Eric Basso | Cantharidopt

CANTHARIDOPT


that spy from the Great War
who never let her face be seen
except by candlelight kept
a green blister beetle in a tank
under the cellar steps

she nurtured the insect for years
with toothed aloe leaves and fed
on its erotic essence to lure
her lovers to their doom

a beetle and a woman became
mutual parasites over time
and lost every memory of
what they once had been

the huge green thing we found
rotting on the parlor carpet
was soon swept into a bin

only later did we come upon
a woman half a finger’s length
in that tank below stairs


August 22, 2008

by Eric Basso

Reprinted with permission of the author from Bestiary: Poems 2008 by Eric Basso (Obscure Publications, 2009). http://library.indstate.edu/about/units/rbsc/obscure/obscure.html

Eric Basso was born in Baltimore in 1947. His work has appeared in the Chicago Review, Central Park, Collages & Bricolages, Fiction International, Exquisite Corpse, and many other publications. His most recent books are Decompositions: Essays on Art & Literature 1973-1989 and Revagations: A Book of Dreams 1966-1974 (Asylum Arts Press). Six Gallery Press published Earthworks, his seventh collection of poems, last year.

Zhuang Yisa | Watching DISCOVERY With You In A Foreign Country

Watching Discovery With You In A Foreign Country

The narrator tells us, his voice
calm and quietly fascinated:
                              there exist

in nature certain species of wasps
that stun their prey into submission

for an egg to be lodged
in the flesh, turning them into mere
incubators –

When the offspring begins
to participate in the cycle, the host
will die.

But until then, the host
lives, its destiny
paralysed against its will.

You see, my love, the venom
isn’t fatal; that is
the intention.

And this waiting
for your return, for the desires to flow
again, is gratitude

for the sting
that turns the living into meat, on which you feed.

By Zhuang Yisa

Zhuang Yisa lives in Singapore. His poetry has been published or forthcoming in Sargasso (Puerto Rico), Yuan Yang (Hong Kong), ditch (Canada), The Toronto Quarterly, Ganymede, The Los Angeles Review, Softblow, Danse Macabre, The Salt River Review, Shampoo and elsewhere. His poetry has also been anthologized in Ganymede Poets Vol. One (Ganymede Books, 2009) and Smoke (Poets Wear Prada, 2009).

Miriam Stanley | THE DAY OF THE GYPSY MOTHS

THE DAY OF THE GYPSY MOTHS

Infants the size of pinkies,
murder the trees throughout the parks,
web the foliage in white clouds,
eat the leaves with toothless bites.
Countless sneakers have squashed them.
The dust of their droppings fills the lungs.
Shipped to America,
raised for silk,
They were innocent as babies in high chairs.
Who knew they would escape their owner's land,
while he studied the stars at night?

by Miriam Stanley


Miriam Stanley was born in New York City and raised in Morganville, NJ. In 1966, she returned to her place of birth to join the New York poetry scene , and has since been featured in in a variety of readings, festivals and events, both local and international. She is senior editor of Rogue Scholars Press and has two collections published, Get Over It (2009) and Not To Be Believed (2005). Her work also appears in the anthology Skyscrapers, Taxis and Tampons. When she is not writing, Miriam serves humanity as an art therapist in the New York City hospital system.

Marge Hauser | Epicurean Entomology

Epicurean Entomology
Three Haiku


Crunchy salt seasons
each fried baby bumblebee
washed down with cold beer.


Sweet chocolate melts to
reveal hidden tart surprise:
ants’ formic acid.


Spiced chapolines
with guacamole: tacos’
grasshopper garnish.


by Marge Hauser




Marge Hauser is a New York City based poet who enjoys culinary experimentation. These haiku are based on personal experience and the theory that anything served in a reputable restaurant is worth trying.

Anne Cammon | How I Arrived

How I Arrived


When I came the fruit flies were monstrous
invading my glasses of cold,
white wine, gathering
petulantly
inside the rim, not stopping
at the surface
of my drink.

And you were delighted
by the movements of my hands
as I pulled the flies from my face
like a veil.


by Anne Cammon

Anne Cammon is a writer of prose and poetry. She curates the literary edition of Art Waves on WKCR, featuring contemporary writers and composers. She was honored to receive an Editor's Choice from PoetryMagazine.com.

Heidi Schwartz | Earthen Creatures on Colorado Land

Earthen Creatures on Colorado Land

These are the only ones left in the drowned earth
Black hawks fly in the wind
I can hardly speak
A web on top of a web
We must be silent
After all
she stops for no one
Steeped in the halting language of the earth
an anger woman's dry skin~
                pulls on my eye

On Native land
they would never tolerate this
warriors wanting to burn the earth
Here
coyotes carved
    in the Teepee Mountains
and the ancient pounding
Red ants still walk the red earth
it is they who own the land
They are letting humans
    live on their soil
It is only a matter of time

by Heidi Schwartz



Here's a poem about ants Heidi Schwartz wrote while visiting Colorado 10 years ago. She now resides in NYC teaching yoga. And she will never forget who owns the land.

Iris Berman | Two Modern Tankas

Love spins its web
when you gaze at me sweetly
I melt into your smile
The spider traps his prey
in a sticky, sultry net


"Come closer to me",
you say before we sleep
with my legs wrapped
around you, we doze off
like two in one cocoon.

by Iris Berman

Iris Berman lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She is a visual artist,photographer and poet. Her poetry has appeared in Nomad's Choir, Home Planet News, Park Slope Poetry Project's Errato, Brownstone Poets 2007 Anthology, RogueScholars.com, Stained Sheets, Song of the San Joaquin and Back Street Quarterly. She has also published three chapbooks. Her most recent chapbook, The Little Book of Fairy Tales and Love Poems was published by Poets Wear Prada Press. She has appeared at open mics and as a featured reader at many poetry venues throughout New York City. You can see her reading one of her poems on YouTube.

Maria Sassi | Fate

FATE

How thrilling to find you in your
tiny life zigzagging pages
of this book at I look for Frost's
poem concerning a spider.
                           I contemplate
the killing now as he did.  You, dancing
on print when I could slam you shut
and open to death.
                    His spider seems
bulbous and slow by the tone of their
encounter.   Your are pale and swift,
legs finer than infant hairs.
                                Your
careening on this plain of words is
charming.  And by this line, you could
be squashed by my lethal finger, instead,
you flee into the folds of the book's spine.

by Maria Sassi

Maria Sassi's has been Poet Laureate of West Hartford, Connecticut. She has two books: Rooted in Stars (Singular Speech Press, 1998), What I See (Hanover Press, 1997). Her other publication credits include poetry in Blue Unicorn, Connecticut River Review, Italian Americana, and Pivot.

Jay Chollick | Same Old Same Old

Same Old Same Old

Buzz me with bees, the noisy
hive, the house of wax
and gold; and in a paradise
of pure oxygen, I am re-built
with wings; all flesh, the fatty
globules, have
disappeared I am--a dark man
from dark thought
removed--I fly!

A though
the air is pointed fresh
at me, I feel the self-same
urge, the stinger tingling--the
male, grooved
like some malignancy--too deep,
I fall on petals
bruising them, the flower's
mine--hot mouth
to yellow dust I suck its nectar

Mercilessly

By Jay Chollick



Jay Chollick born 1995, to poetry, that is--has an aversion to formal bios. A frequent featured performer at venues throughout New York City and its environs, he is the Poet Laureate of the Saturn Series and Poet Local Laureate of A Shout Out at Otto's Shrunken Head. His poetry has appeared on-line at Poetz.com, theshoutoutatottos.blogspot.com, Poetry Central and Big City Lit, and is included in the anthology Cat Breath, edited by Miriam Stanley among many other places. (But don't let these "dull facts" interfere with your enjoyment of his poetry which is hardly the "same old same old.")

Robert Donohue | The Devil's Lament

The Devil's Lament


A cricket play his built-in violin,
He plays again his repertoire of notes.
What good is innocence without the sin?

One thing will end, anothor will begin,
The gnats light up like end of summer motes.
A cricket plays his built-in violin.

A leaf's turned brown and that's the fall creeping in
On endless summer Mary's shrine connotes.
What good is innocence without the sin?

Does summer ask the autumn where it's been?
It's welcoming, and like at lover dotes.
A cricket plays his built-in violin.

And fills the end of summer with his din,
A hollow melody not his, but rote's.
What good is innocence without the sin?

The summer sun will set and twilight dim
And days will come and go without our voices.
A cricker plays his built-in violin.
What good is innocence without the sin?

by Robert Donohue

Robert Donohue lives on Long Island where he works as a school custodian. He has featured at The Back Fence and his poetry has appeared in Measure which publishes metrical, English-language verse from both the United States and abroad, The Evansville Review which has also published poems of Billy Collins and The Raintown Review which focuses on sonnets, villanelles and triolets. He studied poetry at S.U.N.Y Oswego with Lewis Turco and lived for two years in Atlanta Ga. working on an independent film.

Goethe | Robert Kramer | The Death of Fly

The Death of a Fly

Greedily she sucks the treacherous drink,
not stopping, seduced by the first sip from the brim.
Although she feels quite well, long since each link
is paralyzed in each fine and delicate limb.
Her little wings she can no longer clean,
her little head she can no longer preen.
And thus she's lost in pleasure's cup,
for now her feet can scarcely hold her up.
Thus she sucks, and even as she drinks,
upon her thousand eyes the death mist sinks.

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1974 -1832
Translated by Robert Kramer

[Fleigentod]

Sie saugt mit Gier verrätrisches Getränke
Unabgesetzt, vom ersten Zug verführt;
Sie fühlt sich wohl, und längst sind die Gelenke
Der zarten Beinchen schon paralysiert,
Nicht mehr gewandt, die Flügelchen zu putzen,
Nicht mehr geschickt, das Köpfchen aufzustutzen,
Das Leben so sich im Genuß verliert.
Zum Stehen kaum wird noch das Füßchen taugen;
So schlürft sie fort, und mitten unterm Saugen
Umnebelt ihr der Tod die tausend Augen.




Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German poet, playwright, novelist, courtier, and natural philosopher and according to George Eliot, "Germany's greatest man of letters… and the last true polymath to walk the earth." Goethe's is best know for his tragic drama Faust written in two parts and The Sorrows of Young Werther (German Title: Die Leiden des jungen Werther). He also wrote the scientific text The Theory of Colors and served at length as the Privy Councilor of the duchy of Weimar.




Robert Kramer is widely published poet, playwright, literary critic, and translator of European literature. He currently teaches art history at Manhattan College and is the authors of numerous articles and books on the history of art and literature.

Mary Elizabeth Clark | the little bumble bee

the little bumble bee

sleep
my little
bumble bee

sleep
the winter
through

sleep
my little
bumble bee

as little
bumbles
do

dream
my little
flower king

summer's
gone
away

now's the
time to rest
your wings

that dreams
may come
to thee

of tender
little rosy
blooms

my little
bumble
bee

by Mary Elizabeth Clark



Mary Elizabeth Clark likes bees, and besides bees she enjoys the company of butterflies, ladybugs, fireflies, and those tiny little moths. She has come a long way since the time she lost control of her two wheeler when a butterfly crossed her path. She was 4-years old then, and had developed this phobia as the result of a bad experience with a large and horrific member of the insect phylum. But as you can see from her poem, she is no longer squeemish about this most abundant life form.

© 1992 Mary Elizabeth Clark