The Zingara Project

Author: Lisa Hase-Jackson

  • Post- by Joshua Allen

    Swamp grass and muck rot
    shelter a vibrant community.

    Brown-speckled wren eggs crack
    in six-pack nests beneath

    black bag tarpaulins.
    Aluminum can abodes dwell

     on shaded confetti lawns.
    Insects scurry on tire tread highways;

     reptiles retire to Coke bottle brothels.
    Father says, the lost architecture is the most tragic part.

    Glossy magazines woven into webs
    bridge trees as a canopy

    of dates and events. The focused sun
    illuminates the particular histories

    we have tried to leave behind
    during our marsh walk.

    Instead, we think of the cooking fire,
    the roasting meat, the hum of voices,

     which quiet as we approach, guns drawn.

    —

    Joshua Allen is a somewhat wayward soul who is soon to be mercilessly ejected from Indiana University Bloomington into the larger world. He has been published in Gravel, Origami Journal, Lime Hawk, Tributaries (forthcoming), and The Long Island Literary Journal (forthcoming). 

  • In the Quiet of Drought the Monarchs Perishby Jeff Burt

    The grass keeps on dying
    but never finishes, and what to bury
    dead ground in never comes up.
    A shovel turns, as if it’s restless.

    The soil warms and earthworms
    defect for a more conservative soil,
    the communizing surface effect lost
    when one has no soothing slide.

    Beetles that burrow for the loss
    of their virginity keep pushing dirt
    out of the holes and when sex strikes
    it is more of a match on a sandpaper strip

    than a moist bed of coupling.
    What does it matter—the male dies,
    the female swells and spawns,
    exits weary to become prey for jays.

    All dries, dies, withers.
    All the warbling birds
    and accompanying zithers
    of crickets and bees have throats

    and wings too thin to sing.
    My mouth tastes the dust
    the scraping rake brings up.
    I no longer water.

    —

    Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz County, California, with his wife and marauding bands of wild turkeys that scare trucks and cobble and gobble everything at their feet. He won the Cold Mountain Review Poetry Prize in 2017.

     

  • Porch by Martina Reisz Newberry

    We cast curses at the moon,
    watch its face travel over     then behind     clouds,
    then come to the fore
    as if beckoned
    when it most certainly was not.
    Booze and blackberries on the front porch
    and the cries of dead beasts and warriors out there.

    Imagine it                     Hold it in your head
    as you do song lyrics and prayers.
    The strange scents of late nights
    call us to remember our weaknesses
    and the ill will we’ve encountered in others.
    We talk of these things     bring them closer.

    And oh the madness of this porch        how it dares to receive
    our complaints and our compliances             how it
    rests under our flip-flops and naked toes     how it
    shifts under spilled sweet tea     and dripped foam
    off cans of Bud Light

    Does it make you grin that I’ve said this?

    So, the moon hovers and we here below
    pull it over us, imagine it soft when            in truth
    it’s dense as a mango dum dum.

    Inside, we look for rest knowing our mendacity
    could pull down the stars                  knowing our joys
    are simple masks for grudges
    the way they jibe

    My God                     The way we consume bitterness
    fill our plates, pour on gravies
    and sauces of fear and then
    dare to sleep on that repletion.

    —

    Martina Reisz Newberry’s recent books: NEVER COMPLETELY AWAKE (Deerbrook Editions), and TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME (Unsolicited Press).Widely published, she was awarded residencies at Yaddo Colony for the Arts, Djerassi Colony for the Arts, and Anderson Center for Disciplinary Arts.

    Martina lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Brian.

  • Absence by Inference by Duane L. Herrmann

    A row of cedar trees
    native to the plains
    and nearly indestructible,
    with a shed behind,
    old, ruined,
    indicate the absence
    of a home
    once in the space
    the trees protected.
    What happened
    to this farm?
    The missing family?
    The tragedy afflicted
    on their lives?
    And, the children?
    What did they feel,
    uprooted, scattered,
    with the wind?

    —

    Duane L. Herrmann is a survivor who lived to tell; a prairie poet with a global conscience.  Recipient of the Robert Hayden Poetry Fellowship, he is published in print and online in several languages and various countries. His collections of poetry include: Prairies of Possibilities, Ichnographical:173 and Praise the King of Glory.

  • Wanting by Diana Raab

    Wanting
    I
    Rainbow

    The rain trickles
    down my paned window
    as I stand up to hunt the sky
    for the stripes of my childhood.
    The more I want to touch
    that rainbow, the more it drifts away.

    II

    Persuasion

    When you wonder about
    what you want anew
    try persuading yourself
    and the answer will come to you.

    III

    Wishing Well

    Yesterday I released a penny
    in that deepest tunnel
    of darkness, crossing my fingers
    and begging for wellness.

    —

    Diana Raab, Ph.D. is an award-winning poet, memoirist, blogger, essayist and speaker.  Her book, “Writing for Bliss: A Seven-Step Plan for Telling Your Story and Transforming Your Life” was published in 2017.  Raab is a regular blogger for Psychology Today, Huff50 (The Huffington Post), and PsychAlive. More at dianaraab.com.

     

  • Geode by Beth Politsch

    The news of your cancer
    began a fracture – a small crack
    we thought could be patched.

    But then it crept outward into the multicolored expanse of time
    and spread gray
    outward from its edges
    like the matte surface of a stone.

    I’ve tried drinking
    to stop my mind
    from trudging
    along that deepening fissure
    that spans from month one of your illness
    to month twenty when you died.

    But I never manage to dull the sharp edges
    of your truths:

    You were too young and too kind
    and so imperfect
    and complicated
    on your surface
    that you were everyone’s favorite
    sister and friend.

    The pain is unstoppable now,
    and in this strange middle phase
    of my life, I have accepted it
    as necessary.

    Now I am walking with purpose
    to break the gray veil
    of your sickness.
    I conjure spikes
    from my heels
    and push them down into the darkness.

    I fall to my knees
    and my hands become pick-axes.
    I claw into the fear until it smashes open,
    exposing its crystal center.

    And this is where I find you:

    In this precious cache
    of mineralized memories
    you sparkle with facets
    both jagged and smooth,
    your light and color

    reflecting
    into all dimensions.

    —

    Beth Politsch is a storyteller, poet and copywriter based in Lawrence, Kansas. She currently creates content for Hyland Software and writes children’s books and poetry in her free time.

     

  • At Nineteen by John Sierpinski

    On a Monday, July morning, Julian Whittaker
    (at nineteen) works high up on a ladder, cleaning
    fluorescent light fixtures in the English lecture
    hall. He can use the money for the start of the fall
    semester. He wipes dust, and then black soot off
    the white covers. Mike Kessler cleans, too. He

    tells Julian, “I’ve just been released from the county
    psych ward, but I’m okay now. I’m studying
    Mandarin.” To Julian, Mike appears unbalanced,
    the shaky ladder, his exophthalmic eyes, the tick
    of his right cheek. Another student, Richard
    Longwell, has come to dust. He carries a boom

    box the size of a small suitcase. At the sound
    of the manic beat, Julian notices that Mike and Richard
    dust faster. Then Richard declares, “It’s break time!”
    and turns the lights off and the volume up. Distorted
    guitars splay, plugged in to simple chords. To Julian,
    it is too much. He thinks about how he has lost his

    beloved Renee—she has walked away. He feels,
    in the words of Pink Floyd, “comfortably numb.”
    He drowns another soaped rag, wrings it out by touch
    in the dark, and lets the water drip down his pant leg.
    He listens to Mike tell Richard, “Turn that damn box
    down.” Then Mike says, “You know, I had sex with

    one of the other patients.” Richard says, “When I
    dropped acid, last night, my entire body glowed. Just
    think about it, my veins pumped light.” “Look man,
    I don’t want to think about your drug-fueled shit,”
    Mike says. And Julian, he doesn’t say anything at all.

    —

    John Sierpinski studies poetry at the Vest Conservatory for Writers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has recently published in California Quarterly, Curbside Splendor, North Coast Review, and Indiana Voice Journal. He has been nominated for a 2013 Pushcart Prize. He has currently completed a collection.

     

     

  • Nook by Hannah Rousselot

    The closet is small enough
    that when I go in with my book
    my body is compressed on all sides.

    I lean the pillow I brought
    against the thin wood.
    The flashlight makes the shadows
    stronger, but now I can read about

    a girl who escapes and saves the world.

    I have nothing to escape from
    except the toxic cloud
    that my parents created downstairs.

    I have nothing to save except
    my own bloody fingernails, from myself.

    —

    Hannah Rousselot is a queer DC based poet. She has been writing poetry since she could hold a pencil and has always used poems as a way to get in touch with her emotions. She writes poetry about the wounds that are still open, but healing, since her childhood and the death of her first love. Her work has appeared in Voices and Visions magazine, PanoplyZine, and Parentheses Magazine. In addition to writing poetry, Hannah Rousselot is also an elementary school teacher. She teaches a poetry unit every January, and nothing brings her more joy than seeing the amazing poems that children can create.

  • Mermaid Suicide by Danielle Wong

    My skin ripens—
    a nutty hazel canopy of flesh.
    Cocoa dust and tawny
    muscle roasting, hot
    fire beneath the relentless

    Sun. My private vessel,
    suffused with color and
    plagued by a vain
    saturation, but draped
    in Vogue and saintly couture.

    The corrosion has
    already begun—
    hot blood coursing
    through precious skin and
    brackish waves claiming me
    as their own.

    To drown like this,
    I think, would be quite
    convenient.
    To wither away,
    via sun and
    decay. Ugly moths and

    fireflies are the only
    inhabitants of the corroded
    corpse where I once dwelled.

    Has there ever been
    such a simple decline—
    an ending more languid than this?

    —

    Danielle Wong is an emerging author living in San Francisco. Her debut novel, Swearing Off Stars, was published in October. Her work has also appeared on several websites, including Harper’s Bazaar, The Huffington Post, and USA Today. Beyond writing and reading, Danielle loves traveling, running, and watching old movies.

  • Pachyderm by Toti O’Brien

    What makes baby irresistible
    is candid decrepitude
    held so gracefully.

    Wrinkled and sagged
    a zillion-year-old skin
    stacked on its tiny skeleton

    yet clear of all attitude
    only wisdom
    that of pretending none.

    Little beast, born a centenarian
    but without a lament
    totters by with unsteady majesty.

    Such conspicuous fragility
    grizzled innocence
    in its meek stare.

    Eyes black corals
    buried by timeless oceans
    submerged by rippling sand.

    —

    Toti O’Brien is the Italian Accordionist with the Irish Last Name. She was born in Rome then moved to Los Angeles, where she makes a living as a self-employed artist, performing musician and professional dancer. Her work has most recently appeared in DIN Magazine, Panoplyzine, Courtship of Wind, and Colorado Boulevard.

     

     

  • White Crow by Yuan Changming

    Perching long in each human heart
    Is a white crow that no one has
    Ever seen, but everyone longs
    To be

    Always ready
    To fly out, hoping to bring back
    A glistening seed or a colorful feather
    As if determined to festoon its nest

    —

    Yuan Changming published monographs on translation before leaving China. With a Canadian PhD in English, Yuan currently edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan and hosts Happy Yangsheng in Vancouver; credits include ten Pushcart nominations, seven chapbooks, Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17), Best New PoemsOn Line, Threepenny Review and 1,389 others across 41 countries.

     

  • Safe by Karlo Sevilla

    “Along the sidewalk,
    always safest along the sidewalk,”
    father used to say.
    (A truck may swerve,
    roll over the sidewalk
    and pin you against
    a lamppost…)
    Still, always safest
    along the sidewalk.

    I wear my brand new pair
    of Air Jordan while I walk
    on the sidewalk.
    (They’re affordable
    and look and feel great
    as the real deal.)

    I’m safe as I stroll
    with my shoes
    on the sidewalk.

    —

    Karlo Sevilla is the author of “You” (Origami Poems Project, 2017). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Radius, Matter, Yellow Chair Review, Eunoia, Poetry24, The Ramingo’s Porch, Ariel Chart, In Between Hangovers, in the anthologies of Peacock Journal, Eternal Remedy, Riverfeet Press, and Azoth Khem Publishing, and elsewhere.

     

  • Night by Jerry Wemple

    Night falls suddenly when the sun declines
    behind these granite hills. The boy sits on
    the river side of the flood wall, his back
    to the town. He smokes a cigarette, counts
    the cars and tractor trucks on the state road
    across the water. Wonders where they’re bound.
    The boy would like a car, some way, any way
    to leave the town, to drive past the farms
    until the hills grow and the woods thicken
    and sit beside the tiny stream that is the start
    of this half-mile wide river. The boy rises,
    heads into town. He walks past the little park,
    a few blocks up Market, enters a tiny hot
    dog restaurant, nods to Old Sam, who started
    the place after the war. Sam knows, fixes
    one with everything, uncaps a blue birch
    from the old dinged metal floor cooler,
    while the boy fingers the lone coin in
    his pocket. Outside the wind rises and shifts.

    —

    Jerry Wemple is the author of three poetry collections: You Can See It from Here (winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award), The Civil War in Baltimore, and The Artemas Poems. His poems and essays have been published in numerous journal and anthologies. He teaches in the creative writing program at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.

  • Overheard by Carolyn Martin

    As evening sneaks around
    the house,
    the ironing board and
    kitchen sink gossip about
    your first kiss.
    Inexplicable –
    how they understand
    the weight of soft,
    the intimacy
    of wind-brushed clouds; how,
    in this chartreuse spring,
    you’ll leave behind
    your baseball glove for moony moods
    and un-chewed fingernails; how
    you’ll charge
    summer’s quickenings
    with shattered
    beliefs of black and white.
    Tonight, as the board folds itself
    and the last dish is washed,
    the owl clock hushes
    their surmise.
    If you had overheard, you
    would have entertained
    their slivered truths,
    perhaps cheered their prophecy.

    —

    From English teacher to management trainer to retiree, Carolyn Martin has journeyed from New Jersey to Oregon to discover Douglas firs, months of rain, and perfect summers. Her poems and book reviews have appeared in publications throughout North America and the UK including “Stirring,” “CALYX,” “Persimmon Tree,” “How Higher Education Feels,” and “Antiphon.” Her third collection, Thin Places, was released by Kelsay Books in Summer 2017. Since the only poem she wrote in high school was red-penciled “extremely maudlin,” Carolyn is ​still ​amazed she has continued to write.

     

     

  • Three Pleasures by Lola Haskins

    Coffee

    The day you learned to love bitterness,
    you were sure you were grown.

    *

    Flowers

    Older, you set flowers in clear water as if
    with enough kindness, they would not fade.

    *

    Desire

    The din of thousands of wanting cranes
    informs your winter steps. You count

    on them like husbands, every dawn.
    Then one morning, they are gone.

    —

    Lola Haskins’ most recent poetry collection is How Small, Confronting Morning (Jacar, 2016). Her prose work includes an advice book and a book about Florida cemeteries. Among her honors are the Iowa Poetry Prize and two Florida Book Awards. She serves as Honorary Chancellor of the Florida State Poet’s Association.