Full of Crow | Poetry

1 Sep 09

Stanley M. Noah

Stanley M. Noah is Full of Crow’s Featured Poet for September. In line with old traditions, Stanley sent his poems my way via carrier pigeon. It was a treat to experience his rich visual images and textured voice on paper….real paper. Stanley’s work delves in somber meanderings of the heart that feel crisp like an autumn morning. His words provide an internal place to ponder how lucky you are in this lifetime. It is my humble honor to present to you four wonderful poems by Stanley M. Noah.

Aleathia Drehmer, Poetry Editor

Far From Home In Time And Place
Stanley M. Noah, September Featured Poet, 2009

Late evenings
we often spent ourselves on the front porch
in the white swing—onward swinging.

And would
say hi to those walking by, and waving
to cars speeding by as if before

a wreck
to tell us their goodbyes; and
onward swinging we watched

the sun
making hay in the blue fields,
the magical color of sugar beets,

and patterns
of dust-brown sparrows looking up for
redtail hawks, looking down for green grain.

But soon
all shadows had begun to grow
thin and taller as they walked away

into another
pink horizon. Quickly it was time to
wash up, take away one barnyard rooster,

make supper,
rice with red beans. And onward into
midnight we would listen to radio dreams.

Full Moon Through My Window and Across
Stanley M. Noah, September Featured Poet, 2009

It’s the grayness of perfection on white like in
film noir. A wall, a floor of shadows expressing
edges of realities, hidden. Yet, a visual still-stone

forms a haunting. Nothing feels to be moving except
silence in a vacuum. It’s the hour when the ground
releases heat absorbed during a long summer’s day.

My cigarette smoke rises like a burning cinnamon
stick from here to the lamp and joins a moth. And
from my window I can see how the moon got here

and the stars are still trying to find their way. My
tilted cat sleeping on the slanted roof hopes to be a
human someday if the landscape will have her. Not

far away I can hear a sliver of cars migrating. I can
hear my next door friend playing a piano sonata by
Brahms; and hear and see things Brahms never could—

all of this: the sensuous aroma of the hour, the past
and the present running toward each other as if trying
to catch up with the future.

Steep Cliffs
Stanley M. Noah, September Featured Poet, 2009

I have fallen
short of myself.

Not in perception of,
or conception, nor invention

of putting together
a cultured life

with meaningful endings.
But rather

it has been blinding technicalities
that tilt me far downward,

tripping me up, until
all that’s left

are piles of causations:
those false ideas dancing

from my aching mouth
like blue mist and confetti.

Any Beach Is A Meandering Place
Stanley M. Noah, September Featured Poet, 2009

You said
stand there and look in all
directions. You shall see the
inventory of your existence,
naked in the white ink line
where mind finds a leisure space,
something like a self-rescue you
thought could never happen.

You said
listen and you shall hear all
voices and sounds ever made
throughout nature and human
history. It will not overwhelm
but overlap you.

You said
take in all the air into your lungs
and you shall know the far ends
and depth of our universe. But
only for a second and that will be
enough.

You said
come to the beach at night and maybe
you shall learn secrets of knowledge
hidden from you during another day.
You will discover the extension of
your imagination.

You said
gently walk the beach, stop, look back
and you shall know the early maps
humanity traveled. Now the beach and
you are like close friends collecting sea
shells.

You said
hold sand in your hand and you shall
recognize the weight of your own life
within the world, alone, as this is the
complexity that got your importance here.

Stanley M. Noah has a BGS degree from The University of Texas at Dallas. He has been published in Poesy, Old Red Kimono, Nexus, Poetry Nottingham, Main Street Rag, Iota, The South Carolina Review, Art Times, Eclectica.org and other publications in the U.S.A., Britain, Canada, New Zealand and India. He was the winner of The Mississippi Valley Poetry Contest’s humorous category in 2006. He spends much of his time watching old movies and visiting neon cafes late into the night drinking gallons of coffee.

1 Sep 09

Sandy Benitez

Nightmare
Sandy Benitez, September 2009

I awoke possessed by the sun
strangling me with octopus arms.
A loud cough expelled from my throat
like a demon exorcised.
The air was dry–my reasoning.

Above, the ruby stained glass
and wood cross dangling from the wall
mimicked a cathedral’s cavity.
Scent of burned candles lingered
beneath a singed spider’s web.

I said a prayer–waited for a sign.

But there was none.
Only the rustling of moth-eaten curtains
against the window pane.
The buzz of a fly hunting feces.

Where was the voice to proclaim
that everything would be okay.
The same voice I heard
when I was a child,
squeezing tiny bones together
as she whispered “goodnight.”

Limbo
Sandy Benitez, September 2009

Over the years,
the dusty town in the desert
seemed to suffer from osteoporosis.
Shrinking half an inch or more
as the cactus grew taller
and the sun became angrier.

The population had also shrunk
from 500 to 243. There was one
traffic light that no longer worked,
a cafe on the corner, and a barber shop
that offered free haircuts on Saturdays.
Rickety houses did their best

to stand on rotting legs. Stray puppies
ran in circles, chasing pickup truck
tires as if they were their mothers,
bloated from starvation.
Then one day, a little black puppy
returned with a tiny skull in its mouth.

Townspeople gasped in horror, wondering
if the skull could be that of a child
who died violently. Never realizing
that all of them had died long ago.
Walking in limbo like the lost puppies
they pretended not to see.

In the Orange Room
Sandy Benitez, September 2009

a hand-sewn quilt spreads its wings
like monarchs gathered on broken bark.
Soon, it will greet the sun. A daily
ritual accompanied by a pristine tray
of fruit and frothy cups of cappuccino.

The remote will rest comfortably beside
the man of the house. If it had a heart
and fur, he would call it a Pomeranian.
As a consolation, he names it Valencia,
after his first love.

The volume on the television heats up.
On the screen, cracked desert and cries
of AIDS infected children can be heard.
Their emaciated bodies heaving beneath
blotches of red sores.

“Ever heard of birth control?”

He throws a grapefruit rind in the trash,
misses the mark and curses its station.
Bored, he channel surfs. Burps and licks
the sticky residue from his fingertips,
leaving Valencia in a cocoon of juice
and white pith.

His stomach is queasy. He would replace
Valencia soon. Averse to ugly.

Sandy Benitez was born in Selma, Alabama and spent her childhood traveling the world as a military brat. Her poetry has appeared in over 85 print and online poetry journals such as Contemporary American Voices, Falling Star Magazine, The Clearfield Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, The Orange Room Review, Elimae, and Loch Raven Review. Sandy currently resides in Wyoming with her husband, 2 children, and 2 chocolate labs. Her first book of poetry, Ever Violet, by D-N Publishing is available by contacting the author at SandyB1070@msn.com.

1 Sep 09

Mat Gould

gravity letting go
Mat Gould, September 2009

heart-beats
like
heat-lightening streaks
a distance
in between
where i see
and
where i can reach each
as
every breath takes and gives life away…
the orbit
the spectrum
and
a narcotic kiss on your shoulder
diamonds
left
in the darkness
we
can finger a line
from
neck
to
thigh
until the quiet finds a tone
that
no night can cover
an
eye
open
by
thunder

Mat Gould is currently being held hostage by a short Bio. He has released “Lantern In The Half Night Sky” a chapbook. He is part of The Luxman Empire and lives on the other side of the mountain in North Carolina.

1 Sep 09

Michael Mc Aloran

ashen
Michael Mc Aloran, September 2009

my eyes like blighted stars
the mirror dissolves flesh

our words like echoing laughter
the marrow of the sun

trace of a dissipating sky
all around us winged animals

the broken glass of anguish
your mistake my mistake

let us move along
I can taste your ashen tears

Michael Mc Aloran was Belfast born (1976), his family moved to the south of Ireland due to ‘The Troubles‘. He has travelled extensively throughout Europe, living for brief spells in both Holland and Italy. He elected to study Fine Art & Design, but left after one disillusioned year. He still continues to paint pretty obsessively when he can afford to. He has been writng poetry for almost a decade, but has only recently begun to submit. His work has been published by Poetry Monthly International, (U.K), The Gloom Cupboard, Lines Written W/A Razor, (Canada), and also by Counterexample Poetics. He has work forthcoming at The Delinquent, (U.K), Clockwise Cat, Deep Tissue, Origami Condom, and also at BlazeVox, (Fall Edition-2009). His first published book of poems, entitled ‘In The Black Cadaver Light’, is with Poetry Monthly Press, (U.K).

1 Sep 09

Petra Whiteley

The Rooms
Petra Whiteley, September 2009

This is the room of teeth.

Even the dirt is (re)written here,
White clots gleam sterile
on the swallowers of walls.

Needles in the tongue, orange
paper lanterns in the graveyard,
the black tree beckons cold.

Jars with eyes, born dead,
pushed bitten and hanged
on barren branches,
melting Jerusalem
(is it really the calling?)
swinging Westerly, bringing
blood into the kill-marked seas.

(Seconds counting the hated
geometry stained corpses of us)

Oh yeah, it breaks
the enamel as they drill
fiction into the water.

This is the room of the mouth,

stitched with a fish, staring empty
being onto the hall. Flashing illuminations.

This is the room where you are all alone.

You could have never kept these rooms together.
              You are there somewhere, where nothing
                                    is real. You are there
                                                somewhere
                                     burning your hair and pulling
                                             the masks of fools over your frigid, frozen body.

Room-decayed, death-played, cover your face
in the asylum white.

The Hush
Petra Whiteley, September 2009

The windows with their frantic landscape
pressed in,
the thunder wrapped fists
hit on the extreme edge..

the flickers on thin film of skin,
the place of dragging invisibilities.

Here, where nobody speaks, the fingers
of this nothing
are hurting, they clutch
and twist the pulsing neck of birds,
the mouths of these cancerous entities
lick the dark, reeking blood,
seeping out.

The point of arrival, the spread of burns.

Who is it that breaks the cold hush of it?

Red monsoon is what breaks
the blistered language of those who are hidden
behind the rustling masks. The faces in smithereens.

Pleading, shrill shrieking.
A nude kind of pain.

Forgotten, festering tinkle, interrupted fragments…
step away…

Petra Whiteley immigrated to UK in 1993 from the Czech Republic. Her poetry has appeared in Osprey, The Glasgow Review, ETC, Seven Circle Press, The Gloom Cupboard, Eviscerator Heaven, Unlikely Stories 2.0, Apt, Fissure, the Recusant and Paraphilia. The Glasgow Review, Osprey and Eviscerator Heaven also published her articles on political and current issues (left-wing position), history and methods of literary movements, with essays on current poets, lyricists and more articles on poetic movements commissioned for future issues. An excerpt from her dystopic novel (work in progress) in Paraphilia. Ettrick Forest Press published her first poetry collection The Nomad’s Trail in September 2008, Shadow Archer Press released her chapbook The Moulding of Seers in April 2009. She is currently writing children’s book.

1 Sep 09

Felino Soriano

Painters’ Exhalations 47
–after Leon Wyczółkowski’s Spring in Gościeradz
Felino Soriano, September 2009

Whose body’s potent leap
fashioned earth’s enormous mouth
into a mourning painting
etched into the canvas’ boiled texture,

releasing a mighty exhale
from the seize of encasing cheeks
into the patterned curves
of curtains

relying on their thin shroud
to filter light’s crawl
onto the carpet’s rotting
skin.

The body’s print
exacted against the chair’s
plush existence. Multiple

interpretations of sitting positions
imagined as
stares into earth’s
many movements

relate self to a tree’s gnarled
crust or squirrel’s scamper
through dulled blades
of grass’ shaved beard.

The present is absence,
gone the bodies drawing
shape within equiangular shape,
warmth of breath
impersonating wind’s protrude,
searching with caressing fingers,
a body to ascertain and
wrap security around
the relaxing waist.

Painters’ Exhalations 162
–after Terry D. Wilson’s Subjective Colors
Felino Soriano, September 2009

Too concentrated. The eyes
must close
showing favoritism
directed at darkened,
unobstructed reality

interpreted symphony of tonal
double entendres. Spring, here.
Thus
fragrance. Too
orchids

hoping to outrun (though
paralyzed in their
predetermined placement)

man’s grabbing, orchestrated
hands. Such

is the butterfly limping across air’s
yarn of fluidity, unlike the child
crawling against

a day’s hyper-conscience
creating myriad open doors
with the leading by subjective
wants,

walking elations illustrating
myopic destinations.

Painters’ Exhalations 368
–after Vik Muniz’s Morning on the Siene, near Giverny after Monet
Felino Soriano, September 2009

An algebraic blue
appearing
        as if a puff of humid
breath
    blown through extended, circular
devotion
        stayed surrendering to visual
dissection
        understanding such an obscure
representational gift
must allow devout observers
exhalation, affects of ascertaining
                      fully
the naked realization
day unclothed
appears sacred,
not yet devoted to ideological labeling,
deconstructing historical views misunderstood
to clothe self in the righteous garb of
mans’
deliberate envy.

Felino Soriano (b. 1974, California) is a case manager and advocate for developmentally and physically disabled adults. He is the editor of Counterexample Poetics, www.counterexamplepoetics.com, an online journal of experimental artistry. As a poet, he has authored seven collections of poetry, including Among the Interrogated (BlazeVOX [books], 2008) Feeling Through Mirages (Shadow Archer Press, 2008) Calling Toward Clarity (Chippens Press, 2009), Search among the Absent Found (Recycled Karma Press, 2009), and r (please press, 2009). A mini-chapbook of poems is forthcoming from Wheelhouse Magazine, 2009, as well as a full-length collection from Calliope Nerve, 2009. The internal collocation of philosophical studies and love of classic and avant-garde jazz is the explanation for his poetic stimulation. Details are at his website, www.felinosoriano.com.

1 Sep 09

Sophia Pandeya

If You Spoke Firefly
Sophia Pandeya, September 2009

If you spoke firefly
flicked a remorse code
on and off like a
leaf-tongue leaning
to the changing breeze

The fluencies implicit
in paced pentets
double pulses
separated by three

Rounds of darkness the
flashes bleating
like skipped
heartbeats as you calyxed
close to the node, the
confluence held

If you spoke firefly
came down
like pyractomena angulata
in a flickering orange rain
on the skin of darkness

A call and response threading
the domain of otherwise
invisible lovers whose
desire reaped visceral

Victuals, coiled
nuptial gifts glowing
on their bellies, harbingers
of many joysorrows bundled
like hurried bedding
as they fled
into themselves

If you spoke firefly
would I be
a lapsed
synapse lost
like a shoelace in
the singing gardens of night?

Sophia Pandeya’s work straddles many divides of politics, religion, ethnicity, geography and culture. Born in Karachi, Pakistan to Shia and Sunni parents of ethnically Indian descent, she left Pakistan in 1986 in pursuit of greater artistic freedom. After living and working for two and a half years in Thailand, she migrated to the US in 1988 eventually receiving political asylum. In 1990 she met and eventually married Raam Pandeya an Indian American journalist and practitioner of Kayakalpa, an Indian healing art which she now also practices. Sophia‘s writing and art has been published in a print anthology, Spilled Ink, published 2000 by Premiere Generation Ink and online magazines such as Monsoon and Premiere Generation Ink online. Her work can be viewed at http://rootsandwings.tumblr.com/

1 Sep 09

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal

A RUSTLING
Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal, September 2009

There was a rustling
in the trees.
A song of mourning
burst out while
the wind cried out in
the background.
I could not breathe. I
could not sleep.
I was up all night
listening
to the sad song. I
was mourning
the woman I loved.
The rustling
was tapping on my
door. There was
a time I would sleep.
through the noise.
I was a man not
disturbed by
such things. Now I hear
rippling waves.
I feel them in my
heart. I used
to sing. Now others
sing instead.

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal is a writer from West Covina, CA. He has published many chapbooks in the small press and his most recent book is called “Overcome” that is collaborated with photographer Cynthia Etheridge and is published by Kendra Steiner Editions.

1 Sep 09

Joan McNerney

Alchemy Dreams
Joan McNerney, September 2009　
　

i. Silver

How shall I begin my dream?
So strange. I could have fallen
from a cloud. Long, grey cloud.
I feel so strange…
cloud, shroud of sadness
wound through heaven.
Falling from my cloud
careening on ice
slipping sliding
over crystals.
Dropping through
deep night.
I fell alone
jackknifed on
silver ice.

ii. Mercury

Vessels of thought
as quick as mercury
spilling over.
We lie chained to sleep
prisoners of darkness.
Struggling against
edge of night listening
for animals pounding
closer closer.
Their scent surrounding us.
Galloping high
racing dark horses
nightmares.

iii. Lead

Why why why
did they steal my sky?
Forlorn for so long.
Now all my stars are gone,
Falling through heaven
full of ashes.
My life is gone.
I am another graffiti mark
another dark stain.
My sky was torn down.
Why why why was I so silent
when my dreams were tossed away?
Like smoldering lead my eyes
burst open. Hot hot my heart
fell in hate fell to hell
burning through this leaden night.

iv. Copper

Who are we
without compass
without map
delivered before darkness?
We splay our hands out
tracing coils of copper
while lines of time merge
into mazes of memory.
Remembering shadows
we search our thoughts.
Over mountains of mist
looking for morning
drinking milk from the moon.

v. Gold

I am searching for a
perfect color sound shape
to hold close to me.
I want something luminous
something cool.
This splash of sky
perfectly formed
drop of rain
drop of gold.
I will wear
in the hollow
around my neck…
This eye of an angel.

Joan McNerney’s poetry has been included in numerous literary magazines such as Boston Review of the Arts, Kalliope, Mudfish, Spectrum and Word Thursdays. Four of her books have been published by fine literary presses. She has performed at the National Arts Club, State University of New York, Oneonta, McNay Art Institute and other distinguished venues. A recent reading was sponsored by the American Academy of Poetry. Her latest title is Having Lunch with the Sky, A.P.D. Press, Albany, New York. You are invited to her link at www.joanspoems.com.

1 Sep 09

John Dorsey

the year of the cat
John Dorsey, September 2009

my family lived in
lawton, oklahoma for the
better part of 1978
more than 30yrs later
jacob and i cruise
down the highway
at 80mph and i
think if we
can just drive
a little faster i
might just be able
to get back there
without missing a beat

ii.

my uncle jerry used
to pick me up
on his harley wearing
platform shoes or a
drunken smile though rarely
both at the same time
thinking about it
i miss him now

iii.

this morning i watched
juice’s cat sunning in
the window in
ft. collins co at 9:46am
inches away from where
i currently rest my
head i look out
into the parking lot
imagine an ice cream
truck faintly playing
al stewart’s “year of the cat”
i bury my face
into a couch
cushion like sunken treasure

iv.

i laugh like
the love song of
a broken hearted prairie dog
and sing a rocky
mountain seranade in the
morning breeze until my
tongue catches the wind

i have become a
a fort sill daydream

breathing out i exclaim
to a footless bird

only the sun will
know where i’ve buried my bones

John Dorsey currently resides in Toledo, OH. He is the author of several collections of poetry and has been published in a number of less than respectable literary journals. His work has recently been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com

1 Sep 09

Clay Carpenter

Winter
Clay Carpenter, September 2009

in the cold of that day when the storm
in his father’s brain closed the roads
choking off commerce and leaving him
to navigate his teenage years alone
he drew a roadmap to last 40 years

delay became his watchword and he
pushed on under stars accumulating
mileage sleeping little to capture minutes
forgoing entrees for desserts foraging
for arguments basking in anger doing
cannonballs in pools and conversations
blowing smoke rings with the best of
them buying brawling working and
playing games as if they were work

a trip up the Amazon hard labor on a highway
then law school and marriage to a divorcee
with two kids a family prepackaged
a humanitarian mission to squeeze in
before the snowflakes silently began
to fall in his head, filling gullies, piling on
mountainsides, forming layers that whispered
avalanche.

Clay Carpenter is a newspaper copy editor in Corpus Christi, Texas. Truth be told, he wishes he could spend eight hours a day writing poems instead of headlines. His poems have appeared in literary magazines including Facets, Apple Valley Review, Falling Star and The Orange Room Review.

1 Sep 09

Alan Britt

AS A SMALL CHILD I RETURNED TO INDIANA
Alan Britt, September 2009

The sun’s fingers entered Indiana hay,
warming it near the temperature
of flat ochre sand grains
stuck to the skinny white ankles
of Palm Beach tourists.

The back of my head,
neck,
shoulders
nestled in the hay’s warm fibers,
those hollow tubes
of sunlight.

The boy from Florida witnessed a fault line, that day,
branching the entire blue and white stucco sky.

At the very center of this fault line,
in its jungle of dualities
and howling monkeys,
was a floating placenta,
a world,
a universe of sorts,
but a placenta all the same.

My new universe fed
upon its bloody good fortune.

(A placenta is nothing to waste.)

The boy from Florida
fell fast asleep in the warm Indiana hay.

Photo by Richard A. Koch

Alan Britt’s recent books are Vegetable Love (2009), Vermilion (2006), Infinite Days (2003), Amnesia Tango (1998) and Bodies of Lightning (1995). The Poetry Library (www.poetrymagazines.org.uk) providing a free access digital library of 20th & 21st century English poetry magazines with the aim of preserving them for the future has included Britt’s work published in Fire ( UK ) in their project. Britt’s work also appears in the new anthologies, American Poets Against the War, Metropolitan Arts Press, 2009 and Vapor transatlántico (Transatlantic Steamer), a bi-lingual anthology of Latin American and North American poets, Hofstra University Press/Fondo de Cultura Económica de Mexico/Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos de Peru, 2008. Britt recently served as Panel Chair for Poetry Studies & Creative Poetry for the PCA/ACA Conference 2007 in Boston and read poetry at Ramapo College in Mahwah , NJ (2009) and the WPA Gallery/Ward-Pound Ridge Reservation in Cross River , NY (2008). Nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2008. Alan currently teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University and lives in Reisterstown , Maryland with his wife, daughter, two Bouviers des Flandres, one Bichon Frise and two formerly feral cats.

1 Sep 09

Mather Schneider

SNOWBIRDS
Mather Schneider, September 2009

The brightly plumed couple totters off
American flight two twenty two from Chicago.
They stretch their wings in the warm Arizona air
then climb into my cab
and I take them to their million dollar winter home
in the foothills.
They’re about sixty.
She’s never worked, he retired early
from the family business.
They both sport golf course tans
and whitened teeth.
The woman has eye-watering halitosis
like she’s been eating raw lizards,
the man is a pillow-faced imbecile
with white feathers and hollow bones.
“I was thinking of tea and sandwiches
on Thursday,” the woman says.
“Sounds good,” the man says.
“Maybe a guitarist,” she says.
“Not that last guy,” he says.
“Heavens, no.”
The pioneers tamed the desert
for people like this.
We killed the Indians
for people like this.
I drop them at their golden nest.
A brass coyote sits on their mailbox,
its head thrown to the cast
iron sun.

Mather Schneider is a forty year old cab driver in Tucson. He has no college degree and he has won no contests or awards. His poetry has appeared in the small press since 1995, mostly in print, but he has just discovered the world of net zines. He has a book coming out from Interior Noise Press this year.

1 Sep 09

John Grey

DINER NIGHTS
John Grey, September 2009

Parking lot gray and empty,
lights dim, can this place be open.
But above the building,
the word “EATS” shines brightly enough,
And it flashes. Nothing in the world flashes
unless it wants something.
To feed us. To take our money in exchange.
Thankfully, the door does open.
The counter beckons though the waitress
could care less.
She reluctantly unfolds
her book of grubby invoices.
The surly cook sneers in the background.
He has to flip burgers, warm up the fries,
just when last May’s Penthouse
is getting good.
The half-eaten cake under glass
has seen a lot of customers come and go I figure.
Likewise, the stains on the enamel,
the cigarette ash on the floor.
But when you’re hungry, you’ll put up with
dirt and dust and hate and anger
and the sight of this Miss Havisham of desserts.
And, of course, the coffee tastes like tar.
Not how we like it particularly,
but how they prefer to serve it.
Besides, it’s bottomless.
And, in this world,
that’s where tasteless takes its cue.

John Grey is an Australian born poet, US resident since late seventies. Works as financial systems analyst. Recently published in Connecticut Review, Georgetown Review and Illuminations with work upcoming in Poetry East, Cape Rock and the Pinch.

1 Sep 09

Kelly Mathews

The Lioness and Androcles
Kelly Mathews, September 2009

I lay with a fever in my cool cave,
my paw infected because of a small thorn buried deep under a claw.
When the dark-haired man comes seeking refuge & finds me,
he does not easily take a rock and
break my head open with it.
He speaks to me kindly, approaches slowly,
strokes quite softly the haunch, the flank leading to my paw.
I mewl like a kitten, when I mean to growl in fear.

My body is quite limp.

Then he digs deep, takes out the thorn,
squeezes the old blood from my paw,
and I growl and purr.
He cleans my paw, tears off strips of his clothing and binds me.
He cups water in his hands, trickles it in my mouth.
He falls asleep next to me.
His scent is thick with meat
and feathered with flame.

I lick the salt from his brow,
curl around him, knead his back,
lick his neck.
I am purring as I have not since I lost my pride.
Deep night comes and I feel well enough to hunt,
bring back a deer.
I do not like it when he builds a fire, at first,
but then, as the smoke fills the cave and the fat and grease
sizzle, I creep close to him, my paw throbbing.

As he throws me a leg, I admire how the whip scars stripe his back.
After I eat my first cooked meat and I see he is done,
I lick the rocks & bones clean.
I smell his hands, his arms, his beard, his face
lick all the grease from them,
he strokes my head, me purring all the while.
He leans close to me, whispers, tenderly,
“My name is Androcles.”

I sleep well.

Later when I am out hunting and caught,
I am not strong enough to fight of a dozen armed men.
They have a cell for me that smells of fear and death.
This place is darker, starker than my cave ever was.
No man ever cooked a meal and shared it with the beasts here.
My paw is completely healed now.
I want nothing more than to sink my fangs in
and rip asunder with my claws those who put me here.
My hunger grows every moment until I am my hunger.
I am what men fear most, an open, red,
ravenous maw of glistening teeth,
my tail whipping back and forth,
hair standing on end
I am the ultimate predator, aroused
by shouting, screams, grunting, hooves thudding,
guts gorged and devoured, split by swords.

Then, they open the gate to my cell.

I slowly investigate the way to the light, slowly
as my hunger is quick. Roaring,
I smell flesh, salt, sweat, blood,
bound towards it in a leap,
the bare, vulnerable skin, my paws pinning the lean body to the ground,
my tongue upon it, my jaws around it, when the scent and smell
say Androcles.

He tastes so very good.
My jaw aches, &
then the rest of me, when I release him from my jaws.
I put my head down between my paws,
cannot look him in the eyes.

Such silence around the arena
where there was
every sort of noise.
The king proclaims,
“The slave is master of this beast!”

Kelly Mathews was born and raised in San Diego, California. The rich culture there provided the perfect growing conditions for Kelly’s imagination. Surrounded by generations of people who loved telling and reading good stories and poetry, giving Kelly a sense of the mythological in her own life.

1 Sep 09

Sarah Ahmad

Athena
Sarah Ahmad, September 2009

The longest road to home
The years before the honour was lost
All converted into looted treasures

The goddess that captivated an empire
Arrives in ruins of marble

The front ripped out by the workers

Pieces
Captivating

Petition viewed for the masters
Response displayes a hole

Flood returns demanded by the soil.

Sarah Ahmad lives in Pakistan. She likes to call herself a struggling poet and artist as in her world where life is so fragile,not knowing if you will return alive every time you step out of the house, getting someone to acknowledge your art is a real struggle. She has her poetry published or forthcoming in ‘Leaf Garden Press’, ‘Ink, Sweat and Tears’,'Calliope Nerve’,’ The Electric Marmalade’, ‘Ruthless Peoples Magazine’ and ‘Stone’s Throw Magazine’.