The Zingara Project

Tag: North American Review

  • Running With The Wolves by Bruce McRae

    An hour of joy, an ounce of sorrow.
    This monumental moment, in part and in whole.
    I’m being touched by moonlight, so a little bit mad.
    Moonstruck and nightblind. Gone the way of the wolf.
    I’m lying in a loony half-light and recounting the myths,
    the stories we tell ourselves in order that we might carry on.
    Meaning imbued over coincidence. Memories shorted.
    The past redacted and redressed, so all is calm.
    You can put away those nerve-pills and quack confections.
    You can rest easy. Write a poem. Go whistle.
    A full harvest moon, and you can see into the darkness.
    You can sail that moonbeam over the shallows of paradise.
    Hang tight, my passenger, it’s full on into morning.
    —

    Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician currently residing on Salt Spring Island BC, is a Pushcart nominee with over a thousand poems published internationally in magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His books are “The So-Called Sonnets” (Silenced Press), “An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy” (Cawing Crow Press), and “Like As If” (Pskis Porch), all available via Amazon.

    Read these other poems by Bruce on Zingara Poetry Review: “Hinting at Eternity,” “Making Do,” and “Stop the Clock.”

     

     

     

     

  • Seventeen by Adrian S. Potter

    Those were better days for everybody
    we knew. Electric guitars groaned

     their inherent blues, spilling secrets
    we’ve since forgotten. Rain arrived

     in spring and lingered around longer
    than desired. Even the stars had a job,

    to remind us how nothing dies as slow
    as the light of our youth. I confess:

     I never understood what the guitars
    were saying, the reasons why logic

     felt flawed, the purpose of our mistakes.
    Regrets piled up like trash in the streets.

    I let down defenses, ignored the obvious
    truths, spent late nights seeking trouble

    in the wrong places, just like everyone else.
    We weren’t broken, yet; that was the riddle

    we needed to solve. Hearts open, parched
    throats begging for booze we couldn’t buy

    while adults sneered at our defiant spirits,
    secretly wishing they still possessed them.

     —

    Adrian S. Potter writes poetry and short fiction. He is the author of the fiction chapbook Survival Notes (Červená Barva Press, 2008) and winner of the 2010 Southern Illinois Writers Guild Poetry Contest. Some publication credits include North American Review, Obsidian and Kansas City Voices. He blogs, sometimes, at http://adrianspotter.com/.

     

  • Stop The Clock by Bruce McRae

    I remember,
    you were pointing a stick
    at the moon.
    It was the day before
    the wolf bit you.
    Near to that incident
    with the toothpick.
    You were with a girl
    who rubbed brass for a living.
    I remember,
    you had a signed edition
    of a box of bags
    and were dating an ex-nun.
    Around the time
    of the break out.
    Sure, and as I recall,
    you were studying wych elm,
    or was it moonwort?
    Either way,
    that was the same summer
    they moved the graveyard
    into the secret forest.
    Remember?
    You had that awful sunburn
    and a lung had collapsed;
    the very same day
    as the mudslide . . .
    Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
    Makes you think
    real hard.
    —

    Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician, is a Pushcart nominee with over a thousand poems published internationally in magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His latest book out now, ‘An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy’ is available on Amazon and through Cawing Crow Press, while in September of this year, another book of poems, ‘Like As If’, will be published by Pskis Porch. His poems on video can be viewed on YouTube’s ‘BruceMcRaePoetry’