The Zingara Project

Author: Lisa Hase-Jackson

  • Like Her by by J.D. Isip

    Thirty-eight, maybe forty boxes—
    how does that divide by nine marriages?
    Old photo albums we don’t look through
    stacked sideways, shut for years—
    A hat box her third husband gave her
    from Italy—where she said he died
    At least to her—stuffed with Christmas cards
    the old 70’s, foil kind—flimsy
    And showy, now frail, like her

    I’ve begged her to dump them, dump them all
    but she protests, she pulls some trick—
    A yellowed picture of my dad in a fading, brown suit
    or my brother’s first card from his father (not mine)—
    I digress. To me, it’s a waste
    like being married nine times

    To hold onto the crumbling pieces of a past
    that rots away in a rented storage space
    Each box as empty as they are full

    Married nine times—unfathomable
    as these old boxes, stuffed, overflowing
    Contents far too daunting, too consuming to explore—
    probably not enough to learn from, or care for
    To me, it’s a waste—I’m not like her—
    I’d throw them away
    Clean up and move on.
    —

    J.D. Isip’s academic writings, poetry, plays, and short stories have appeared (or will appear) in a number of publications including The Louisville Review, Changing English, Revista Aetenea, St. John’s Humanities Review, Teaching American Literature, The Citron Review, Poetry Quarterly, Scholars & Rogues, Mused, and The Copperfield Review. He is a doctoral student in English at Texas A&M University-Commerce.

  • Do the Dead See? by John Brugaletta

    I was new at the job, so the corpses were new to me.
    As I snored in my room, a mortician came in, woke me.
    It was a homeless man, our mortuary’s month for them,
    and he needed me to assist. When I got to the
    room with the porcelain table, he said, “I’ve got to go
    over to the other side for more embalming fluid.”

    So I waited, looking at the street dweller’s face,
    stone white and rigid. How many soup kitchens
    had poured their chicken plasma down that throat?
    What career of his had crashed, what wife died
    or left him as he sank? What did his voice sound like,
    his walk look like? What would he say about himself?

    Then his eyes opened.
    I waited for him to speak, make a move, anything.
    Nothing. Just the eyes staring at the ceiling.
    The mortician came back. I said, “Don’t embalm him.
    He’s alive. Look, his eyes opened.” He said, “Aah,
    they all do that,” and he slipped holders under the lids.

    —

    John Brugaletta likes to make tables out of unusual woods like jatoba and purpleheart. He also likes to write poems, sometimes about himself, sometimes not. He left the Marine Corps in 1960.

  • The Tall Arab by Andrea Jackson

    I followed you across the ocean, 
	didn’t I?  
The tall Arab made my path clear, 	
	gave reality and shape 
	to my existence. 

I collected anecdotes for you, 
	harvested personal events. 
My eyes were your servants;
	They sought nothing
	for themselves.

Will you tell me 
	how you could let it happen, 
this bifurcation between the outside, 
	the heat and the golden light 
	and the tall Arab, 
and the inside where you plot 
	and conceal?

And didn’t you notice, 
	just at that moment, 
	how the world ended?
    

    —
    
Andrea Jackson has an MFA from the University of Missouri – St. Louis. She writes fiction and poetry. Her most recent publication is a story in the 2013 Alligator Juniper.
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    Fire Rainbow by Fern G.Z. Carr
    
			
    “My heart leaps up when I behold
      A Rainbow in the sky;” ~William Wordsworth
    

    Diaphanous wisps of cirrus
     laden with hexagonal crystals
     beckon the sun
     to traverse their
     optically aligned
     plate-shaped faces
     and refract its rays
     at perfect right angles
     to create an ice halo
     also known as
     a fire rainbow –
     a chiffon cloud
     of flame-like plumes
     the colors of the spectrum –
     its vibrant reds, oranges, yellows,
     blues, greens, indigos and violets;
     the colors that set skies ablaze
     with their icy fire.
     —
     Fern G.Z. Carr is a member of The League of Canadian Poets. A 2013 Pushcart Prize nominee, she composes poetry in five languages and has been published from Finland to the Seychelles.  www.ferngzcarr.com
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    Forecast by Amanda Banner
    
			
    Beware September’s falling leaves.
    
Beware first autumn’s signs.
    
Humidity still up its sleeves —
    
seasons’ peculiar lines.
    

    “Summer’s worst provocative heat
    
by now has surely passed.”
    
How unwary, how obsolete!
    
Aspersions must be cast.
    

    Blistering air slows conduction
    
through injured spinal cord.
    
Stifling any production,
    
of movement, walking, word.
    

    Wading through gelatinous muck —
    
afternoon’s opaque haze.
    
In frigid, dry apartment stuck —
    
trapped inside endless days.
    

    Apple cider, cinnamon sticks —
    
the fall teases and baits.
    
Taunted by Dog Days’ semantics —
    
the invalid just waits.
    

    What kind of a cruel mentor
    
dangles crisp clarity?
    
An equinoctial tempter —
    
teaching equanimity.
    

    This unpredictable tether —
    
capricious and chronic,
    
As uncertain as the weather,
    
sneaky and sardonic.
    

    —
    

    Amanda Banner is a physician who lives in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania with her family.   She has won prizes for her poetry, memoir and novel excerpts at The Philadelphia Writer’s Conference.
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    Camel Coat by Ronda Miller
    
			
    I don my recently dyed, twice retired,
    
rebuilt, retro camel coat.  My hands,
    
rigid from cold, neck pressed warm
    
against cloth once fashionably puke green.
    
Ears like TV antennas are alert for
    
sounds of sandy crunch on cement steps.
    
The ones that made the flats
    
of my palms and knees bleed
    
when I tripped over my own
    
damn feet, shoelace untied.
    
There was no pride in that
    
humbling free fall.
    
My awkward stance sucked all
    
thoughts of romance like paint
    
needed to upscale the
    
rusted white lattice rail he used
    
to scale.  I listen, watch, wait,
    
impatience my best know trait.
    
I’m too cold to move and I’m
    
counting on a full moon tonight.
    

    —
    

    Ronda Miller, a Life Coach whose clients have lost someone to suicide or homicide, has poetry at The Smithsonian Art Institute, transformed as art, online, in BEGIN AGAIN: 150 Kansas Poems, To The Stars Through Difficulties, Going Home: Poems from My Life, and in documentary The 150th Reride of The Pony Express. She is a Kansas girl.
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    How Hot It Is by Sarah Venable
    
			
    New York chokes in a molten haze,
    
all colors muffled.
    

    Skyscrapers tire of aspiring
    
and choose to do the hula.
    
Seated on the pavement,
    
lethargic bums in greasy rags
    
begin to sizzle.
    
Clock hands droop at 6:30,
    
And stay there.
    
You couldn’t spit if you wanted to.
    
No bus comes.
    
The limo at the light
    
turns to taffy and
    
stretches half a block.
    
Look inside:
    
the driver wears a loincloth!
    
Limp tourists drape themselves
    
like laundry on a fence,
    
dripping cameras and wristwatches.
    
Balls refuse to bounce.
    
Dogs stick to the sidewalk.
    
Fire hydrants issue steam.
    
Hasidic Jews remove their hats
    
and step into fountains.
    
Prostitutes jam the bus station,
    
Buying tickets to Alaska.
    

    —
    

    Sarah Venable teaches creative writing in Barbados. She’s been published in Poui: the anthology, The Truth About Oranges, Arts, Etc., on Anansesem.com, and soon on St. Somewhere.
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    from Sun this Burn by A.J. Huffman
    
			
    Prone body becomes broil, resembles lobster
    
or maybe baked bean. Unnatural
    
pigmentation spreads across unprotected skin.
    
Straps save miniscule bits from fiery rays.
    
Delayed pain begins. Tomorrow
    
will bring blisters, weeks of peeling, pretending
    
to be a snake. Later,
    
forgetting all of it when the warm embrace
    
of sand and waves smiles, summons.
    
Inner phoenix responds, automatically answering
    
irrefutable call.
    

    —
    

    A.J. Huffman is a poet and freelance writer in Daytona Beach, Florida.  She has previously published six collections of poetry all available on Amazon.com.  She has also published her work in numerous national and international literary journals.
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    from Pepper the Yard with Light by Matthew Porubsky
    
			
    liii.

                                    Same body
                        alternate
                        alive.

Your                   curves              continue,
                                    flux
                                    at image of old,
                                    limp
                                    at new language.
There’s a          ghost for
                        each of us        looming
                                                behind,
                                    winks
register nothing but    
                                    closed eyes.

                        Specters don’t hold hands,
they haunt
            like fumes,
                                    taunt our new selves

                                    not to touch.
Air is broken               tile.
We walk cautious,

                                    slippery feet.

___
Matthew Porubsky has four collections of poetry and works for Union Pacific Railroad as a freight conductor. Books, links and info at mppoetry.com.
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    Closet Divorce by Lora Keller
    
			
    I want my own closet
    
where I can
    
pull up a chair.
    

    Rattle
    
my new
    
pearl bracelet.
    

    Lick
    
my candy red
    
patent leather shoes.
    

    Bury
    
my face
    
in the moth grey lace.
    

    Without your sweat
    
stewing in every crotch
    
of your jeans.
    

    I want to dress
    
in the wake
    
of my own
    
pure
    
scent.
    

    ___
    

     
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    This Is Not A Marriage by John J. Brugaletta
    
			
    Now in the dark of early morning
    
it all begins to come clear—
    
the spoons in their drawer slots,
    
the flashlight where it might be needed,
    
my wife still asleep in our bed.
    

    We moved here from 7 climates away
    
not knowing if our transplanted needs
    
could accept the acid soil and the sweet sun.
    
But in a week the house began to live,
    
its faucets standing like Elizabethan servants
    
ready to pour out the water of many uses,
    
the electric outlets eager to inspire tools,
    
the heating here for the easy asking.
    

    Taken alone, all this is not a marriage,
    
but begun in such a place,
    
like a plant in the loam of lust,
    
it aspires to more, and it finds more as it rises
    
into the air, the light, the admiration.
    

    We water it with our losses, prune it
    
lightly with our respect for its future,
    
and cater to its needs with our own need
    
for mercy projected onto it as a friend.
    
—
    

    John J. Brugaletta was editor/publisher of South Coast Poetry Journal, has had two volumes of his poems published, and lives in Northern California with his wife and several bears.
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    Now You See It; Now You Don’t by Shawn Aveningo
    
			
    When the mother bonobo plucked
    
a parasite from her child’s back,
    
a small droplet of blood pooled
    
on the surface. Did the adolescent primate
    
cogitate, ruminate
    
over the permanence
    
of scars?
    

    After nearly a quarter century
    
donning his talisman, I found myself
    
middle-aged & single, sitting
    
under a naked winter willow, rubbing
    
the permanent divot now encircling my finger,
    
with a new found appreciation for the term
    
deciduous…found it apropos in describing
    
my marriage.
    

    I felt like a four year old
    
with a skinned knee
    
picking at the scab,
    
a child with chicken pox, powerless
    
to stop scratching, wondering when
    
the healing would begin.
    

    And then, like magic,
    
while running my index finger
    
through the layers of spring pollen
    
blanketing my scarlet red convertible,
    
I glanced down to discover
    
the pale recessed flesh on my ring finger
    
had finally disappeared.
    

    —
    

    Shawn Aveningo is an award-winning poet whose poetry has appeared in dozens of publications worldwide.  Shawn hosts the “Verse on the Vine” poetry show in Folsom, CA (www.verseonthevine.com) and has been a featured poet in Sacramento, San Francisco, Sausalito, Seattle and St Louis. Shawn’s a Show-Me girl from Missouri, graduated Summa Cum Laude from University of Maryland and is a very proud mother of three.
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    Agreements by Joan Mazza
    
			
    I will not collect the hair
    
from your brush, nor the nail
    
parings you drop in the pail
    
to cast a spell. You won’t hear
    
whispered commands in your ear
    
while you sleep so I can have my way.
    
I will not call the old woman
    
on the mountain who sells potions
    
and instructs on fertility. Though
    
she has ways to make rain fall on you
    
to restrain you. We’ll keep our vows
    
simple, neither of us bowing.
    
When we sleep we’ll stay on our sides
    
of the bed unless beckoned. I’ll wash your
    
dishes, you wash mine, and deep
    
we’ll travel until dead.
    
Neither of us will iron or be ironed.
    
—
    

    Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, sex therapist, writing coach and seminar leader. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Perigee/Penguin/Putnam), and her work has appeared in Cider Press Review, Rattle, Off the Coast, Kestrel, Permafrost, Slipstream, Timber Creek Review, The MacGuffin, Writer’s Digest, The Fourth River, the minnesota review, Personal Journaling, Free Inquiry, and Playgirl. She now writes poetry and does fabric art in rural central Virginia. www.JoanMazza.com
    

    “By reading and writing poetry, I come to terms with my obsessions.”
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    Fertility Specialist by Cathryn Cofell
    
			
    Another woman steals a picture
    
of our doctor from his office,
    
him cupping new babies.
    
She centers him on her refrigerator
    
with a Buddha magnet,
    
prays to him daily
    
over the ritual of opening,
    
of the taking of milk and cream.
    
In the fall she has a daughter
    
fat as a butterball turkey
    
while my belly remains empty,
    
the only objects filling
    
my kitchen, held tight,
    
an “I visited Wall Drug” postcard
    
and the face of a brother
    
like a rotting jack o’lantern
    
A year later, I bump into her
    
in a clinic parking lot.
    
She offers up an ultrasound
    
of her eye, points out the spot
    
they zapped her clear of a clot.
    
She cries out
    
of her one good eye,
    
asks me to pray she will see,
    
that her vision no longer floats.
    
I pull her to me,
    
take her in,
    
take her x-ray eye home,
    
throw her voodoo in the trash.
    

    —
    

    Cathryn Cofell, Appleton, is the author of two full length collections, Sister Satellite (Cowfeather Press, 2013) and Stick Figure With Skirt (forthcoming from Main Street Rag), and six chapbooks including Split Personality with Karla Huston (sunnyoutside, 2012). You can also hear her perform her poems on Lip, with the music of Obvious Dog. Her work has been published in over 300 journals and anthologies and is the recipient of over 50 awards, including the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award (2019), the Mill Prize for Poetry (2019), the Lorine Niedecker Poetry Award (2014) and multiple Pushcart nominations.
    

     
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    A Better Poem by Thomas Zimmerman
    
			
    Your life’s a better poem than any that
    
you’ll ever write. I feel that I should end
    
with this, but think that it’s been said before.
    
And now the snow (perhaps the season’s last)
    
is swirling, and the coffee’s working fast,
    
with Mahler’s Second, playing now, to rend
    
then mend my pent emotions; soothe, combat
    
the ambiguities that pack the core
    
of my identity. It’s sour-sweet:
    
catharsis, death-and-resurrection. We
    
all know this well, but I am every time
    
enthralled by it. The music stops. My street
    
is buried quietly. My reverie
    
will linger longer than this cobbled rhyme.
    

    —
    

    Thomas Zimmerman teaches English and directs the Writing Center at Washtenaw Community College, in Ann Arbor, MI. His chapbook In Stereo was published by The Camel Saloon Books on Blog in 2012.