The Zingara Project

Tag: Finishing Line Press

  • All That Remains: Inspired by Van Gogh’s Bedroom by Kim Baker 

    All That Remains: Inspired by Van Gogh’s Bedroom by Kim Baker 

    One wonders who, alongside Vincent himself,
    stares down upon the empty bed.
    Two framed guardian angels?
    Or the visages of brothers, of lovers?
    They are all that remain to witness
    this hauntingly serene scene.

    Moon-glow window partly ajar.
    Towel resigned on a nail near one door.
    Patiently anticipating painting smocks, 
    signature straw hat at the hooked dowel.
    Hairbrush, pitcher, carafe
    atop an apprehensive table, waiting.

    Chair pulled close to the head of the bed
    as if someone had just been reading 
    a soothing children’s story to Vincent
    or pleading in a blanket of red woolen urgency
    robin’s egg blue reasons for Vincent 
    to skip the long walk to the wheat field 
    accompanied only by the cold steel of peace.

    —

    When she isn’t writing poetry about big hair and Elvis, Kim works to end hunger and violence against women. A poet, playwright, photographer, and NPR essayist, Kim publishes and edits  Word Soup, an online poetry journal (currently on hiatus) that donates 100% of submission fees to food banks. Kim’s chapbook of poetry, Under the Influence:  Musings about Poems and Paintings, is available from Finishing Line Press.      

  • Painting Itself Red by Kim Baker

    The job of the poet is to render the world – to see it and report it without loss, without perversion. No poet ever talks about feelings. Only sentimental people do. 

    ~Mark Van Doren 

    Everything here is red,
    adorning scores of farmhouses, barns, and doors.
    The Wandering Moose Café and train station.
    The post office and Stage Coach Tavern.

    I wonder about a town that paints itself red.
    Insinuates a crimson theology in an indomitable land
    of evergreen groves, gray stone walls, and
    the righteous white of every Congregational Church.
    Perhaps the inhabitants strayed away 
    from shades of specters and blending in 
    when Dr. Dean built Red Mill in 1750.
    Maybe they needed cerise to rival the Gold family
    or hollyhock to stand out up on Cream Hill.
    In some towns, maybe red is a fetish,
    the iconic covered bridge representing everything.

    I compose on one of the many red benches
    spread here along the Housatonic River,
    perfect places for poets and other lovers,
    searching for an unsentimental shade.
    The cardinal gone from the maple tree.
    The wheelbarrow waiting for spring.
    The brick of my heart.

    —

    When she isn’t writing poetry about big hair and Elvis, Kim Baker works to end hunger and violence against women. A poet, playwright, photographer, and NPR essayist, Kim publishes and edits Word Soup, an online poetry journal (currently on hiatus) that donates 100% of submission fees to food banks. Kim’s chapbook of poetry, Under the Influence:  Musings about Poems and Paintings, is available from Finishing Line Press.      

  • split pea soup by Jan Ball

    Just after we were married, you tried to make
    split pea soup at my parents trailer in Wisconsin
    but the split peas wouldn’t soften; still, musty
    smells mixed with the piney fragrance from outdoors
    stimulated our appetites–probably the split peas
    were on the pine wood shelf in the little country store
    with the squeaky screen door for years, but you wanted
    to make split pea soup on vacation in the Dells.

    Tonight, the green peas I substitute for yellow ones
    aren’t soft yet but I can smell the flavors blending:
    like so many years ago, onions, ginger, apple and
    sweet potato left over from Thanksgiving, with
    coriander, cumin and turmeric. But there is no hurry.
    You aren’t home yet and Lake Michigan outside
    the window is conducive to navy blue reflection.
    When you do return, finally, I’ll add the tart lime juice
    and acidic tomatoes before serving to the simmering soup
    for a contrast of flavors.

    —

    Jan Ball has had 325 poems published in various journals including: Atlanta Review,
    Calyx, Chiron, Mid-America Review, Nimrod and Parnassus, in Australia, Canada,
    Czech Republic, England, India and The U.S.. Jan’s three chapbooks and full
    length poetry collection, I Wanted To Dance With My Father, are available from
    Finishing Line Press and Amazon.

  • 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.

  • 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

  • Portrait of My Mother by Kathy Nelson

    My mother sits in profile on the photographer’s stool,
    one arm draped over crossed knees, the other behind her.
    White crinoline and ruffles. Classic pose. Scuffed shoes.

    She is taking that single breath between girl and woman.
    The ripening plum of her mouth. The start of softness
    above the narrow velvet ribbon of her empire waist.

    Nights, she listens from her bed to slamming doors,
    the late thunder of tires on oyster shells in the drive.
    Or her mother rouses her from sleep, commands her

    to yell her father’s name from the car, embarrass him―
    he and his tart carousing at the open-air bar. She’s
    a conscript in her mother’s war. What she longs for―

    her father’s love. He’s bound to his pocket flask.
    Mornings, she sits at the piano, as her mother requires,
    plays scales and études. Duty over desire. I want to break

    the glass over the portrait, let her out. I want to tell her:
    set the house on fire, let them wonder if you drowned
    in the canal, run away to Kathmandu in your scuffed shoes,

    —

    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.

  • Annual Self-Preservation Scrutinization by M. Kaat Toy

    Checking our revered account balances, we see if last year’s resolutions have been cost effective or has their security been breached by the contorted cycles of our junkie brains that love to rob while renouncing free offerings as too repressive? Though it’s hard to climb the ladder of satisfaction with the tractor treads of military tanks, our logic brains persistently denounce actions unacceptable to their wills such as polishing the auras of all the mystical animals, raising their knavish energy and opening doorways to the higher realms. Because the practical alone is dangerous and the spiritual alone is ineffective, the twin clowns of war and thunder mock our arrogance and our wrath, tossing watermelons down on us from their rainy mountain where the fastidious knights we dispatch to guard the holy grail of the rigid little goals we set for ourselves corrode in the clouds.

    —

    M. Kaat Toy (Katherine Toy Miller) of Taos, New Mexico, has published a prose poem chapbook, In a Cosmic Egg (2012), at Finishing Line Press, a flash fiction book, Disturbed Sleep (2013), at FutureCycle Press, novel selections, short stories, flash fiction, prose poetry, creative nonfiction, journalism, and scholarly work.

  • December by Sharon Scholl

    i

    The cottonwoods come down
    last among the shedders,
    come in piles like leather napkins
    folded brown and gold.
    Wind swirls them into speckled hills,
    mattresses for leaping children.
    I’ve watched the cutting loose
    as each twig cast its fate on air,
    the whole like silent snow,
    space a-flutter with gentle death.

    ii

    There are things we can’t hold onto,
    joys that slip from our bodies
    at the stroke of time.
    They float quietly away
    beyond the comfort of grief. We pull
    them from our minds, bend over them
    like firelight, warming old bones
    in the radiance of what used to be.

    —

    Sharon Scholl is a retired college professor of humanities and international studies. Her recently published chapbooks include Summer’s Child (Finishing Line Press) and EAT SPACE (Poet Press). She convenes A Gathering of Poets, critique group of a dozen local poets celebrating our twelfth anniversary.

  • Advent by Lynda Fleet Perry

    ~ for Mark

    From the farm’s back field the wind is rising
    as we walk, holding hands, to cut our tree
    in the crisp night air. The moon is rising

    over the skeletal tips of branches, forking
    into the gathering dark. We can see,
    from the farm’s back field, the wind rising

    by the way the old cedar moans, tossing
    its now-black foliage, as if to shake free.
    On this solstice night, the moon’s rising

    arc holds Venus—glimmering and winking—
    at celestial arms’ length. They’re married
    above the farm’s back field—wind rising

    as if to rush the inevitable coupling
    of sickle and orb, a brilliant zenith
    of this longest night. The moon is rising

    higher. Now we can see the tree, leaning
    crookedly, our Yule pine, its shadow spindly
    in the moon’s silver light.  Night has risen
    over the farm’s back field. The wind still rises.

    —

    Lynda Fleet Perry is the author of a chapbook of poems, At Winter Light Farm, published by Finishing Line Press in 2011. Her work has been published in Blackbird, Defunct, qarrtsiluni, New Zoo Poetry Review, and other journals. She received her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2014. She lives in Richmond, Virginia, with her husband and daughter, and works as a writer and communications manager for a botanical garden. 

  • Advent by Carol Barrett

    My mother prepares for winter
    Two hummingbirds
    Dally on the tip-top rung,
    Tomato trellis in patio garden

    Two hummingbirds
    Take in the crisp, falling air
    Tomato trellis in patio garden,
    A quiet, temporary lair

    My mother takes in crisp air
    Arranges winter coats
    In her quiet, temporary lair
    Thinks of my father, waiting

    She arranges winter coats,
    Wonders will she need them
    Thinks of my father, waiting
    His voice, his warm embrace

    She wonders will she need
    The books, the vases, teacups
    His voice, his warm embrace —
    She has enough to make it through

    The books, the vases, teacups
    Can go for another spring
    She has enough to make it through
    Look! Come watch the hummers

    What can go for another spring
    Can be boxed and sent away
    Look! Come watch the hummers
    Whirring, first snow on golden leaves

    Soon all will be boxed and sent away
    My father calling from the garden,
    Whirring, first snow on golden leaves
    My mother preparing for winter

    —

    Carol Barrett holds doctorates in both clinical psychology and creative writing. She coordinates the Creative Writing Certificate Program at Union Institute & University. Her books include Calling in the Bones, which won the Snyder Prize from Ashland Poetry Press, Drawing Lessons from Finishing Line Press, and Pansies, a work of creative nonfiction, from Sonder Press. Her poems have appeared in JAMA, Poetry International, Poetry Northwest, The Women’s Review of Books, and many other venues.

     

  • Directions Back to Childhood by Judith Waller Carroll

    Turn left at the first sign of progress
    and follow the old highway
    along the Stillwater River.
    When you hear the whistle of the train,
    take a right and cross the covered bridge
    that leads to the rodeo grounds
    where the silver-maned bronc
    caused so much havoc the summer you were ten
    and the ghost of your grandfather’s jeep
    rests behind the bleached-out grandstand
    choked with blackberries.
    As you round the corner into town,
    there’s a white picket fence
    laced with lilacs. Walk through the gate.
    You’ll see a blue and white Western Flyer
    lying on its side in the middle of the sidewalk.
    It will take you the rest of the way.

    —

    Judith Waller Carroll is the author of What You Saw and Still Remember, a runner-up for the 2017 Main Street Rag Poetry Award, The Consolation of Roses, winner of the 2015 Astounding Beauty Ruffian Press Poetry Prize, and Walking in Early September (Finishing Line Press).

  • 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.

     

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  • Barnwork We Didn’t Talk Much About by Charles A. Swanson

    Manure was the word we used, or barnyard
    muck. Not that manure was elegant,
    but more so in the cattle stalls.

    I still remember Christmas holidays,
    the manure spreader parked,
    ready, between two open doors,

    and long-shafted pitch forks,
    one with four tines, one with five,
    the wood worn smooth in the handles,

    the metal burnished and gleaming,
    and the litter (isn’t that a nice word)
    mixed with hay coming up in layers,

    almost like thin-rolled well-baked pastry.
    Cow manure smells sunny
    compared to pig. Cows eat grass,

    breathe grass, pass grass,
    and something, though faint, lingers
    of clover and sun and vegetable life.

    Outside, around the doors, where sweet rain
    fouled manure—imagine such a thing!—
    the cows’ stomping and milling

    made a black mess, a true muck—
    this is what shit looks like, I always
    think, even now, something fetid,

    fecal, foul, black as tar, suck-
    deep and miry. I walked through that,
    too, as barefoot country boys do,

    in summertime. But in winter,
    straining to pry and peel up
    a thin layer, a towel-length sheet

    of cow manure, I sang (whenever,
    I could find, a breath, between forking,
    and tossing) every Christmas carol I knew.

    —

    Charles A. Swanson teaches English in an Academy for Engineering and Technology.  Frequently published in Appalachian magazines, he also pastors a small church, Melville Avenue Baptist in Danville.  He has two books of poems:  After the Garden, published by MotesBooks, and Farm Life and Legend, from Finishing Line Press. 

     

     

  • Change of Heart by Marian Shapiro

    Suppose – no decisions
    could be changed, no fates
    rearranged,
    nothing broken, nothing
    needing repair –
    where
    would I be then? And you?

    —

    Marian Kaplun Shapiro is the author of a professional book, Second Childhood (Norton, 1988),  a poetry book, Players In The Dream, Dreamers In The Play (Plain View Press, 2007) and  two chapbooks: Your Third Wish, (Finishing Line, 2007); and The End Of The World, Announced On Wednesday (Pudding House, 2007). A Quaker and a psychologist, her poetry often embeds the  topics of peace and violence by addressing one within the context of the other. A resident of Lexington, she is a five-time Senior Poet Laureate of Massachusetts. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2012.

  • Where the Peaches Are Always Ripe by Kim Baker

    And then a knife
    lifting skin from a peach
    paring away the succulence
    as if fruit never bruises
    and she lost the rhythm
    for just a moment
    the aroma taking her back
    that summer
    his skin
    her sublime laughter

    And then the knife did what knives will do
    continued cutting
    even when she was already bleeding
    down to her very bone
    and she is alone
    his heart stopped long ago
    long before this peach
    this knife

    Her children never understood why
    she wouldn’t come live with them
    preferred to make her own bed
    and lie in the fragrance of what was

    So that all she can do in this existential minute
    is watch the bright red of her life
    flow through her fingers
    stain her apron
    empty her of all she knew
    watch it descend

    like a staircase to another place
    where the peaches are always ripe
    and she can swallow them whole
    because wasting the skin
    the pit of grace
    is just too human

    —

    When she isn’t writing poetry about big hair and Elvis, Kim works to end violence against women. A poet, playwright, photographer, and NPR essayist, Kim publishes and edits Word Soup, an online poetry journal that donates 100% of submission fees to food banks. Kim’s chapbook of poetry, Under the Influence: Musings about Poems and Paintings, is now available from Finishing Line Press.
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