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:
THE GIRL WITH HER HEAD BURIED IN HER PLATE
At
dinner or lunch,
waves of blond spilling
over the broccoli. Some
times a waitress tries
to spoon feed her
mashed potatoes or
grapes but the woman,
child-like, is pushed
back to her room
where by 6 pm she
begins to howl louder
and louder as the
sun goes down and
by midnight you’d
suppose she’d be
hoarse, exhausted.
But it was as if each
Scream built up energy
So by 3 AM she was
Like a freight train
gathering speed as the
bend moved closer
MY MOTHER WANTS BUTTERED BREAD IN MILK
hours
before, she asked for hot
chocolate, wanted me, not any
nurse. The day after fog gulped
branches and we watched films
all afternoon, before chicken and
the strawberries I was still smashing
Demerol into, “butter,” she said
“but thinly, you always do it too
thick,” and she drifted back. The
nurse said this was it, whispered,
“Frieda, you’re not in pain still
are you, Honey” and I, in my own
daze, repeating, “I love you,”
cringed when my mother shook her
head, called, “Murray, Mama, Lyn”
the morphine, the last of only two
she’d have put in her melting, “You
know I do,” I said over and over,
the butter melting, a slick on the milk
as time was warped, telescoped.
Cars lined the lawn, women with
noodles saying to eat, that I had to.
Food slid down as sheets did from
my mother’s leg, her foot twitching.
“She has no blood pressure,” a nurse
said, bread and butter taking my
mother back maybe to the kitchen
table in the house under pines, always
cool near the pantry where there’d be
brownies or yellow cake or lemon
meringue, my mother calling for my
grandmother is in the house in her mind,
in the front room where she could see
yellow roses and peonies poke thru
where the cold pulls away from
LATER I REALIZED HE NEVER ASKED A THING
About
my books and only a little
About my friend who was in
Science who was in science.
Still his stories were so great,
I’d rather just listen. And the
custard he said we had to great
as almost the stories. Were they
true? Crazy stories we sat
around hours after dinner while
the waitresses sometimes
pulled up a chair tho it meant
they wouldn’t get till later,
couldn’t resist, just the end of
one more story
THE MAD GIRL ‘S TERRIFIED
dreams
of horses, mane’s
leaping thru brambles. The
lure of black becomes
part of her body waiting
to merge. Then it’s
Turkey in days. The
horses like a museum
only the trees are
taller, blacker and the
people who lived there
are dead
THE MAD GIRL’S DREAM OF FEELING HIM TWO MIDNIGHT’S BEFORE
she
heard a sound thru the
window. she wanted to know
what it was, closer than
palms and jasmine that
rarely bloom. He spoke
softly, it was dark and
raining. She was not
interested in Hollywood,
not interested in the years
in between now
finishing books only
she can write. The
words evaporate to dust,
to sand. She begs
you to send something
about you and
the horses
THE MAD GIRL DREAMS SHE IS THE GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING
that
she stares
out at the viewer
with her liquid eyes.
Her mouth is
pouted, her skin soft
and smooth as
unblemished as
the surface of her large
tear drop pearl
earrings. She
hears doves in the
branches of
olives. Like a
vision emanating
from the darkness,
she belongs to
no specific time or
place. She smooths
her exotic turban
that wraps her
head in crystalline
blue, edged
by a striking
yellow fabric that
falls dramatically
behind her shoulder,
lending an air
of mystery. She
wants you to want
her, be hypnotized
Lyn Lifshin, Vienna, Virginia and Niskayana, New York