Image Copyright © 2012 Kadari Keller
Carol Alexander
In Issue 9 on January 23, 2012 at 4:55 pmMagpie Heart
She who pushed me forth, my berth once was,
her nest of speckled eggs for brief time safe
from winged world that mauls its starveling young.
She of magpie heart, all flutter and desire,
now lies within the fastness of a tree, unmoving as the tree–
cursing seasons for their tedium, their sylvan brevity.
Said bright leaf to caustic root,
what I know, I learned of you.
The grass is rich with hidden things whose motion
stirs the piney green; seizing opportunity,
the magpie heart, fixed on Morpho lamellae,
would swoop to conquer iridescent wing
but cannot break from bark of binding branch
albeit ice might crack her hateful, hollow tree.
Here is one who wills your change, a shift from prison
of this body, pierced by thorns of bleeding rose,
to the azure fields where we¹d walk two by two.
Said bright leaf to caustic root,
what I know, I learned of you.
****
Carol Alexander is a New York City-based author and editor. A writer for trade and educational publishing, she has authored numerous children’s books, served as a ghostwriter for radio and trade publishing, and taught at colleges around the metropolitan area. In 2011-2012, her poetry appears in literary journals and anthologies published by Avocet, Chiron Review, Cave Moon Press, The Canary, Danse Macabre, Earthspeak ,Fade Poetry Journal, Fat Daddy’s Farm Press, Fried Chicken and Coffee, Mobius, Numinous, OVS, Red Poppy Review, Sleeping Cat Books, and The Whistling Fire.
Jason Lee Miller
In Issue 9 on January 19, 2012 at 5:01 pmInexpressibility
You can be what I can be you could
But also you can be what I can’t be
But never ever what I was or will be, really,
Or even am cuz we’re the same but different
But whatever you can or can’t or could or would be
Whatever it will be you’ll have to name it
‘Cause that’s what we do, we name things
But after you name that thing you’ll know you shouldn’t have
And made into a can or can’t or couldn’t or shouldn’t
Just by naming it you give it a life in the world of names
And words ’cause just saying it out loud means limits
The thing never had before—you’ll know you shouldn’t have
Because you will have corralled it, saddled it
With something it was more pure without
Back when you couldn’t speak of it with any skill
And now the best you can be is
A murderer of silence, a parent to the Bright Idea
Who grows to know what is finite and, because of that, is lame
You can be or won’t be but let’s not speak of it
****
Jason Lee Miller, MFA, is a curriculum developer, technical writer, and composition instructor at Eastern Kentucky University. Those jobs actually pay him, and he’s thankful for that; still, he’d rather sit at home and write books. Book reviewer for the literary e-zine, GloomCupboard, Jason’s work, poetry and fiction, has appeared in The Bluegrass Accolade, Blood Lotus, The Copperfield Review, Danse Macabre Du Jour, Dew on the Kudzu, The Legendary, and State of Imagination.
