Reisterstown, Maryland
Longstime friend of
Duane Locke