New
Editor's Comments
Welcome to the inaugural issue of Allegro Poetry Magazine!
The response from poets has been incredible and this time I've only been
able to include 5% of the poems received. The poems that made it to issue one
contain elements of surprise and some amazing imagery. I hope you enjoy reading
them as much as I did.
Sally
Long
Poems
A History of Green
That primordial mounting of lusty yellow
on the surround of blue, a leisurely mating
over the hours of light, peaking at noon,
waning by dusk, finally a fiery farewell.
Out of that: Green. Child of sun and sky,
green sank into the oceans drifting through kelp
and sea foam to reach land. There, brash
as unripe youth with a penchant for beginnings
and greedy to spring into jungles of vines
and leaves in that lush primal garden, it ran
to excess over grass, cabbages, olives, grapes,
jalapeño peppers, limes, gooseberries, mint,
bay leaves, gages, peas, pods, okra, endive,
lettuce, broccoli, zucchini, watercress, parsley,
artichokes, sage, prickly pears, spinach, cacti,
asparagus, string beans, cucumbers, water lily pads,
celery, moss, mimosa, and, of course, that apple.
Like spring sap it flowed over lichen, pond scum,
algae, orchids, iguanas, vipers, parrots, salamanders,
grasshoppers, frogs, jade, emeralds and malachite.
We find it in aged cheese, mold, gangrene, bile,
in sir names, eyes, statues of Buddha, absinthe,
a work permit, St. Patrick’s Day, motion sickness,
juleps, Christmas holiday trees, tea, pickles,
pistachio ice cream, operating room scrubs, envy,
crème de menthe, turtle soup, camouflage
clothing, luna moths, tomalley in female lobsters,
a perfume scent, uncured tobacco, unseasoned
lumber, decay, coke bottles, unripe fruit,
a term for inexperience, a hero in a comic strip,
Oz City, fake gold, fertile thumbs, and beetles, always
with us, even in winter’s starkest white: evergreens.
Sarah
Brown Weitzman
Hill Village
For Jane and Jace Morgan
All is still as we
remember it,
the plane trees lit
from beneath
to a glow of lime
and lemon,
someone’s daughter
at a window
combing her wet
hair, the old ones
grounded in shadow,
bending
to their
disciplines of concentration,
the thump and click
of silver balls
biting the dust, a
ritual
and communal observance
in this warm
enclosure, swallows
threading the
campanile’s eye
with its great bell
silenced
as they skitter
through.
In a corner of the
square
a teenage
congregation clamours
around its hooded
perspex booth
where beauty turns
from the phone
to watch a
simmering admirer
buck the bronco of
his bike,
while on a dry
stone wall
beside the cemetery
gate
two lovers passing
through
have helped each
other up,
removed their
back-packs,
and before the sun
goes down
are gathering all of this
to fill their postcards home.
John Mole
Extended
Possibilities
Poetry is delicate
spring songs
in the mouths of
planters sowing
endeared seeds on
harsh earth.
Poetry is fresh blood
irrigating shriveled
arteries
so hearts can cease
to hibernate passion.
Poetry is a
handkerchief
absorbing grief
that seeps into
despaired souls
and garner
dismembered dreams.
Poetry is vibrant
plays the drum
transpires in a vodou
dance
performs riffs of
jazz
reminding us of
Blakey
Mobley
Monk
Morgan
Mingus
Miles and
Trane.
Duke scaling on the A
train.
Poetry drives minds
at cliff’s edge
cures blues
sings the blues
Betty Blue.
Poetry is a world
of water
inkslingers swim in
meter after meter
stroking waves
riding tides
fishing for fresh
metaphors.
Poetry is a field
of crested cockscomb
teasing the
eye.
Patrick Sylvain
Nothing Ventured
Within me
is the strength
to climb over
Kilimanjaro
sorrow
and swing
like a jumbo
Jungle Jim
from branch
to branch
in order to steal
Tarzan's Jane
and take her
to meet my big buddy
King Kong
and swing dance
with Big Foot
then take a dip
in the Blue Lagoon
and have a beer
fest
with Lock
Ness
run with the bulls
talk bull
with
bullfighters
followed by a
walk on the plank
over a tank of
oversized
piranha
wannabees
known as sharks
but my bite
is not my bark
so I just stutter
something
unintelligible
in front of you
with the mumble
of a bad
method
actor
then stumble
on my way
Ivan Jenson
Kind Escape
Once, a child, under
the spring's thriving sun,
lead by the glory of intricate imagination,
shadowed only by other children's push and
talk.
The way was clear, the valley below was
soaked
with debris. I never touched
the briars of age as the birds carved
out my language. It was long ago
but I have not left those unreal adventures,
only now with adult-mind and adult-longing
they still ease my dread. When the cathedral
is closed and the enemy has entered my blood,
I slide into their colourful weather
and wait for the day to be renewed.
Allison Grayhurst
Mermaids
Before ferris-wheels
were obsolete
and telephones got
decommissioned,
I remember
cobblestone streets
and Clydesdale-drawn
beer carts.
The gaslights
flattered faces
and absinthe softened
voices;
tobacco resin mottled
windows
and dumbwaiters
rattled attics.
The moon was slightly
closer then
(at least that’s what
the mermaids claim).
Before flower-sellers
filed for bankruptcy
and anarchists bombed
the paddleboats,
I remember secret
groves of apple trees
and swimming holes
with inner tubes.
Trollies rang the
children from the church
and ice-cream cones
cost a cent apiece;
radiators sputtered
in thunderstorms
and graveyard statues
were undefaced.
The stars would shine
in the daytime
(at least that’s what
the mermaids say).
Before the King’s
English was defunct
and passenger pigeons
became extinct,
I remember the
Emperor Waltz
and stereopticon
cards of the Sphinx.
General Tom Thumb met
the Queen of England
and Samuel Clemens
invented Mark Twain;
condemned men got a
last cigarette
and virtuous women
never uttered regrets.
Gravity was lighter
and the sunshine was brighter
(at least that’s what
the mermaids would have us believe).
Craig Kurtz
as I discovered poet Gwendolyn Brooks
you seem so assured
your words wrap
themselves
around one another
like
maniacal twisters
your face roars,
insists
your point of view,
marshals flocks of
birds,
dams prodigious
rivers,
emboldens the sun and
moon
I never saw you walk,
never heard you talk
it’s enough
to read your
saw-tooth words,
to absorb you,
to be exhilarated by
you,
to discover
you left your light
behind
Keith Nunes
Creativity
Fall in love with
someone
From another
culture.
Be swept off your
feet and let this
Fascination
transform you.
Do not treat the
other
As other. Do not
judge in haste.
Begin to
understand, perhaps even
Become the other.
Speak their
language. Learn
The names of their
rivers, dance
To their festivals
and music,
Dress like them,
discover their food,
Tattoo them on your
skin.
Be vulnerable. Let
the other
Ravage you, give
them the power
To destroy you.
Open yourself
To translation. In
that living shattering
evolving
heartbreaking accepting space
lies creativity.
Shruti Sareen
Creed for a Newer, Better Religion
Bless the maggots,
those patron saints
of transfiguration.
Through them
our conversion
to particles is
inevitable
always has been
and always will be.
Through them
all flesh becomes
truly catholic.
Praise worms
with their
transubstantiation
of all bodies and
blood to earth.
May they decompose
every bit that we
are.
We shall submit
to this and nothing
more.
Through decay and putrefaction
may we continue to
fruit and multiple
in and from the
earth.
May you fertilize a
thousand fields,
be part of a river
bed
become the milk
sucked by the
newborn.
Flow, flow, flow
into this world.
Holy bacteria, divine carrion eaters,
release us and
continue to turn the true wheel.
We shall dance with light feet.
Happy, happier,
happiest
in this indisputable
truth.
William Lennertz
presence
the snow, fallen
the morning, bright
show your face
bare your eyes
today is ours
what we hadn't known
tomorrow would
be
it came for us to
live
so let's be dressed
i play a fast record
dance by the bedside
you are laughing
and are with me
my joy is now
J.
Blake Gordon
Those Boulders!
A big black bumblebee
with yellow stripes
sizzles past my ear
and then cavorts,
playing peekaboo in
thick ice plant.
Surfers at Lovers
Point paddle
to hook haymakers out
beyond where
waves cascade over
rough rocks.
Cypress getting old:
many dead branches.
Its knotty twisted
limbs coated with
dank moss, beneath a
verdant canopy.
Across the bay power
plant stacks
tower. The whole
crescent coast
cloaked in a thin tan
haze.
Seagulls’ web feet
make explicit
impressions in wet
sand. Oh how water
foams as it pummels
those boulders!
Thomas Piekarski
Poem for Dummies
You have to
structure your day
have a
routine
be set in your ways
keep
everything
in order
stack that
which
should be stacked
and pack that
which should be
packed
file your feelings
and your
fingernails
flex your muscles
and your options
tack tacky
affirmations,
and slogans
on your
refrigerator
do what is on
your to do list
and when you
have done
what has to
be done
be done with it
already and
snuggle up
with a dog, book
or lover
and remember
never to watch
the evening news
rest assured that
Rome is burning
so pick up your
fiddle
and play a little
hey diddle diddle
Ivan Jenson
Wrens
New wrens
have moved
into the old
wren house
and it is fine
with me that
they sing
the identical
old wren song.
It is comforting,
one more small
eternity more.
J.R.
Solonche
Pessimist’s Utopia
It began with my shoelaces
breaking in the morning;
then the clock went stop
insuring I’d be late;
of course, without an umbrella
it monsooned every injured step;
& this is how I found my way
to the pessimist’s utopia.
Then I had long lines to find
the noonday train got left behind;
there were many forms to sign
to let me know roadblocks exist;
but the best part was the fine print in full
claiming the swindle was authorized by me;
& this is how I found the door
to hell on earth, or something worse.
The cellphone’s dead,
the dinner’s cold,
my socks are wet,
the checks all bounce;
the lights won’t start,
the record skips,
it’s Shangri-La
for masochists (& bureaucrats).
The buzzing sound that I ignored
soon provoked a gas leak smell;
when I thought that I arrived
I saw my keys were locked inside;
the moment that my chance came near
the staples jammed, the crock pot cracked;
then I knew I’d rest in peace, in this
utopia for pessimists.
Craig Kurtz
First Light
Emergency managers did as they said they’d do
when hard night cracked to first light.
They left gymnasium shelters
that smelled of burned coffee
to assess damage.
Trees cracked.
Streets turned creek.
Homes can-opened topless.
Trailers blown over and boats too.
Dead mounting in countdowns.
They turned on the subways
and unrolled blue tarps.
The weight of dawn on her eyelids
renewed the infant’s belly hunger
curled in a crib below plywood.
She cried and kicked
at softnesses.
The warblers tried muted ululations.
The crows belly-ached.
Cars crawled into a limb-studded
freeway, blind man’s beads poked
on a humming string.
Dreamers twitched away
vestibules of eroded,
swaying rafters.
The cat in the window seat stretched
as if nothing much had happened.
Tricia Knoll
Kennewick Man
We will never be certain if his wound
was by accident or intent, what language he spoke, or his religious
beliefs. We cannot know if he is truly anyone's ancestor. Given the
millennia since he lived, he may be sire to none or all of us.
James C.
Chatters
A skull dug out of
the soft mud
of Columbia
riverbank,
the size of a modern
man
transfigured by his
own history.
Nine thousand years a
blank slate,
stretched like skin
to the face.
The lull in political
activities
suggests an end to
history.
Dislodged from a
muddy embrace
of postcolonial
culture,
would a skull by any
other name
smell as sweet?
The river’s dance
dresses and
undresses; the hosts
and ghosts
say it is time for a
burial.
But science wants a
bit more.
Traces to family form
like the arthritis in
his knee,
like the spear point
in his thigh.
The causes of life’s
mysteries
have not changed. His
blood is red,
a mark of migrations.
But these are the
flaws
we find in everyone.
George Moore
Return from City Airport
Those moments of
time when nothing happens
but a daughter and
baby
safely delivered
And the early sun
polishes the Thames
barrier
and gilds the
spokes of the Dome
And time is as
still
as the waters of
Pontoon Dock
or the cranes of
City Island
Glass walls and
grey scales
mount the sky,
frail as
ideas
Tiny bubble cars
float the wires,
crossing the river
to the next
millennium
Simon Bowden
Red Umbrella
two figures emerge
shrouded in misty
haze
strolling the
boulevard
huddled as one
entwined in the
embrace
of gossamer dreams
drifting beneath
the canopy
of a red umbrella
dissolving as
silhouettes
into the gray
timbre
of late afternoon
haze
with secrets only they
can share
suspended in
transcendent moments
echoing in
footfalls
on a sodden satin
way
unfolding before
them
David Sermersheim
What the First Responders Never Got to Report
How the air burned
their eyes as they climbed
How frightened were
the people they passed going the other way
How by the
forty-third floor they could smell burning fuel
How they began to
hear muffled screams
How hot the staircase
walls became
How their radios
blared the news of a second strike
How the stairs
trembled under their feet
How they kept on
climbing
How the explosion
made them deaf
How the floor beneath
them was no longer there
Sarah Brown Weitzman
Upon this Rock
The Reverend Igneous
Rock—
his broad features sweat-lit,
dark as volcanic glass—
thunders into the pulpit
like Black Moses,
his vast silk vest
rippling with certitude,
cufflinks flashing like indignant stars.
High in the choir loft
organ chords insistent as Armageddon
punctuate the rumbling syllables
of his prayer; the very roof beams
creak their loud amens.
Oh, let the sisters
in tight dresses
dance in the varnished aisle,
fluttering tambourines!
Let the old aunts
with their paper fans
swoon and chatter in tongues!
Let the tall silent ushers
throw wide the doors
that sunlight itself may bow
before a greater glory,
the rafters be thronged with hymns,
every note an angel spreading
trembling bright wings of sound!
his broad features sweat-lit,
dark as volcanic glass—
thunders into the pulpit
like Black Moses,
his vast silk vest
rippling with certitude,
cufflinks flashing like indignant stars.
High in the choir loft
organ chords insistent as Armageddon
punctuate the rumbling syllables
of his prayer; the very roof beams
creak their loud amens.
Oh, let the sisters
in tight dresses
dance in the varnished aisle,
fluttering tambourines!
Let the old aunts
with their paper fans
swoon and chatter in tongues!
Let the tall silent ushers
throw wide the doors
that sunlight itself may bow
before a greater glory,
the rafters be thronged with hymns,
every note an angel spreading
trembling bright wings of sound!
Robert Lavett Smith
from At The Musarium (24)
[16901 – 17000]
In Transylvania,
Thetis & her
enigmatic paramour
radiate
affably after
croquet, her cogent
psychologist
dutifully quiescent.
Well-fed operatives
dote while her cronies
blindfold him with a
visor emblazoned
with
amethyst. Purposeless oddity,
a leaky tankard—all
marmalade &
self-defense, until
the debut! Thunderbolts
encircle a convocation
of tickling,
sullied for its
whitewash of non-existent
rancor &
uproarious tarts who patronize
a formulae for sirup
& paraffin—
apotheosis hankering
to embellish.
Peter J. Grieco
Negative Space
I remember us
wrangling
over what, I don't
recall
but I can still see
the silhouette
of the rubber plant
against the wall
and thinking that a
shadow
was not a presence at
all
but merely the
absence
of light;
the shapes
where it fails to
fall.
Colette Bernhardt
Contributors
Colette Bernhardt is a freelance journalist who thinks
poetry should get more press. Her favourite poets include Ros Barber, Kate
Tempest, Ted Hughes and Tony Harrison. Her poem on the back of a postcard, ‘A
Tiny Heap of Bones’, was shortlisted for Myriad Editions' Picture This award in
2011.
Simon Bowden is a retired BBC journalist. He has
published a book of poems by the late Mary Skinner and is active in writers’
groups in the St Albans area, winning occasional prizes for poems and short
stories. He is press officer of Ver Poets and runs their workshops.
Sarah Brown Weitzman, a Pushcart nominee, has been widely
published in numerous journals such as America,
Art Times, The North American Review, Rattle,
The Mid-American Review, The Windless Orchard, Poet Lore, Potomac Review,
Poet & Critic, etc. Sarah
received a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her latest book, a departure from
poetry is a children’s novel, Herman and
the Ice Witch, published by Main Street Rag. www.sarahbrownweitzman.com
Allison Grayhurst is a member of the League of Canadian
Poets. She has over 400 poems published in international journals and
anthologies. She has eleven published books of poetry and four collections, as
well as six chapbooks. She lives in Toronto with her family. She also sculpts,
working with clay; www.allisongrayhurst.com
J.
Blake Gordon lives in Chicago with a mean cat, an anxious dog, and a beautiful
woman. He collects records, writes poems, and drives a ten-year-old Accord. He
has a job, but it's not interesting, so let's talk about something else.
Peter J. Grieco lives in Buffalo, NY and teaches writing
at Niagara University. In addition to poetry he is interested in song
writing and speaking French. His Musarium
series of semi-procedural verse is based on word frequency lists.
Ivan Jenson is a fine artist, novelist and
contemporary poet. Jenson's poetry is widely published (with over 450 poems
published in the US, UK and Europe) in a variety of literary media. A book of
Ivan Jenson's poetry was recently published by Hen House Press
titled Media Child
and Other Poems.
Tricia Knoll is a Portland,
Oregon (US) poet. Her work has appeared in dozens of journals. Her chapbook Urban Wild is now out from Finishing
Line Press.
Craig Kurtz lives at Twin Oaks Intentional
Community where he writes poetry while simultaneously handcrafting hammocks.
Recent work has appeared in Aji,Bird’s
Thumb, The Bitchin’
Kitsch, Blotterature, Brev Spread, Leaves of Ink, Literati Quarterly, Indigo
Rising, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Recusant, Teeth Dreams, Tower Journal and
Veil.
Robert Lavett Smith was raised in New Jersey but has
lived since 1987 in San Francisco, where for the past fifteen years
he has worked as a Special Education Paraprofessional. He has studied with
Charles Simic and Galway Kinnell. He is the author of several chapbooks
and two full-length poetry collections, the most recent of which is Smoke In Cold Weather: A Gathering
of Sonnets (Full Court Press,
2013). A new collection, The
Widower Considers Candles, will be forthcoming from the same press in 2015.
William Lennertz is an artist. He writes and paints as much as possible.
His poetry collection, 70's Bush and 19 other poems, is available
on Amazon. To see his visual art, visit williamlennertz.com.
John Mole is resident poet for Poet in the City ( www.poetinthecity.co.uk )
and his most recent collections are The
Point of Loss ( Enitharmon )
and Treatment ( Shoestring
). He can be heard reading on The Poetry Archive ( www.poetryarchive.org ) from which a CD of his work is
available.
George Moore’s poetry has appeared in The
Atlantic, Poetry, North American Review, Colorado Review, Antigonish, Blast,
Orion, and elsewhere. His most recent collection is The Hermits of Dingle (FutureCycle Press, 2013), and he has
another, Children's Drawings
of the Universe, scheduled for publication with Salmon Poetry Press later
this year. A long-time instructor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, he
now lives on the southern coast of Nova Scotia.
Keith Nunes lives in rural Bay of Plenty (New
Zealand) with a retinue of crackpots. His obtuse and melodramatic poems have
been published widely Down Under. He’s a former newspaper sub-editor but has
been granted divine forgiveness.
Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of the California State Poetry
Quarterly. His poetry and
interviews have appeared in Nimrod,
Portland Review, Kestrel,
Cream City Review, Poetry Salzburg, Boston Poetry Magazine, Gertrude, The Bacon
Review, and many others. He has published a
travel guide, Best Choices In
Northern California, and Time
Lines, a book of poems. He
lives in Marina, California.
Shruti Sareen is currently pursuing a PhD on twenty
first century feminist poetry and is also teaching in one of the colleges in
the University of Dehli. She has had poetry accepted by The Little Magazine, Muse India,
Reading Hour, The Seven Sisters Post, North East Review, The Chay Magazine,
Ultra Violet, Kritya, Brown Critique, Earthen Lamp Journal, E-Fiction India, Thumb Print Magazine and others. She blogs at www.shrutanne-heartstrings.blogspot.com.
David Sermersheim is a retired teacher, living in the U.
S. A. He has taught for forty years -- 33 years at The Hotchkiss School, a
private boarding school. He lives in southern Connecticut, where he observes
what moves around him.
J.R. Solonche, four-time Pushcart and Best of the Net
nominee, has been publishing in magazines, journals, and anthologies since the
early 70s. He is co-author of Peach Girl:
Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books).
Patrick Sylvain is a poet, writer, translator, and a
faculty member at Brown University’s Center for Language Studies. He is
published in several anthologies, academic journals, books, magazines and
reviews including: Agni, Callaloo, Caribbean writers, Ploughshares, SX
Salon, Haiti Noir,Human
Architecture: A Sociology Journal, Poets for Haiti, The Best of Beacon Press,
The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse. Recently
featured in:PBS NewsHour, NPR's «Here and Now» and «The Story». Sylvain
received an ED.M from Harvard University Graduate School of Education; and
earned his MFA from Boston University Creative Writing Department where he was
a Robert Pinsky Global Fellow.