January 2018 Vol. III No. I
Not your ordinary poetry magazine!
If good coffee (or just the concept of coffee), great books, sharp wit, and great authors excite you, we are for you!
ModPo & Experimental Poetry
Christmas - Past, Present & Future
Christmas remembers your blank face, your green bicycle, your slipper socks.
Santa knew the trains weren't yours as you posed under the mistletoe from the florist. Christmas remembers the endless brown bottles and how you wrote your name on them in gold.
Christmas saw you lost in Macys, tumbling down the escalator, talking to the elevator operator
and hiding from santa. The real santa saw you eating a sandwich in the automat and buying flowers underground.
Christmas follows you through the year. It reminds you how things can change, dramatically, without warning. Christmas warns you not to make new friends if they won't put you on their christmas list. Christmas never knocks but it sometimes locks the door. Christmas hides things and keeps secrets. Christmas only wants you to be happy on Christmas
Christmas is falling from the sky. Christmas is a meteor shower. Christmas is an underground chamber, dark and light and light again. Christmas is a friend of your husband's and Santa loves your dog. Everyone loves dogs at Christmas. Your brother adopted a three-legged reindeer. It sleeps in his bed and he doesn't know how weird that is.
Christmas is hiding in a dark place and wants you to look for it. Christmas wants to shine a red and green light on your dirty little secrets and your occasional acts of mercy. Santa doesn't know who's bad. Santa is naive and he loves cookies. Christmas is bigger than Santa. Christmas is a holiday that is bigger than itself. But still not bright enough.
Christmas doesn't care about your money, or your connections. This year Christmas took the Internet away. You will miss it more than you will miss Christmas. This year you send Christmas cards to people you don't know. They are coming for dinner. Christmas is hungry and doesn't know how to cook. Christmas wants you to go to Key West. Christmas wants to take its shoes off and sleep in a bed.
Christmas will remember you forever. Christmas promises to find you wherever you hide. Christmas is thinking of moving in with you but your internet is too slow. Christmas hates the news. The news predicts there will never be a white christmas again. Children will not understand Christmas in the future.
Christmas will take a rocket to Mars. Christmas will be red and black, not green. Christmas will be among the stars. Santa will bring presents to martians only. Despite what you've heard, martians are not green. Santa has lost a lot of weight. He is vegan now. And weightless in space. Santa wants you to be more like him.
Christmas has retired. There are 22 months to a year on Mars. Santa is a mars model and long distance runner. Reindeer did not survive there and the children are so much smarter. Christmas is not scientific and no one likes surprises. Martians meet at seasonal solstices. Almost no one remembers Christmas. There is one person on Mars with a dog named Christmas. He, the dog, only has 3 legs and he sleeps in bed with his human, Santos. They have no idea how weird that is.
Diane Hamilton
Better than Starbucks began wholly as a creation in my mind. Now the wonderful collaboration of six dedicated editors is creating a monthly magazine that I could have only dreamed about when I was starting out as a one person organization.
Having said that, there are no direct connections between U Penn, Al Filreis, KWH (Kelly Writers House), ModPo (Modern & Contemporary American Poetry), or any of the actual affiliated programs to ModPo and this magazine, other than I have been a part of ModPo for several years now. There is, however, a strong spiritual and intellectual connection between BTS and ModPo.
If I had not gotten involved in the larger community of ModPo, I don't think I would have restarted a literary publication. I am certain I would not have added a Formal & Rhyming Page, and probably not a Translations page. I have a pretty narrow preference for poetry, but the course and the people at ModPo have expanded my view of poetry to the point that I decided if I could find good people to help me do it, we would make BTS as broad of a source of styles and genres as possible. We have been fortunate to establish a team of talented editors and are in the process of an ever expanding quest to find poetry wherever it may be.
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Thus, it seems fitting that we dedicate a page to my fellow students at ModPo, and/or anyone who wants to share experimental poems. The thing about experiments is, they often fail, but as the point is to learn, not to create perfection, even failed experiments in the lab or on this page, will offer something for us, if we will find it. and when the experiment doesn't fail... well, you will see! - Anthony Watkins
DE Navarro is the Founder of NavWorks Press. He is an author, poet, editor, publisher, speaker, and life coach. He is the originator and owner of the We Write PoetryTM forums and the Pride in Poetry PrizeTM and Publication. He is a husband, father, mentor and friend and Banking Sr Analyst, Tech Editor/Writer. Visit DE's beautiful Website at http://www.de-navarro.com for peace and to learn more about his work. He lives in Greater Los Angeles where he writes and publishes.
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​Monster
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They call her a monster: her skin nonexistent, her skeleton naked, her unadorned organs proudly on display. Vulnerable, no masks or face paint. Her guts spill out onto the dirt, but still she is unsullied and unashamed.
They call her a monster: her face ever-changing like an eldritch chameleon, with eyes always staring, unblinking. She is always watching unseen, playing the part of a judge condemning sins committed.
They call her a monster: for it is wrong to be wanting and wanting and wanting. Her heart falls out of her wrists, wailing for what couldn’t be. That beating bit of flesh keeps running nowhere, trying to reach somewhere.
They call her a monster: too many teeth and jaws are on her cheeks. Her face is made up of mouths, of cracked lips and fractured fangs. She screams at those who won’t listen, and screeches until their eardrums raptures.
They call her a monster: she bares her wounds open for the world to see, bleeding angry red. Raging and roaring and rising, refusing to fall, her claws clutching the cliff’s edge as she dangles between life and death.
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Penny Senanarong is currently an A-Level student who grew up in the bustling city of Bangkok. Although Thai is her mother tongue, the world of English language and literature fascinates her, and she wishes to be a part of it through writing fiction.
