Better Than Starbucks Poetry Magazine May 2020

William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) published his first works in the mid-1880s while a student at Dublin’s Metropolitan School of Art. His early accomplishments include The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems (1889) and plays such as The Countess Kathleen (1892) and Deirdre (1907). In 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He went on to write more influential works, including The Tower (1928) and Words for Music Perhaps and Other Poems (1932). Yeats is considered one of the leading Western poets of the 20th century.

Editor’s Choice — Formal Poetry

Terminus

Nothing can save you. The earth will

open, as once

Your mother opened, but no shrill

cry, no expanse

Of time and space will follow. All

will be reversed,

Frozen, as on the frescoed wall

where the accursed

Approach the abyss, and bare trees

catch at the wind.

That which waits on eternity

ushers you in.

Jared Carter’s most recent book is The Land Itself from Monongahela Books in Morgantown, West Virginia. He lives in Indiana.

This was not the first time I had fallen through a wormhole, tumbled backwards in time. In previous time travel experiences I had met with Charles Baudelaire and William Blake. No, not my first time to meet with an Immortal Poet, but it was the first time my appearance had been expected.

When I shook off the vertigo that accompanies traversing the centuries, I discovered myself seated at a wooden table in a stone room with windows looking out over a well-tended park and gardens. I easily recognized my companions, Maud Gonne, Madame Blavatsky, and William Butler Yeats.

The most complex of poets in his inner and outer lives . . . I considered his involvement with spiritualism, his early Romanticism, his role in the Gaelic revival, his sometimes ambivalent relationship with Ireland’s struggle for independence from the British colonizers, and his sad obsession with Maud Gonne. And, yes, the sense of elitism harbored by many Protestant Anglo-Gaelics . . . Yeats among them.

Several great literary critics, Richard Ellmann foremost amongst them, had attempted to decipher Yeats’ psyche. Each had drawn an incomplete, frequently contradictory portrait. Yeats believed all life could be condensed into symbols. He began his writing career as a post-Romantic who eventually came to believe all heroism ended in defeat. I thought of lines from “The Four Ages of Man”:

“He with body waged a fight,

But body won; it walks upright.

Then he struggled with the heart;

Innocence and peace depart.

Then he struggled with the mind;

His proud heart he left behind.

Now his wars on God begin,

At stroke of midnight God shall win.”

How fitting, I thought as I looked at the poet’s face, that this man wrote, “And yet, and yet, / Is this my dream, or the Truth?” in his poem “Men Improve with the Years.”

Publisher’s Choice — Free Verse

Landscape of Remembrance

He paints lace on the sides of ancient buildings—

old rust brick and bright white paint, patterns like

kerchiefs made by ancient women in the old country,

their foreheads furrowed in concentration,

lips moving wordlessly as they count, the odd frown

as a pin drops between swollen ankles or a sound

from outside disturbs thoughts as aged

as the women themselves.

Photographed by many, the tall lean man

on the rickety scaffold speaks to few.

As his arms reach high-up one direction, he tilts

the other way; inhales from watchers below echo against

the ground and the hardblue sky. Occasionally he checks

a crumpled sketch and takes a peek at the yellow dog

sleeping below—next to a water dish, a bucket

for tips, and his number, printed on old cardboard squares.

He paints until the sunglow dims, then lowers himself

like a flag being lowered with respect from the wall.

Cards are gone, and moths have started to flare

and dance against streetlamps just coming on.

An homage to remembered childhoods—

wait-lists for the next one and the next. Always

a vacancy where lace steps in for memories

that words cannot replace, a farewell left unsaid.

Tobi Alfier is a multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. Slices of Alice & Other Character Studies was published by Cholla Needles Press. Symmetry: earth and sky is forthcoming from Main Street Rag. She is co-editor of San Pedro River Review (www.bluehorsepress.com).

Interview Page Two

William Butler Yeats Poem

Editor’s Choice — International Poetry

Our paradise

I used to live in paradise—a long,

low ranch house,

sheltered by the tangle of cottonwood trees

that lined the creek. But as with every Eden

we believed in the magic of that world down in the creek,

where the green brier curled

around trees and scratched

our legs and the water oak tipped lazily

over the stream as if in a constant half-state

between dreaming and awake.

We believed so fervently,

so completely,

that the trash tossed down

from the nearby overpass

became heavenly gifts—oil cans,

garbage bags,

tires,

empty cups,

all hidden among the scrubby willow oak.

We collected them like greedy misers,

pieces of glass in a discarded Ziploc bag,

and they shone so brightly

that we believed them

to be tiny pieces of falling star.

And in our desperate belief,

we made our paradise.

Reena Choudhary was born and raised in India. She graduated with honours from Delhi University, obtaining a degree in literature. Her poems have been published in The Pangolin Review, CommuterLit, Cordite Poetry Review, and Monday Night.

Nominations

Publisher's Choice — African Poetry

Piano

Somewhere in the white space . . .

In between feeling and thinking

We are always plunged in every phrase

Either Living―

Or Dying―

Sometimes surviving . . .

First published in Nthanda Review.

Gabriel Awuah Mainoo is the author of 60 Aces of Haiku and Chicken Wings at the Altar. He serves as project manager to Ghana Writes Journal and creative editor to WGM Magazine. His work is widely published in journals and magazines.

. . . and now . . .

. . . from the mind of . . .

The Mad Poet

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April 28, 2020. Re: print issues of Better Than Starbucks:

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May 16, 2020 update. Print issues of May 2020 are now available. Visit our Shop page to order your copy. — Vera Ignatowitsch

Use these link buttons to visit our other poetry pages, fiction, creative non-fiction, and the interview!

Featured Poems

Free Verse with Suzanne Robinson

Haiku with Kevin MacLaughlin

Formal Poetry with Vera Ignatowitsch

Poetry Translations with Susan Mclean

Poetry for Children with Robert Schechter

International Poetry

African Poetry

Experimental & Form Poetry

Free Verse with Vera Ignatowitsch