The Zingara Project

Category: Zingara Poetry Review: Poetry Picks

  • On Packing the Only Painting You Left by Daniel Crasnow

                A Golden Shovel

    I never asked myself about you. I did hope, though, that May-
    Be you would remember this empty room. Believe me, I never
    Wondered if you would return. I knew. (T)Here
    The sun rose at 8. Once upon a time, the
    Sun bloomed at 8 too. Now that plaster
    Painting isn’t worth the trouble. Dirty brushes and stir-
    Red colors aren’t worth the wash. As soon as
    You left you said goodbye and if
    I had just stood up to say “no”… You le(f)t me in
    A wardrobe of wilting aloe, plastic flower crowns and pain.
    I broke with the door hinges; laughed about it, that May-
    Be If I wasn’t so frightened or if I had never
    Given a fuck I wouldn’t be the only one to hear
    My heart-beat. May-be the
    Cold clouds of a Florida summer wouldn’t click like roaches
    In an empty moving box. I wouldn’t let this falling
    Slush remind me of all the paintings you did take with you. Like
    The crow who eats too many berries, and falls fat,
    Drunk and remembering— may-be then I’d learn to enjoy the rain.

    [1] Last words in The Ballad of Rudolph Reed by Gwendolyn Brooks

    —

    Daniel Crasnow is a multi-genre writer and scholar at Stetson University where he holds a Sullivan Scholarship in creative writing. He has been awarded a scholarship to attend the DISQUIET International Literary Program (2018) and was a resident at the DISQUIET Azores Residency (2018).

  • remnants by Bara Elhag

    near an alpine singer
    sewing machine
    Earl Grey tea rests
    near pattern parchment
    mama picked one of these

    burdas to unburden her mind
    which regularly cliff dwells
    what she makes is
    not as relevant as
    making

    sweet ’n’ sour chicken
    featuring my cup spilling
    for dinner, table clean now

    downstairs, antique lace lives to the
    morning along with
    gauze and cotton
    in an embroidered “organized” blue basket

    I think that basket was lost in a move.

    —
    Bara Elhag was born in Alexandria, Egypt in January 1996 and has spent most of 9 years living half in Minnesota and half in Egypt. He received his high school diploma from America  and graduated from Rutgers University in 2018. Bara is currently pursuing a M.S. in biomedical sciences and has a good family, wonderful friends, loves soccer, hummus, and jalapenos. He also treasure traveling and spontaneous journeys to NYC, when his bank account allows for it.

     

  • Plans by Jen Schneider

    One question. That’s all I have.  How long did you plan?
    I’m a planner. Are you?
    Earlier that day I took a test after years of prep.
    And a lifetime of crap.
    At 12 PM, the testing timer buzzed.
    High pitched and loud. Others jumped. Not me.
    I planned my time well.
    Dropped my #2 pencil. Wiped
    my sticky palm across my leg.
    Twisted my ring counter-clockwise, twice.
    Heck, I’ll take good vibes any day.
    The computer processed scores.
    I passed. Like I had always planned.
    At 2 PM, I was a newly minted EMT.
    Planning to save others my entire life.
    First, I’d celebrate at a favorite club.
    Like I had always planned.
    With my study pals. Friends for life.
    Wearing matching leather jackets and our favorite denim.
    Before scrubs would become our preferred attire.
    At 8 PM, we waited at the crowded entrance.
    Joking about the trick question,
    the one about cardiac arrest, that we each got right.
    At 8:09, I felt it.
    At 8:10, I felt nothing.
    I never planned to be the victim of a random act of violence.
    One of many. Last year, our city lost 100s to drive-bys.
    The year to date rate climbs higher.
    I planned to be an EMT my entire life.
    Studying manuals. Saving pennies.
    A day off from my minimum wage
    dead-end job at the warehouse,
    near the corner of Broad and 10th,
    to sit for the test that would change my life.
    Then, it was over. Because of you.
    How long did you plan?

    —

    Jen Schneider is an educator, attorney, and writer. Her work appears in The Coil, The Write Launch, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Popular Culture Studies Journal, One Sentence Stories, and other literary and scholarly journals.

  • When I Got My Ears Pierced by Sophie Cohen

    Well, I was walking trying to mind my business
    and guess who came by on his bike!
    Yes, it was him and his hair was short,
    if you can believe he’d let someone cut his hair.
    He stopped to call my name and come beside me,
    walking his bike and the chain came off.
    Do you mind waiting just a minute?
    And I waited, because there is something about his voice
    I’ve always liked, and I wanted him to walk
    beside me, asking questions people don’t ask.
    Do you go to New York a lot?
    I said I did, sometimes, but I don’t like it there.
    We should go. In the summer.
    He even went so far as to ask where I was walking,
    so I said to get my ears pierced, and he asked
    if I had any other piercings on my body,
    as if he’d never seen me naked.
    But no, I said, I only have them on my ears.
    Then he was away on his bike,
    and for a sudden moment it was the fall again,
    when at the crossroads as he walked me to the doctor
    I said I knew the rest of the way, and it was raining,
    and I saw his eyes afraid before he turned and ran
    down the street, catching the arrow green.

    —

    Sophie Cohen is a rising junior at MIT, where she studies mathematics and creative writing. She is a writer for MIT Chroma Magazine, and a teaching assistant for calculus. An active member of her sorority, Alpha Phi, Sophie leads the fundraising effort for the Boston Walk to End Lupus Now. Her favorite poet is Brigit Pegeen Kelly.

  • Paperplane letters by Kristina Gibbs

    Love was pressed between
    Stained smudges of downy diction
                Creased along the edges
    Bent over backwards
                Then folded forward
    Sealed by the weight of waxy hope
    Sent with a flick—
    but the sun beat on
          And on
          And on
    So it flut ter ed
                Falt er
          ed
                    Fall
                ing
    Hitting the water
    A distraught Icarus.
    The whole of its failure upon it
    Contributed to its
    Sinking.
    Words raged
    And swirled
    Unleashed—
                Torn open
    Harboured in
    The inky black deep.
    —
    Kristina Gibbs is an emerging writer from Tennessee pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in English and minor in Linguistics. She has previously published in Speaking of Marvels and North of Oxford Review. When she is not reading or writing, you may find her clambering over both hiking trails and paint brushes.

  • a modern sonnet by Cleopatra Lim

    i know that it is okay because i said yes but it should mean
    that i don’t have to feel like a suckling pig before slaughter
    and i did this, i think, to feel like an adult now that i’m eighteen
    but i went too far– i go too far– ten bucks that he has a daughter

    somehow i can see myself in an hour, picking the curly aged hairs he shed
    off polka-dotted sheets that laid witness to my first lunar blood
    and soon he’ll unlock my beloved chest, spill jewels of cherry-red–
    hindsight says once a flower blooms, it’ll never again be a bud

    but reason and rationale are always late and the party don’t start
    til they walk in and see me: emptied and filled with cheap wine
    and tears… they said when it happened, i would feel in my heart
    completed, perfected, and his gaze would be sugary sunshine….

    instead the bed shakes and i am seasick until the north star, i can mark.
    he tries to see me but he can’t. i am with the stars that glow in the dark.

    —

    Cleopatra Lim is a student currently attending Columbia University. She most enjoys writing prose poetry and personal essays, and has been published in some smaller literary journals. She currently works in NYC as a marketing assistant and a junior agent at a talent agency. In the future, she hopes to be able to work with both film and writing, working to incorporate poetry on to the big screen.

  • Eden by Kayleigh Macdonald

    We all have ways to weigh ourselves.
    Eden’s way: stay in motion.
    She would still the silence by
    praying to God, eating her vegetables,
    journaling in the achy fog of morning.
    She would lean against the counter when she stopped.
    Chairs were much too comfortable.
    I never saw it was defense
    until I, too,
    heard bees in my head.
    I see myself in Eden’s race
    against the unfair haste of silent time.
    There isn’t ease in inner peace
    when a piece of you is missing.

    —

    Kayleigh Macdonald was born and raised in San Jose, CA. She is a recent graduate of California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, where she obtained a Bachelor of Science in Graphic Communication and a Minor in English.

     

     

  • A City Like a Dead Man by Jake Sheff

    I dreamed our city’s slender attitude,
    of ruined moonlight
    in the bombs. The dreamer’s femur is

    the squeaky wheel. If love could only speak
    and never hear, she said
    between the bombs. I loved her

    safe route to mercy. Lyme disease
    and bombs had similar inaccuracies. On foot
    she wandered through

    pretentious fire. You wouldn’t think to
    look at death, she said
    at night, the doctor who delivered it

    was darkness. As fever struck the garbage
    dump, I dreamt I was her Carthage.

    —

    Jake Sheff is a major and pediatrician in the US Air Force. Poems of Jake’s are in Radius, The Ekphrastic Review, Crab Orchard Review, The Cossack Review and elsewhere. He won 1st place in the 2017 SFPA speculative poetry contest and was a finalist in the Rondeau Roundup’s 2017 triolet contest. His chapbook is “Looting Versailles” (Alabaster Leaves Publishing).

     

  • The Kiss by George Cassidy Payne

    (Inspired by Gustav Klimt)

    The kiss is nectar-filled
    skin wrapped over a corpse.

    It stands still in the mouth like
    a crouching tiger at a motionless
    midday stream.

    The kiss knows that figures are
    keeping watch. As tarantulas scuttle
    underfoot, it cracks apart like stepped on
    craw fish shells.

    Petite. Pink. Long and patient. Stingless
    and vaporizing. The difference between
    waiting and enduring.

    The kiss was never meant to be a hand
    shake or a goodbye. Like a moose, 5,343 feet
    below a canopy of charred balsam, scarfing wild
    shrooms, with instant knowing, The kiss bustles.

    Plunged into the minerals like an ice ax. Breaking them
    open upon a bed of prismatic sands. Submerged in
    asteroids. The kiss. Colliding intentions. Like the wind nudging
    two chimes. Existing together as they must.

    —

    George Cassidy Payne is originally from the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York. He now lives and works in the City of Rochester, New York. George is a poet, photographer, essayist, professor of philosophy, and social worker. George’s poetry has been included in a variety of  journals and magazines, including Chronogram Magazine, Allegro Poetry Journal, Mojave Heart, the Red Porch Review, Albany Up the River Poets Journal, Teahouse, The Adirondack Almanac, The Mindful Word, Talker of the Town, Pulsar, Moria Poetry Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, and many others. 

  • Zingara Poetry Review – Call for Submissions

    Submissions are open for Zingara Poetry Review. 

    ZPR will feature particular groups of individuals in the upcoming months, so please take a look at the following preferences. If none of the categories below feel like a good fit for you, please submit your work for National Poetry Month when ZPR will be publishing a poem every day of the month.

    August: Work by undergraduate students who are currently enrolled in an undergraduate program (any discipline) or who have graduated within two years. CLOSED

    September: Work by graduate students currently in a writing-related graduate program, including MFA, MA in English, etc.

    October: Work by indigenous people, particularly Native Americans.

    November: International Writers (anyone who isn’t living, or wasn’t born, in the United States).

    December: Poets over 50

    January: New and unpublished poets (0-3 single publications, no books or chapbooks)

    February: African American/Black American Poets

    March: Women only please!

    April: Poetry Month – a poem will be published every day this month so send your best work early!

    May: Poets who live WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI

    June: LGBTQ

    July: Editor Favorites

    Guidelines:

    • Send 1-3 previously unpublished poems of 40 lines of fewer in the body of an email, any style, any subject, to ZingaraPoet@gmail.com with the submission category (e.g. Undergraduate Student) as the subject of your email.
    • Include a cover letter and brief professional biography of 50 words or fewer, also in the body of your email.
    • Submissions are accepted year round.
    • Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please let me know immediately if submitted work is accepted elsewhere.
    • Published poets receive bragging rights and the chance to share their work with a diverse and ever-growing audience.
    • Submissions which do not follow these guidelines will be disregarded.
    • If accepted work is later published elsewhere, please acknowledge that the piece first appeared in Zingara Poetry Review.
    • There are no fees to submit, though you will be subscribed to the Zingara Poetry Review newsletter.
    • Check Zingara Poetry Review every week to read new poems, which are normally published by 9:00am Eastern Time.
    •  Zingara Poetry Review retains first digital rights, though rights revert back to the poet upon publication.

    What I look for in a poem:

    Like all editors, I like to see interesting poems that do what they do well. Whether traditional, conceptual, lyrical, or formal, they should exhibit the poet’s clear understanding of craft and, just as importantly, revision. Very elemental poems that have not undergone effective revision will probably not make the cut. Likewise, poems which are contrived, sacrifice meaning for the sake of rhyme, feel incomplete, do not risk sentimentality (or are too sentimental), or lack tension when tension is needed, will also be dismissed. I am a fan of rich, vivid imagery, cohesive discursiveness, and surprising metaphors. Finally, poems which perpetuate harmful stereotypes of gender, race, or class will most certainly not be considered.

    For a very good discussion on the elements of effective poetry, take a look at Slushpile Musings by James Swingle, publisher and editor of Noneucildean Cafe’

    Response time is 2 days to 6 months

  • Of the Palm by Toti O’Brien

    I admire the naivety
    How she stands among fellow trees
    sporting nothing
    but a scanty cluster of leaves
    in guise of a canopy
    as if going to a Victorian ball
    in flapper attire
    also wearing of course
    a feathered hat
    Of the palm
    I admire the frail nakedness
    delicately osé
    like a dancer’s shaved leg
    sheathed by nylon hoses
    If she dares
    intruding the arboreal crowd
    without blinking
    while so shamefully alien
    uncaring of uniforms
    she reveals
    among sister specimens
    exceptional
    skills of discipline
    How they march in orderly rows
    tracing parallels
    with their trunks
    fastening earth and sky
    with thin stitches
    How concertedly
    at the first puff of wind
    they tickle the horizon
    as if playing a keyboard
    with soft, even touch
    whole steps half steps
    hand in hand
    up and down the scale
    facilement

     

    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 Gyroscope, Pebble Poetry, Independent Noise, and Lotus-eaters.

     

  • Elegy with Ice Cream by Kathy Nelson

                ―Travis Leon Hawk

    A man fits a contraption
    onto a wooden pail, fills it with ice.
    The child turns the handle as easily

    as her Jack-in-the-box but soon
    grows bored and runs to play
    in the dappled shade of July.

    This the man who, as a boy, teased
    white fluff from the knife-edges
    of cotton bolls under summer sun

    till his fingers bled. Once, he spied
    a rattler coiled between his feet.
    He wants her to understand how

    hardship built this good life, how
    readily dust could blow again, how
    quickly flak jackets could come back.

    He calls her to him, teaches―add salt
    to the ice, keep the drain clear, turn
    the crank without haste, without desire.

    Her small shoulder stiffens. He grips,
    labors with his own broad forearm,
    churns the peach-strewn cream.

    —

    Kathy Nelson (Fairview, North Carolina) is the author of two chapbooks―Cattails (Main Street Rag, 2013) and Whose Names Have Slipped Away (Finishing Line Press, 2016). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Asheville Poetry Review, The Cortland Review, Tar River Poetry, Broad River Review, and Southern Poetry Review.

  • Homage to the Horny Toad by Chuck Taylor

    Friend Montrose says Why don’t you play the lead
    in my next horror film? I’m filming in
    Junction where the motel rents are low. The
    Monster’s going to be the horny toad.

    I’ll film him close and blow the image up
    So on screen the horny toad looks large and
    Scary what with all that horny skin.

    That ought to work I say. We had them in
    The backyard down in Deadwood. They can squish
    Down flat or blow up big to scare away
    The wolves, the foxes, and the coyotes.

    You think you know these toads? Why they can squirt
    Bright red blood out of their eyes. That’s why I
    Am shooting the film in Technicolor.

    They’re tiny guys, but not scared of people.
    They’ll sit quiet on the palm of your hand.

    Carolyn’s said she’ll play the heroine. She’ll
    Be chased by what seems to be a giant
    Evil monster. Its sticky tongue will flick
    Out as if it’s going to swallow her
    Whole. A developer’s out to buy her
    Land and has trained the beast to chase her.
    Good thing you’re using the horn toad. No one

    Will recognize little guy made big on
    The screen. When I was a kid growing up
    I’d see them everywhere, but haven’t seen
    The horny toad in more than twenty years.

    —

    Chuck Taylor’s first book of poems was published by Daisy Aldan’s Folder Press in 1975. He worked as a poet-in-the-schools and as Ceta Poet in Residence for Salt Lake City.

  • In the Era of Collective Thought by Gary Fincke

    From a hospital in Texas,
    one hundred brains have vanished
    and, as always, there are flurries
    of posts suggesting suspects
    from genius to sociopath.
    Still unaccounted for, the brains
    of the frequently concussed, those
    in early dementia, those
    whose last demand was suicide.
    Tonight, after we lock our doors,
    we speculate the thief lives
    surrounded by so many brains
    he cannot admit a guest.
    That he must master home repair
    or live among leaks and drafts
    and dangerous wiring. All day,
    we have seen nobody outside.
    As if our isolation has been
    perfected by the relentless work
    of the brain-eating zombies
    we are fond of discussing.
    Cerebrum, cerebellum–
    we recite our parts like beginners
    in anatomy, counting down to
    the constancy of medulla
    while the underworld’s weather
    loots the grid we rely upon.
    Drought has master-minded
    the overthrow of farming.
    Rain is a hostage whose ransom
    has been raised so high the sky
    is unable to pay. Shut-ins,
    we carry the memory of comfort
    like a congenital hump.
    Decisions made elsewhere are
    hurtling toward us in rented trucks,
    all of them explaining themselves
    in a gibberish of slogans.

    —

    Gary Fincke’s latest collection, The Infinity Room, won the Wheelbarrow Books Prize for Established Poets (Michigan State, 2019). A collection of essays, The Darkness Call, won the Robert C. Jones Prize for Short Prose and was published by Pleiades Press in 2018.

     

  • Gleeful by Christina M. Rau

    The joy of cows
    roadside sitting
    standing together—
    as if I’d never seen cows.
    As if they are exotic.
    I suppose to some, they are.
    To others, sacred.
    Once at the Atlanta Zoo
    a keeper told me to think
    of giraffes as giant cows,
    head’s the same just a different height.

    Giraffes are roadside somewhere
    but not here. Down here there
    are the cows, the green green grasses,
    the flowers in blankets of maroon
    white purple yellow
    billowing blossoming blooming
    for miles stretched ahead.

    —

    Christina M. Rau is the author of the sci-fi fem poetry collection, Liberating The Astronauts (Aqueduct Press, 2017), which won the SFPA 2018 Elgin Award, and the chapbooks WakeBreatheMove (Finishing Line Press, 2015) and For The Girls, I (Dancing Girl Press, 2014). She also writes for Book Riot about all things book-related. In her non-writing life, when she’s not teaching yoga, she’s watching the Game Show Network.  http://www.christinamrau.com