The Zingara Project

Blog

  • spring is a time of death by J.C. Mari

    spring is a time of death
    that envisions
    comfortable pajamas
    and a very dark room
    in glacier-level ac.
    spring is a time of
    death that still lingers
    stretching, yawning
    not quite knowing
    what to do with itself
    like a Mahler symphony
    still half-way through.
    spring is a time of
    rivers thawed
    mountain passes breached
    and death beating drums
    supreme
    the painful erections of goats.
    Spring
    is a time of death crashing midnight highways
    and haunting the noontime drowned
    spring
    is a time for death
    but not memories, please, hush,

    don’t, don’t ,don’t…

    spring is a time to burn inside the wicker work
    smoke rising
    like a giant conspiracy of ravens flying up.
    —
    J.C. resides in Florida. He engages in a variety of philistine occupations. He has authored the recently published poetry collection ” the sun sets like faces fade right before you pass out.”

  • The Unloved Universe, There and Not by Lois Marie Harrod

    The deaf make so much noise,
    the blind keep appearing,
    those who can’t smell
    reek while the tasteless
    devour the rotten peach.
    Those who can’t touch
    skim their fingers
    along the razor,
    or rubbing up against us
    in the street, refuse
    rebuke. We hurt others,
    ourselves,
    the non-sensed sensing.
    And yet what we can’t touch
    sometimes touches us.                            
    What we can’t under-
    stand often crushes.
    —
    Lois Marie Harrod’s 16th and most recent collection Nightmares of the Minor Poet appeared in June 2016 from Five Oaks. And She Took the Heart  (Casa de Cinco Hermanas) appeared in January 2016, Fragments from the Biography of Nemesis (Cherry Grove Press) and the chapbook How Marlene Mae Longs for Truth (Dancing Girl Press) appeared in 2013. The Only Is won the 2012 Tennessee Chapbook Contest (Poems & Plays), and Brief Term, a collection of poems about teachers and teaching was published by Black Buzzard Press, 2011. Cosmogony won the 2010 Hazel Lipa Chapbook (Iowa State). Dodge poet and 3-time recipient of a New Jersey Council on the Arts fellowship, she is widely published in literary journals and online ezines from American Poetry Review to Zone 3 Links to her online work at www.loismarieharrod.org

  • Where Water Runs by Beth Politsch

    In the place
    where water runs,
    magic shivers and hums
    and shakes the trees
    with its incantations.

    The stream is a cauldron
    of leaves, moss and bark.
    It blooms with dark clouds
    of mud when rust-
    colored stones are lifted
    away from the creek bed
    by the toe of your boot.

    But it is your bare feet
    the water longs to touch.
    It asks
    for your fingers
    to try to interfere
    with its persistent flow.

    If you stay long enough,
    this place becomes a voice
    in your head.
    It whispers
    words you’ve heard
    in dreams. It tells birds
    to swoop down
    the brooky path beside you,
    because you are
    and always have been
    the same.

    And maybe
    if you’re very lucky,
    a toad will pause and look
    you in the eye from a bumpy rock.
    Maybe a crane will sweep down
    into your shade
    and almost anoint you
    with her wings.

    It will wait until you’re ready,
    this oracle,
    chanting spells softly,
    listening for your breath,
    offering vines and roots
    for a staircase,
    as you climb down
    from the usual path.

    —

    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. 

     

  • Stillness by Martin Willits

    How do we still the stillness,
    making it less than a soft whisper of sleep?
    One more day no one can take problems anymore,
    and look at how badly it turned out
    as the sun sighed, going out
    behind the black-purple night sky background.

    How can we make it any more quiet
    than when the sun is a red flood
    disappearing under the weight of the setting
    and the pushing down of night?

    The large orange harvest moon
    sits on the horizon
    like it was a hard wooden park bench.
    It is so close we can see the pockmarks
    from eons of smashing asteroids,
    and we do not know what to say —

    how do we get more silence, less
    talking, less accidental noises
    than that? Less than an oar
    not moving in water, not dripping
    when lifted, not tipping into the row boat
    as it is tied onto a pier, and not
    the soundlessness of the wooden dock —
    how do we get less noise than that?

    Even the moth flaming after touching fire
    makes a subtle noise. Or the cat, padding
    on a thick rug, clawing and sharpening its nails,
    arching before circling into sleep,
    makes a curious noise, one that troubles
    the quiet. No matter how softly we proceed,
    noise follows us, makes sure we know it’s there.

    —

    Martin Willitts Jr has 20 chapbooks including the winner of the Turtle Island Quarterly Editor’s Choice Award, “The Wire Fence Holding Back the World” (Flowstone Press, 2017) plus 11 full-length collections including forthcoming full-lengths includes “The Uncertain Lover” (Dos Madres Press, 2018), and “Home Coming Celebration” (FutureCycle Press, 2018).

     

     

     

     

  • The Road by Carla Schwartz

    The road of asphalt, still covered in winter’s detritus,
    the road of lined up houses that part for a parade,
    the road of school, of church, of aqueduct.

    I travel the road by bicycle, by the side of the road, the shoulder,
    my shoulders, a little hunched,
    my thumbs resting on break hoods.

    The road of large brass sewer covers,
    of small round or square plates for gas, for water,
    where the road dips and rises like a pillow.

    The road of potholes, of layers of asphalt,
    eaten away by salt,
    successive thaws and freezes.

    The road of roadkill — headless rabbits, flattened turtles, snakes,
    sparrows, and turkey plumes spread like a headdress
    in the middle of the road.

    On the road, I listen, keep a watch for glass, for dips.
    On this road, the shoulder narrows, then widens,
    my pace slows down as I ride uphill.

    At an intersection, on the road,
    metal eyeglass frames, squashed and skewed,
    one lens missing, the other shattered.

    —

    Carla Schwartz is a poet, filmmaker, photographer, and blogger. Her poems have appeared in many journals. Her second collection of poetry, Intimacy with the Wind, is available from Finishing Line Press or Amazon.com. Find her debut collection, Mother, One More Thing (Turning Point, 2014) on Amazon.com.  Her CB99videos youtube channel has 1,700,000+ views. Learn more at carlapoet.com, or wakewiththesun.blogspot.com or find her @cb99videos.

     

    Attachments area

     

     

  • Between Us, the Moon by KB Ballentine

    The moon aches, belly full
    as dawn frays the edge of night.
    In the shallows, a blue heron peers
    into the lake, patient as Saint Francis.
    But a quick slash of beak, and nature
    reveals her unconcern.
    Barely awake, the town unshutters,
    signs turn in shop windows, blinds open.

    And here we lie, in this bed so wide
    we don’t have to touch. I can’t remember
    the last time I knew you,
    when you let me look in your eyes,
    lean on you. What happened to us?
    The heron unfolds its wings and lifts,
    casts a shadow over the shore.
    The moon pales, day empty and raw.

    ~“Between Us, the Moon” first appeared in The Mill, Issue 2.

    KB Ballentine has a M.A. in Writing and a M.F.A. in Creative Writing, Poetry. Her fifth collection of poems, Almost Everything, Almost Nothing, is forthcoming by Middle Creek Publishing.

  • Looking for a Summer Writing Residency Experience?

    Did you know that Converse College offers two non-degree seeking options for creative writers wishing to hone their skills?

    If you are looking for an immersive experience and want a taste of what a writing residency is all about, Converse now offers the Brief Immersion Residency.

    Immersion students join MFA students and MFA core faculty in the residency workshop as a non-degree, non-credit student. Work is discussed meaningfully and at length with all participants providing critique and feedback. Participants also attend craft lecture offerings and other classroom activities as well as faculty and visiting faculty readings.

    Converse also offers a Lecture Pass allowing the holder to attend some or all craft lectures held during the residency session and is available to any writer holding a bachelor’s degree, or to any college student entering or currently enrolled as a senior. Lecture passes are also available to Converse alumni. Both full and half passes are available for a small fee. Lecture pass attendees receive no academic credit and they do not attend any writing workshop, only craft lectures with the half pass, or craft lectures and readings with a full pass.

    Converse’s current and past core faculty include such notable and award winning writers as Denise Duhamel, Richard Tilinghast, Yona Harvey, Marlin Barton, Tommy Hays, C. Michael Curtis, Rick Mulkey, Robert Olmstead, Leslie Pietrzyk, Susan Teculve, Suzanne Cleary, Gary Jackson, Randall Kenan, Juan Morales, Tessa Fontain, Megan Hansen Shepherd, and Allan Wolf, just to name a handful (this list is FAR from exhaustive).

    Converse is accepting applications NOW for this year’s Summer Residency scheduled for May 31 to June 8th at their Spartanburg, South Carolina campus. Apply here.

    DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS IS MAY 10TH FOR READERS OF ZINGARA POETRY REVIEW. Just say you learned about the opportunity here.

    So what are you waiting for – apply today!

  • Internal Exile by Diane G. Martin

              “…we have no hope and yet
              we live in longing.”

                         Inferno, Dante

    I’ve been pressed between the pages
    of a heavy book, a keepsake
    to be rediscovered one fine
    day, yellow, brittle, print-stained—
    a sentimental talisman.

    I’m so close to every line;
    indeed, they are on me engraved.
    Exquisite shapes keep me awake,
    though once lofty, once plain thoughts have
    blurred, have rubbed their meanings away.

    The lack of air is thick with them—
    clouds of locusts on a rampage—
    these words elbowing each other
    These worlds of words, all alien.
    I distrust them–black, banal worn.

    Yet it’s not for nothing I’m named
    Diana.  For now, I bide my
    hours quietly, lie warily
    between famed leaves and string my bow.
    Somehow, I’ll fly to the dark wood.

    —

    Diane G. Martin, Russian literature specialist, Willamette University graduate, has published work in numerous literary journals including New London Writers, Vine Leaves Literary Review, Poetry Circle, Open: JAL, Pentimento, Twisted Vine Leaves, The Examined Life, Wordgathering, Dodging the Rain, Antiphon, Dark Ink, Gyroscope, Poor Yorick, Rhino, Conclave, Slipstream, and Stonecoast Review.

     

     

  • Notes in the Night by Judith Bader Jones

    A summer breeze, sheer
    as bedroom curtains, floats
    through a screened window
    and joins us in our double bed.

    Evening slows the rhythm
    of your beating heart when I rest
    against your chest and nighttime music
    becomes a cover for body pain and sorrow.

    Livin’ in this murky world – the blues
    dilutes our hurts while brush-stroke lyrics,
    sung by survivors, saves souls as we fall
    asleep holding onto each other.

    —

    Judith Bader Jones, a poet in Fairway, Kansas, has recent publications in  CHEST- The American College of Chest Physicians, Nostalgia and i-70 Review. She is an avid organic gardener and bird photographer.

     

  • Sleeping in Bed Together by John Grey

    You’re from a world where seasons never varied their routine
    and construction workers waved from beams on high
    and a revelation could be as simple
    as a bucking trout pulled from a stream.

    And now you’re with a woman, in a bed
    her body barely a shiver away from yours,
    suddenly aware of how little touch is needed to identify the other
    while always imagining the worst that lies in store for you.

    You got from hatching to imago
    with the usual helpings of slime and ooze,
    to where you’re heel to heel with the desired one,
    and yet still can be startled by such close companionship.

    You’re from a place where so little flesh went into the making of you.
    And here being fully grown is not something you find comforting,
    Yet from lack of light, a strange cadence emerges.
    low-breathing, low-flying beings navigating their way through sleep.

    —

    John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Examined Life Journal, Studio One and Columbia Review with work upcoming in Leading Edge, Poetry East and Midwest Quarterly.  

     

     

     

     

  • as dandelions popped by Nanette Rayman

    Tonight, from a distance, I saw my real life
    smiling and walking across the avenue with bells
    on, a sound sweet—for her—like the birds chirping
    at the last moment of Layla. And without a sound
    the blue-green brush strokes of sad altostratus
    clouds crosshatched the whole sky. A cassowary
    lost its quillish feathers in New Guinea, feet left
    to kick anyone in its path and a fortune-teller
    heavy with turquoise in a long flowing skirt looked
    at me for a long moment. On the other side
    of the Atlantic,  the Isle of Hebrides took
    on sun and people cried, weathered houses
    tilting in the wind, and eyes hooded by hands
    ready to caress wives and husbands as I sat
    down floppily on an old bench as dandelions
    popped, as pink pansies blossomed fuchsia,
    resigned and overwhelmed as the human soul.

    —

    Nanette Rayman, author of Shana Linda, Pretty Pretty and Project: Butterflies—Foothills Publishing. Winner of the Glass Woman Prize, included in Best of the Net 2007, DZANC Best of the Web 2010 is published in Stirring’s Steamiest Six, featured in Up the Staircase Quarterly. Other publications include: Sugar House Review, Worcester Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, Little Rose Magazine, Rain, Poetry & Disaster Society, Pedestal, DMQ, carte blanche, Oranges & Sardines, Sundog, and Melusine. 

  • 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.