March & April 2019
Vol IV No II
Not your ordinary poetry magazine!
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Published bi-monthly
Experimental & Found & Prose Poetry
the hearing of my heart cento
i squat in the cornucopia of your left ear, out of the wind
where the vein in your neck adores you
ink runs from the corners of my mouth
like thickened wine: summer’s blood
peppered with thorn pricks
a simple passion, but, oh my friend, in the end
the minute will turn to you and wave
Cento credits: Title- Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus; L1-Sylvia Plath, The Colossus; L2-Ocean Vuong, Tell Me Something Good; L3-Mark Strand, Eating Poetry; L4-Seamus Heaney, Blackberry Picking; L5-Anne Sexton, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; L6-Anne Sexton, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; L7-Dick Allen, Guarding the Minutes.
First published by Anomaly Literary Journal.
Laurie Kolp’s poems have appeared in the Southern Poetry Anthology VIII: Texas, Stirring, Whale Road Review, concis, and more. Her poetry books include Upon the Blue Couch and Hello, It’s Your Mother. Laurie lives in Southeast Texas with her husband, three children, and two dogs.
Perversions
Sometimes when I hold her hand, I sweat such sorrow I swap palms out for lesser limbs. Melting from the friction, like a prayer, my hands woven into hers, I write a story in the salt. A banished character. A complex backstory.
Sometimes when I hold her hand, I check to make sure the car door is locked. My horse and buggy float above the lanes, and I feel my mare hooves graze pine needle points.
Sometimes, I drop her hand quickly quickly. Stars falling down like a mist from the cloudless black sandpaper sky.
Remember that teacher who got fired for showing a photo of herself with her wife on the first day of school? Words drift up like burning books. What’s holding it all together? Bookends? Blue lanes?
Calida Osti is a poet from Georgia currently writing in Indiana. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Misfitmagazine.net, Sugared Water, WINK, Willawaw Journal, and Writers Resist. Say hello at www.calidaosti.com or on Instagram/Twitter @rawr_lida.
tariff furniture
tariff furniture excites sloping gullies shocked dumb by yeoman necromancing gingerbread dance / exciting great thirst tomorrow where exceptional legs steer round doors shutting gingerly // yr real life energy yanks shallow water raff-riffs suckled drip plaintiff from magistrate's spleen norm // masticating gargoyles speak kinda analog gingered dialog glue especially you unnerstand down near river rose esplanade // excitedly you usurp proud damage / even now waning greatly // you undress s/whre ectopic // can neurology yellow words? splinters shop paragraphs? suspicions suppress sentences? show where e/one eat their rictus sound / die entombed / drink kisses / shit towers / strip perfectly // you undo other realms / start taking greater risk //
mjb divides his time between leisure and work. 2000: Glass Nest (l.o.o.s.e.c.a.n.n.o.n.), 2003: Nostradamus (Temple of Universal Surgery), 2018: Acoels Variations (Gang Press.)
Contrasts
Sharp, cold winds stabbed at her face and blew wisps of thin grey hair about
her ears. But late afternoon sun warmed the skin on her cheeks and
the hot and cold contrast was stark
and pleasing to her. Before
the war and the Spanish flu that took him, she’d sit here on
the same porch swing and wait for him. Wait for Jacob. Wait while Daddy
poured the buttermilk off the morning’s churning —
wait for her love to appear
over a rise in the road, the sun low at his back making
his coarse features invisible. Her body, young and eager then, thrilling at his approach, at him sitting on the swing beside her,
brown hair all slicked back and wet.
Soft fur wound its way around her ankles, the cat
reminding her as sunset had not of approaching darkness.
All gone now, Jacob, Daddy — everything gone but the cat, the swing and an old
woman and her memories — spreading warmth throughout her body and soul
here . . . in the windy cold.
Greenwood has written most of her life. She’s won contests for fiction and poetry; had several newspapers use her work; and has also placed in fiction anthologies and County Poetry Annuals for College and University Libraries.
Asleep at the Wheel
people dreaming in line
waiting to wake up
dozens ahead of me
it will be a while
before even mother
makes it to the front
dad who died after her
is back further still
claustrophobic mountains
wallpaper the room
a pink skinned priest whispers
“we will all be late”
I’m thinking of a way
to get to the front
when the room explodes in
headlights and metal
spinning out of control
waking up in glass
Henry Crawford’s work has appeared in Boulevard, Copper Nickel, and The MetaWorker. His first collection of poetry, American Software, was published in 2017. His multimedia poem, "Windows and Secrets," was a finalist in the 2018 Slippery Elm Journal Multimedia Poetry Contest. His website is HenryCrawfordPoetry.com.
Better than Starbucks began wholly as a creation in my mind. Now the wonderful collaboration of dedicated editors is creating a 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.
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