Better Than Starbucks!

THE HALVED NOTES

 

Just one single scratchy chirp from the bow across 

the cello string, an octave spills then slides down 

the tailpiece. It splits in half, one part falls on your 

fingertip, the other scissors soft blue air, but always 

either too much when joined, or nothing at all when 

torn. If you could pluck a thousand days away with 

light grounds your eyes, and a thousand nights with

darkness turns inward the bitter pith, you would tune

feverishly under a restless sun and restive moon. It

is both a necessity and luxury living within the flesh

that churns forever of music, the same way a vat of

broth seethes with rich spices. You stir the liquid but

know not when the stock is done as the arms start

to drag, and just like ripples crossing the lake, you

travel on the back of fluid folds, tucking rose-lipped

sound of the half-note where your finger wades the

water, as its twin leaps from the butterfly wings--fuse 

together at the middlemost where harmony holds court.

​

Lana Bella

 

Lana is a Pushcart nominee, and author of two chapbooks, Under My Dark (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2016) and Adagio (Finishing Line Press, forthcoming), has had poetry and fiction featured with over 260 journals, California Quarterly, Chiron Review, Columbia Journal, Poetry Salzburg Review, San Pedro River Review, The Hamilton Stone Review, The Writing Disorder, ThirdWednesday, Tipton Poetry Journal, Yes Poetry, and elsewhere, 

 

Lana resides in the US and the coastal town of Nha Trang, Vietnam, where she is a mom of two far-too-clever frolicsome imps. 

 

The Halved Notes (previously published with Chiron Review).

Roller Coaster 

It wasn't about 
The steady rise, 
The steep drop. 

Nor my hands 
Clenching the rail, 
Organs straining 
Beneath bone. 

It's about this bed 
Upon which 
I lie, 

Eyes fixed 
Upon the ceiling, 

Finding comfort 
In the blur 
Of a rotating fan. 

It feels 
So complete. 

It was 
So complete.

​

Kyle Kutz

Howell, New Jersey