Read the PDF - Gnarled Oak
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Read the PDF - Gnarled Oak
Gnarled Oak Issue 5: The Globe in My Pocket Oct-Nov 2015 Gnarled Oak is an online literary journal publishing poetry, prose, artwork, and videos four times per year. This issue was originally published online from Oct-Nov 2015 and is archived at gnarledoak.org/category/issue-5/ Editor and publisher: James Brush Cover: detail from “Jackie O’s Strange New Life” by Elby Rogers Title: from “the globe in my pocket” by Ehizogie Iyeomoan All copyrights are retained by the original authors and artists. Website: gnarledoak.org (please visit the website for the current issue, submissions info, and past issues) Like on Facebook: facebook.com/gnarledoak Follow on Twitter @gnarled_oak Contents the globe in my pocket — Ehizogie Iyeomoan 1 Poem Where No One Thinks about Death — Glen Armstrong 2 playing my guitar — Brian Robertson 3 the blues — Herb Kauderer 4 Agnes Martin at Tate Modern — Jean Morris 5 Aubade: A Parallel Poem — Yuan Changming 6 Big Shot Family — Paul Beckman 7 Jackie O’s Strange New Life — Elby Rogers 9 moving sale — Sheila Sondik 10 Renovation (A Fragment) — Ben Meyerson 11 a single cloud — Shloka Shankar 12 Poem — Howie Good 13 Deconstruction — Olivier Schopfer 14 masquerade ball — Archana Kapoor Nagpal 15 The Halloween Quintet — Judy Salz 16 Boyhood Buoys (4): Frogmeat Sale — Yuan Changming 18 Apex — Mary McCarthy 19 Thunder — Leah Browning 20 read-letter day — David Kelly 21 Holiday — Rachel Nix 22 spring breeze — Kala Ramesh 23 the tightening — Debbie Strange 24 Shoal — Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco 25 Year of Glass — Katie Gleason 27 Eagle — Kenneth Pobo 28 My Mother’s Voice — Mary Kendall 29 China Seagull — Jo Waterworth 30 across the open sea — j.lewis 31 Nightswimmer’s Purgatorial — Todd Mercer 32 Mountains Will Break Your Heart, If You Let Them — Trish Saunders 33 Editor’s Note 34 Contributor Bios 35 the globe in my pocket Ehizogie Iyeomoan i shall squeeze the globe tuck it into my pocket then like a child with coins and pebbles stuffed in the left of his shorts i shall rub africa against the americas asia and antarctica and australia with a rope picked in europe i shall bind the stones and pebbles into one whole lump and when i am done i shall pull it out out of my pocket again and zip it up, the lump with a glowing holy kiss 1 Poem Where No One Thinks about Death Glen Armstrong It feels good to think, to be thought of and to be touched (well, sometimes.) I think of my skin as some weird mix of snack food and lighting effects. The radio station describes imaginary places. When one song stops, the next song just sort of explodes. It feels good to listen. It feels good to sing along. 2 playing my guitar Brian Robertson playing my guitar an old song I remember but my fingers don’t 3 the blues Herb Kauderer the blues is when you know you can’t hit half the notes & the people around you are gonna look at you like your skin is purple but you sing anyways & plenty loud cause it feels so good & it ain’t supposed to be pretty 4 Agnes Martin at Tate Modern Jean Morris 5 Aubade: A Parallel Poem Yuan Changming You might have stayed up All night, clicking at every link To your daydream, searching For a soulmate in the cyberspace You might have enjoyed an early dose Of original sin between sleep and wake Before packing up all your seasonal greetings With your luggage to catch the first plane Or sitting up in meditation With every sensory cell Widely open to receive Blue dews from nirvana But you did not. Rather, you have just Had another long fit of insomnia and Now in this antlike moment, you are Imagining a lucky morning glow That is darting along the horizon 6 Big Shot Family Paul Beckman I’m a Big Shot. Not really now. Not any more. But once and for a considerable amount of time I was. I liked being a Big Shot and I especially enjoyed knowing that people thought that I was a big shot but I never acted the part. The truth is that I’ve always been rather shy and the second truth is that I forget people’s names and faces. So, while they thought of me as a big shot they also thought of me as being snobby which I was anything but. I took to smiling and nodding at people and as it turned out most were people I’d never met so the women thought I was coming on to them and a lot of the men thought the same. So I got another label. What I didn’t need was another label ’cause I couldn’t live up to the first one. I gave to a lot of charities and causes and allowed myself to be photographed holding a five foot long check along with someone from the organization smiling for the camera knowing that it would be in the local paper. I could just hear the readers saying “Look. Here’s Mr. Big Shot again.” I didn’t lose everything in the bankruptcy, but I lost a lot and it was public and there were people that came up to me and said, “So, Mr. Big Shot how does it feel to be one of us?” I passed small groups or saw people glancing at me in local restaurants and I knew what they were thinking and gossiping about. I worked hard and made a business comeback but I couldn’t give to every charity anymore so people who solicited me and were turned down spread the word that I was too much of a big shot to help their small causes. I finally came up with a plan. Since I was a big shot in a town of fifteen thousand I 7 decided to move to a smaller town one of three thousand or less and I have enough left over to be thought of as a big shot again. My wife didn’t think that this was a good plan. She didn’t want to leave her friends and comfortable surroundings. She said I was making too much of nothing but then again she was never thought of as a Big Shot so she couldn’t know and she slowly began to sabotage me and my plans. She joined the garden club and had her picture in the Local planting flowers in the town park. There was another picture when she became president of the Garden Club. She took on a leading role in Meals on Wheels and then she became the first woman volunteer fire fighter and the publicity was enormous. Pictures and more pictures. She told me that people said that I was too snobby to have my picture in the Local anymore. She led a group knitting hats for soldiers and spent half a day a week at Hospice. She volunteered at the school library and marched with other volunteers in the Fourth of July Parade. The Local had her on the cover page as one of the towns Citizens of the Year and did a full page story with nary a mention of me. Now we can’t move because my wife’s a Big Shot and she says the town needs her. But let me tell you this; when I was a Big Shot I was a Bigger Shot than she’ll ever be but I’m not jealous, not at all-just invisible. 8 Jackie O’s Strange New Life Elby Rogers 9 moving sale Sheila Sondik moving sale we make a bunch of new friends 10 Renovation (A Fragment) Ben Meyerson The town still smells of horses long after. The dim sky senses moisture with piqued nostrils, gathering across lipped leaves in whorls, perspiring. Bricks do not sweat out the flesh that warmed them; animal musk remains long past the animal: rainwater canters and snorts its way from cloud to earth and back — gone and gone then gone again, hooves steady in their distance, like a patch of road where there is always an engine churning its flanks, dim sky lathered and heaving with steam. 11 a single cloud Shloka Shankar a single cloud grazes over another in an azure sky the nothing and everything of my moods 12 Poem Howie Good I have a memory of something that never happened. And that isn’t even the best part. “Hey mister!” a small, dark voice shouted, because it was small and dark and because anyone I would ever love was clomping around upstairs. 13 Deconstruction Olivier Schopfer 14 masquerade ball Archana Kapoor Nagpal masquerade ball under the makeup my wrinkles 15 The Halloween Quintet Judy Salz Do you remember the sound of the violins during the shower scene in Psycho? Two discordant notes, shrill and staccato, repeatedly assaulted our ears, heightening the fear. My nightgown and sheets are soaked with my acrid sweat as the violins shriek in my mind. What is that shadow outside my bedroom window? I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the specter to be gone. When I peek, it has grown and changed shape, waving grotesquely twisted arms, beckoning me closer. This must be my punishment for too many cocktails at the Halloween party last night. A throaty moaning, deep and singsong and utterly alien shatters the silence. I respond with a high pitched scream and the thing modulates to match mine in a macabre synchrony. The moaning takes on a pitch and rhythm unlike anything earthly. Mournful. Plaintive. Lovesick? I suppress a giggle at the thought, dissipating some of the terror. My window is open a crack and a fresh wave of terror washes over me. What if it comes in? Idiot, I tell myself. It’s an alien. It goes through walls. I tentatively sing a short phrase from a long forgotten song, mentally kicking myself for goading it on. Its raspy voice repeats the snippet in a different key. Curiosity begins to overcome my terror. I crawl toward the window, low to the ground so it can’t see me, forgetting that it can probably also see through walls. Still, it remains motionless, non-threatening, apparently waiting for me. The violins in my head and my rapid heartbeat continue to beat together as a rapid trio, almost synchronously, but just off enough to create a pattern. As I near the window, it picks up 16 the cadence and adds a rumble in counterpoint. Can it feel my fear and fascination? We are now a quartet. I stand by the window silently, seeing only a shadow, not daring to seek its cause. The rumble continues. Is it waiting for me to sing again? The theme from Alfred Hitchcock’s old TV series leaps into my mind and I start humming it. Dum de deedle de dum de dum, dum de deedle de dum de dum. The creature steps forward, appearing in profile like the line drawing of the old master of terror himself. It finishes the theme with me, completing the quintet. The profile smiles, then disintegrates before me, leaving only my empty backyard and an echo fading away. 17 Boyhood Buoys (4): Frogmeat Sale Yuan Changming To earn a couple of yuan to buy some Kerosene oil for our lamp in the house I followed my neighbor, an older boy To catch frogs in the middle of night It was always a sure thing to do: whereEver we heard a frog sing, we would Stealthily approach it, illuminate it With torchlight, and pick it up with All the ease we could enjoy. Sometimes I did feel sorry for the frog: its eyes were Shining bright under the summer stars But why did it fail to escape from danger? Early next morning, we would skin our catch And went to the nearest town, shouting aloud ‘Fresh frog meat !’ like the frogs singing at the Top of their voice, after dusk, in the rice fields 18 Apex Mary McCarthy And if I turn back to the more familiar places I was used to, what will keep me from getting lost again? And if I fall unable to find the small ridges and crevices that would let me cling to this sheer rock, will there be anything left to pick up and sew back together? Up here my head spins, and my nose bleeds; the air is so thin it’s work just breathing and standing still. But I will try and stay here for you as long as I can. Maybe I’ll get used to it, we are so close to heaven and so far from where we started. 19 Thunder Leah Browning It’s been so long since it rained that she can’t register the sound. Her first thought is that a plane is flying low over the house, then that it’s traffic from the freeway. The world is ending, she’s dreaming, it’s thunder. The sky dims. Low gray clouds roll in. There’s a flicker of rain, silver veins slicing through the air, and then the whole thing is over. She’s been sitting at the table over the newspaper the entire time. The clouds recede and the sun comes back out again. She continues looking out the window. She still hasn’t told him. The letter is still tucked into the bookshelf, waiting. 20 read-letter day David Kelly read-letter day the cold, stone touch of my coffee cup 21 Holiday Rachel Nix The old dog sits close; thunderstorms and nostalgia have us held up in the back of the house— each seeking shelter from our own fears. 22 spring breeze Kala Ramesh spring breeze the saree slides down her shoulder 23 the tightening Debbie Strange 24 Shoal Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco My shoes still smell like lake water, humped like buried rocks by the front door. On the boat we’d call them shoal, those drowning rocks: ragged teeth jawing weakly underwater. Now the lake has all gone dry: forgotten summers heaped like shells along its edge. Broken sunglasses and bottles. Plastic knives like thin flat bones. I walk for hours to find the inlet where we swam, staining our fingers 25 with new berries while the clouds dissolved above us like spent rain. 26 Year of Glass Katie Gleason When I was a teenager, my parents took us to Wisconsin. There was a dock, we have a picture of my grandmother before her funeral and the glassy-eyed lake eating the remnants of youth. My brother was shorter, and fat, and he sat in the boat next to me. Quiet and angry like a round fly. I was tall and thin and hated my hair. Fragile; white egg of adolescence. I am a beekeeper of years. I forget details my grandmother’s face, her favorite shoes how she sounded coming up the stairs so many blue winters. So many families like camels, mothers retaining children. Nursing homes, the clink of spoon in tea, sugared donuts, a jewelry shop down the street. Men pass in and out buying rings. Women say yes, women say no. We age and the lake forgets our names, if she ever knew them. Year of glass. 27 Eagle Kenneth Pobo While out on the boat we see an eagle sliding over still water, hunting fish. She flies with grace and skill: daring, regal. The Wisconsin morning lolls, almost fully open, water lilies yellowish. While out on the boat we see an eagle glide. Feathered lightning, she drops down to pull up her late breakfast, a favorite dish. She flies with grace and skill, daring, regal, to the upper part of a pine, watchful— a breeze stirs branches, some lazy reeds swish. While out on the boat we see an eagle— they had almost disappeared. We’re grateful enough survived, their journey not finished. She flies with grace and skill: daring, regal. Love, you look so relaxed, it’s wonderful. We had hoped to see raptors, got our wish. While out on the boat we see an eagle— she flies with grace and skill: daring, regal. 28 My Mother’s Voice Mary Kendall 29 China Seagull Jo Waterworth The least of three seagulls, you, the flightless one, yearning after your fellows, are the unlikeliest muse. But you have survived. I remember my delight at this gift – three in a box, delicate in tissue – from my father. He understood me. We shared this soaring love, floating on the stiff sea breeze. Wings were broken in my clumsy adolescence. Three became two, became one. You were hidden away in dusty corners, in boxes or bags, out of sight. So when did you emerge? How did I find you, where have you been? You perch on my windowsill, companion of stones, shells and crystals, gazing at the sunrise, the full moon, the garden birds, starling flocks. Survival brings its own contentment, you tell me. You are always looking up. 30 across the open sea j.lewis –for Laura, in response to an admonition not to count the waves sailing is not my profession but i understand the metaphors the talk of wind and waves of safe harbors and clear skies of trusting the captain who has prepared and knows every port along the way but i am so long robbed of the sight of land of blossomed trees and golden sand between my toes that i cannot rest until i see the captain’s charts know at the very least how far until next port and something under my feet not in constant motion what good-hearted captain would leave me swabbing a deck deny me a glimpse at the maps when one look in my eyes one look into my soul would tell him how close how very close i have come to losing hope on this wide tumultuous open sea 31 Nightswimmer’s Purgatorial Todd Mercer Not drowning in regrets, but he’s out too far, where the rip-tide waylays him. He swallows a lung-full. It proves easier to drift even further lake-ward rather than swim in to his clothes and keys. Go with the current, he figures. He reaches an island’s beach strip, it’s a couple acres, unpopulated. He spits out the lake, then waits for morning light to make an attempt at the mainland. Strength can renew with a few hours’ rest. He’ll try, if no boaters pass sooner. There could be a search, if a beachcomber stumbles on his shirt and shoes by the high-line where the tide turns. The Nightswimmer, weakened, winded, doesn’t know how this will resolve, but he isn’t drowning, yet. 32 Mountains Will Break Your Heart, If You Let Them Trish Saunders Go, little one, stake your tent in temple grass. Tread ruthlessly on hominid bones ground to powder eons ago, fine as the cornsilk compacts of your grandmothers. Scrape your sandals on fragile flowers that cover the lava fields, smothering bones of the iiwi, alala and o’o birds. Their age is finished. They know it. Trample now, while you still have time. 33 Editor’s Note Here at the end of the final issue for 2015—an anniversary issue since it’s been a year since we went live—and since it’s Thanksgiving week here in the US, I want to express my gratitude and thanks to all who make Gnarled Oak such a joy. So thank you to everyone who sends poems, stories, videos, and artwork for consideration. The submissions queue here at Gnarled Oak is so good I sometimes feel like my email is a journal in and of itself, and a good one at that. I can’t publish everything, of course, but everything is read and appreciated. Thank you also to all of Gnarled Oak’s readers, especially those who help promote and share the work that appears here. This would be nothing without the support of Gnarled Oak’s readers and the community that has grown up around this journal. So thank you for reading and for sharing. Someday a poem is going to go viral like a cat video; I just know it! While we’re imagining that better world, maybe we can imagine a world in which we stop blowing each other up. Can poetry and artwork, stories and videos help bring that world about? I don’t know. Some days it seems like it doesn’t make a bit of difference. But maybe it does. And so I’m thankful to all of you who share your words, ideas, stories and visions with the rest of us. You make the world a better place. You give hope, understanding, perspective, insight. I believe that helps. I know it doesn’t hurt. With gratitude and thanks, James Brush, editor Nov. 2015 34 Contributor Bios Glen Armstrong edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters and has three new chapbooks: Set List (Bitchin Kitsch), In Stone and The Most Awkward Silence of All (both Cruel Garters Press). His work has appeared in Conduit and Cloudbank. Paul Beckman collects memories and punchboards. His new flash story collection, Peek from Big Table Publishing came out in Feb. 2015 weighing in at 65 stories and 117 pages. Leah Browning is the author of three nonfiction books for teens and pre-teens. Her third chapbook, In the Chair Museum, was published by Dancing Girl Press, and her fourth is forthcoming. Browning’s fiction and poetry have recently appeared in Chagrin River Review, Fiction Southeast, Toad, Mud Season Review, Glassworks Magazine, and with audio and video recordings in The Poetry Storehouse. In addition to writing, Browning serves as editor of the Apple Valley Review. Her personal website is located at www.leahbrowning.com. Yuan Changming, 8-time Pushcart nominee and author of 5 chapbooks, grew up in rural China, became an ESL student at 19, and published monographs on translation before moving to Canada. With a PhD in English, Yuan currently edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver, and has poetry appearing in Best Canadian Poetry (2009,12,14), BestNewPoemsOnline, Threepenny Review and 1089 others across 37 countries. A native of Oregon, Katie Gleason lives in Arizona with her husband and two rescued greyhounds. She is a graduate of Portland State University. She has been a social worker for ten years, and she is a student of The Writers Studio. 35 Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection Dark Specks in a Blue Sky from Another New Calligraphy. Ehizogie Iyeomoan is a Nigerian boy who loves to write poems in lower case letters. His ‘beaded words’ have appeared in many literary journals, anthologies; both print and electronic. His debut poetry collection, Flames of the Forest was published in April 2015 and is available on Amazon. Follow him on Twitter @fulanibuoy. Herb Kauderer is a retired Teamster who grew up to be an associate professor of English at Hilbert College. His most recent chapbook of poetry The Book of Answers is currently a nominee for the Elgin Award. David Kelly lives and works in Dublin, Ireland. He started writing haiku in 2007 and has been learning more about the spirit of Japanese short forms ever since. He has been published in a number of print and online journals. Mary Kendall can often be found in her Chapel Hill, North Carolina garden, tending plants, feeding birds, watching dragonflies and playing with her dog. She meditates and writes there as well. Mary is the author of Erasing the Doubt (Finishing Line Press, 2015) and blogs at A Poet in Time. j.lewis is an internationally published poet, musician, and nurse practitioner. His poetry and music reflect the difficulty and joy of human interactions, sometimes drawing inspiration from his decades of experience in healthcare. When he is not writing, composing, or diagnosing, he is likely on a kayak, exploring and photographing the waterways near his home in California. 36 Mary McCarthy grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, studied art and literature but spent most of her working life as a Registered Nurse. She has always been a writer. She has great hopes for the future despite the horrors reported endlessly in the daily news. Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco lives in California’s Central Valley. She spends much of her time staring at the sky, which is almost incessantly beautiful. Todd Mercer, a middle-brow writer, won the Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts Flash Fiction Award for 2015. His digital chapbook Life-wish Maintenance appeared at Right Hand Pointing. Recent poetry and fiction appear in Eunoia Review, Kentucky Review, The Legendary, Literary Orphans, Lost Coast Review and Softblow Journal. Ben Meyerson’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as Epignosis Quarterly and The Inflectionist Review. He has a chapbook coming out in 2016 with The Alfred Gustav Press entitled In A Past Life. Jean Morris lives in London, UK, where she edits, writes, translates from French and Spanish, and takes photos, some of which appeared in Issue 3. Archana Kapoor Nagpal is an internationally published author of books including 14 Pearls of Inspiration, The Road to a Positive Life, The Fragrance of a Beautiful Life, A Pinch of Love, Peace and Humanity, New Love: Anthology of Short Stories and The 12 Facets of a Crystal. Please visit her author page to learn more. Rachel Nix is a native of Northwest Alabama. She likes coffee in the morning and bourbon at night but rarely knows what time it is otherwise. Her work has most recently appeared in Words Dance, Melancholy Hyperbole, and Bop Dead City. Rachel is 37 the Poetry Editor at cahoodaloodaling and Associate Editor at Pankhearst; more of her poetry can be found at: chasingthegrey.com Kenneth Pobo has a book forthcoming from Blue Light Press called Bend Of Quiet. His recent work has been in: Weber: The Contemporary West, Floating Bridge, The Queer South (anthology), and elsewhere. Neck deep in haiku, her face barely visible, Kala Ramesh, an award winning poet has been instrumental in bringing school kids and college youth into haiku. Her latest obsession: to paint city walls with haiku, to weave a pause, a breather into our hectic lives! Brian Robertson has been writing haiku throughout the years, years which have seen him spend time at a Buddhist Monastery or two, write Little Blues Book illustrated by R. Crumb and creating several albums of his original blues music and more. Elby Rogers is a native of New Castle, Delaware. He was inspired to start creating art when he discovered the drawings and paintings of the outsider artist, Gus Fink. Elby was fascinated by Gus’ antique photograph paintings where Gus would paint directly onto the surface of a tintype or daguerreotype photograph. Elby loved the idea of subverting something so quaint. He soon started creating his own “subversive” paintings using digital photo manipulation. Judy Salz, a semi-retired physician, is a native New Yorker currently living in Las Vegas and enjoying the sunshine and lack of slush. She has published a number of short stories in the past year. “Mikey,” published in The Literary Nest in April 2015, won the fiction contest. She invites all interested to visit her webpage, judysalz.com. 38 Trish Saunders divides her time between Honolulu and Seattle. Her poems have been published in Gnarled Oak, Silver Birch Press, Off the Coast and Right Hand Pointing. Olivier Schopfer lives in Geneva, Switzerland, the city with the huge lake water fountain. He likes capturing the moment in haiku and photography. His work has appeared in The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2014 as well as in numerous online and print journals. He also writes articles in French about etymology and everyday expressions at Olivier Schopfer raconte les mots. Shloka Shankar is a freelance writer from India. She loves experimenting with all forms of the written word, and has found her niche in Japanese short-forms and found poetry. Her works have recently appeared in Silver Birch Press, Eunoia Review, Oddball Magazine, Poetry WTF?!, Of/with and so on. She is also the founding editor of the literary & arts journal, Sonic Boom. Sheila Sondik is a printmaker and poet in Bellingham, WA. Her poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies and, in 2013, Egress Studio Press published her chapbook, Fishing a Familiar Pond: Found Poetry from the Yearling. Her website is sheilasondik.com Debbie Strange is a published tanka and haiku poet and an avid photographer. She enjoys creating haiga and tanshi (small poem) art. You are invited to see more of her work on Twitter @Debbie_Strange. Jo Waterworth lives and writes in Glastonbury, UK, where she is a mature student studying creative Writing and Ceramics at Bath Spa University. She has been published online and in print, most recently in the anthology 21 Reasons 39 for Choosing Jeremy Corbin, and has a pamphlet with Poetry Space of Bristol. She blogs about her writing journey at Jo’swriting. 40