INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Michelle Bailat-Jones
Amit Parmessur
Steve Barfield
Fahredin Shehu
Karyn M. Bruce
Richard Gartee
Running Cub
Dejoy Robillard
Yuan Hongri
Lasz.o Slomovits
Silvia Scheibli
Stephen Sleboda
Alan Britt
Gale Acuff
Elisavietta Ritchie
Shutta Crum
Patty Dickson Pieczka
Duane Locke
Jennifer Burd
Aneek Chatterjee
Robert Nisbet
Robert Penick
Alex Ferde
Solomon Musa Haruna
Ann Arbor Review
is an independent
International Journal & ezine
Copyright (c) 2020
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 54 years all together....
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staff:
Francis Ferde
Silver Grey Fox
Running Cub
Fred Wolven
Submissions via e-mail:
THREE POEMS
4.
I asked her about strawberries,
The teenaged girl
From Plant City, Florida,
Who was prone
In a scant bikini
By a motel swimming pool
Somewhere near El Paso, Texas.
She said nothing, but
Answered by a sign language,
The shaking
Of her Whiskey Sour.
Her language was clear
And distinct.
I recognized
The Hungarian accent.
Although the coloration
Of her skin indicated
She was born in Iceland.
The shaking of her Whiskey Sour,
The movement of the ice cubes
Conveyed to me
That although she had lived
Most of her life
In a nunnery near Firenze,
She was studying at
An Italian University
How Augustine differed
From Aquinas in their
Interpretation of Aristotle’s Ousia.
I ordered two more whiskey sours,
Changed the subject,
And I learned more
Than I ever have before
About strawberries.
5.
The Greeks, Plato and Aristotle,
Thought the circle was perfection.
Roman coins
Tried to be circles,
But failed.
The coins came warped, corrupt,
Deviating
From their intended circular shape.
The circumference instead
Of being devout and smooth,
Conned, was pocked, pimpled.
Constantine, after his dream
And conversion had crosses
Embossed on anything, except coins.
On coins, he put Sol or the sun.
The sun’s rays resembled the
Marks left on sand dunes
By the sliding of a sidewinder.
Nothing ever seems to come
From mints as it was intended.
But the human mind is made
To believe in and obey fictions.
When I rubbed a fingertip
Around a Roman coin,
I believe the coin is a circle,
Although empirically my touch
Knows what I am feeling
Is something else than what I think.
6.
Often, there are rows of tightly shut mouths,
Rare silence prevails when the question is asked
“What is there beyond the tree tops
The wires, and cell phone towers?” The answer
Will always be particularistic if based on
Observation. Otherwise, if based on hearsay,
Everyone will say the same, clear and distinct
Traditional words that have never been understood.
The particularists will find it actual thus arcane
And inexplicable. Can only be symbolized
Through figuration, metaphors from the cognitive unconscious,
Definitely not the Freudian or Jungian.
He sees a silver twisting river
That has no water, but breathes
To shake the bank’s palmetto fronds
To send quivering shadows over
The gold spotted green frog backs.
The river without water soon floods the sky,
No one knows of what the flood is composed.
The flood without water drips down,
Drops down to trickle and overfill
Back pockets that become heavy and a burden.
To remove the burden,
Hands reach into back pockets,
Move fingers around
The cloth of the back pockets,
But find nothing, find
The back pockets empty.
But the burden remains,
The heaviness causes pain, retards motion.
Duane Locke, 1921-2018, Tampa, Florida
Steve Barfield, Curator, Tampa, Florida