The Zingara Project

Tag: Aldrich Press

  • Renting a Room on Magazine Street by Jim Zola

    The obvious is difficult to prove
    in a room with ceilings high enough
    for giants to unstoop, where glass doors
    introduce a garden plot of chickweed
    and empty pots. Upstairs a piano
    plays all day, plinking made-up melodies
    like a drunk weaving patterns
    in a Sunday parking lot. Sometimes
    the songs are funereal, marching

    the dead on bright white keys. I never
    see the player, never slip past
    in narrow veins of hallways. He works
    nights, sleeps days on the hardwood floor
    above my head. It’s the nights that take
    their toll, the tireless jangle
    of window fans, babies crying
    as if they know their mothers moan
    in the deep sleep some lover’s arms.

    Jim Zola has worked in a warehouse, as a security guard, in a bookstore, as a teacher for Deaf children, as a toy designer for Fisher Price, and currently as a children’s librarian. Published in many journals through the years, his publications include a chapbook — The One Hundred Bones of Weather (Blue Pitcher Press) — and a full length poetry collection — What Glorious Possibilities (Aldrich Press). He currently lives in Greensboro, NC

    Enjoy more poems at Zingara Poetry Picks

  • That Photo, Which She Carried to Class by KJ Hannah Greenberg

    That photo, which she carried to events, shows youth and beauty,
    Also free-flowing wisdom, lovelies hung on walls, gnawing on doors,
    Climbing telephone poles; maidens with few fears
    Whose exploits include difficult pairings, full sublet prices.
    It radiates diatribes wrung out by emotional teenagers,
    Depicts all forms of obsequious behavior, reflects inner balance,
    Remains spiced by conflict, bravado, and the questioning of cleaning fun.
    Also, it gives a peek in to that rarity of reasoned decision-making.

    Along the speaking circuit of hillbillies, horrible monster with swollen fingers
    Extrasensory abilities, flawed couplings, pimply noses, articulated opinions,
    Shuttle cats to local hospitals, pull up forbs of spring, teach herbal gymnastics,
    Maybe, additionally, reserve castile soap for parental participation in public schools.
    A plethora of high manors, bards, and local serfs, reduced to sharing shrugs,
    Smile, chuckle, throw tantrums while morally relaxed others surf Internet cafes,
    Seeking pink or gray beaches beneath Northeastern dumps, tiaras, gloves,
    Sleek modes of dress, suspicious manners as found in bridal magazines.

    Loosened onto existing ephemera, drunken gulls carry away bits of time, viscera,
    Harnesses, new careers among succulent barramundis, gasping tourists’ limbs,
    While books written by domestic divas parcel accidental merit, split fifths,
    Trumpet dames’ lingo, falsetto productions, women’s song, acoustic guitar music.
    Feminine health products never turn heads as long as people continue to be
    “Smart enough” to discern among glossy rhetoric. Alternatively, provoked into curiosity
    Concerning manner of eating starfish, hunting quail, gathering leprechauns,
    Persons smooth minor inconveniences, including the complexity of the universe.

    —

    KJ Hannah Greenberg, who only pretends at being indomitable, tramps across literary genres and giggles in her sleep. Her newest poetry books are: Dancing with Hedgehogs, (Fowlpox Press, 2014), and The Little Temple of My Sleeping Bag (Dancing Girl Press, 2014), Citrus-Inspired Ceramics (Aldrich Press, 2013).