Epiphany Magazine - epiphmag.com
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| David McLean Paul Sohar Vicky Reuter George Anderson Christopher Nienhaus William Root David Chorlton Susana Case Michael Estabrook Jane Rice |
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Poetry Prose by Christopher Nienhaus
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Morning Calm
With a newborn's wonderment, drawn to light and warmth without knowing why, I began this tentative journey towards an unattainable spectrum of delight. A volatile force so elegantly beautiful yet dangerous to the touch she captivated my imagination and burned just beyond my grasp. At once faced with the realization that this radiant entity should not and could not be harnessed I was left wanting and strangely satisfied. For the world seemed to orbit around her, and I was content to simply enjoy my time in her warmth, always hoping that once again she would return to brighten even the darkest nights. Christopher Nienhaus is a recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he earned a B.A.(Honors) in Anthropology and English. He is currently living, working and writing in Gyeongsan, South Korea. |
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Poetry by David McLean
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a dreadful skeleton
here come my childhoods in me like bizarre dreadful skeletal remnants, the old skull of a sheep or terror lizard living on a misty hill, full of Nirvana and no will, like an archaic saint they lie motionless in me because the meat has rotted and is gone, they are vanished dead skeletons though i live on, apparently, the child being done full of nothing and eternities full of nothing and a passionate puppy, we are panting his dread memories together as he scampers where grass was under his paws, once, the living finger of no god writing him instead of anxiety in me, our sickness unto death is the timeless suffering of frogs this scentless forever together, because where puppies run time is done and gone, a day an eternity long |
praxis and permanence
here our praxis is assembling permanence a brief second, time and life and becoming growing frozen stone from the temporary flesh, stability is a bedrock for different shapes of death like horizons and schemata, knives slicing tarts equably as any aunt ever asked for. dutiful children bootstrapping identities out of fragments of fluctuating plastic trappings to arm night, to shield the demoniacal need that drives the mouth to the nipple, nipple to the bottle, dead in some sense forever. stones are forever but life is a perfect second; death is not a state or an endurance, and nothing matters, nothing permanent. David McLean is Welsh but has lived in Sweden since 1987. He lives there on an island in a large lake called Malaren, very near to Stockholm, with woman, five cats, and a couple of dogs. He has a BA in History from Balliol, Oxford, and an MA in philosophy, taken much later and much more seriously studied for, from Stockholm. Up to date details of over 1000 poems in various zines over the last three years or so and several available books and chapbooks, including three print full lengths, a few print chapbooks, and a free electronic chapbook, are at his blog at http://mourningabortion.blogspot.com |
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Poetry by Susana Case
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MAGICAL CYNICISM
From where I watch, smoking ultra-thins, the main street is like a canyon. I see only pieces - stone and plaster walls, earthen roofs held fast by rock slabs for wind protection. Through a gap in buildings, part of one empty metal table outside a bar. I can hear plots hatch, echoes of excited voices, clatter pitch of dishes. Now almost evening, there will be hungry lovers strolling from the beach. They've been sunning. Their day was full of light and sweat. They're here for a while, why not? But, there stands the red-haired dancing girl, with temperament al dente. She talks to the tides, controls the undertow. Makes it unusually strong today where the lovers go. Best to watch out for the sea and for the goddess keeping vigil, who can be low-rent for her own amusement. Susana H. Case, professor at the New York Institute of Technology, has recent work in many journals, including Hawai'I Pacific Review, Portland Review and Potomac Review. She is the author of The Scottish Cafe (Slapering Hol Press, 2002), Hiking The Desert In High Heels (RightHandPointing, 2005), Anthropologist In Ohio (Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2005) and The Cost Of Heat (Pecan Grove Press, 2010). An English-Polish reprint of The Scottish Cafe is forthcoming from Opole University Press in Poland. Please visit her online at:iris.nyit.edu/~shcase/ http://iris.nyit.edu/~shcase/ |
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Poetry by Vicky Reuter
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Bike Donnas
blond hair long unruly escaped from underneath the helmet blond hair curling in the breeze a mini skirt a potent leg a well-tanned thigh ...sigh and sneeze... acho-o-o sneeze... that heavy trail of perfume leaves sticky traces on my face God bless me and Italian working ladies |
Toccata
look look at me again again my hair chases trails and traps you your fingers touch the most important keys below below the sound balances and bounces and bellows all lows are blessed the highs are piercing my ears the music notes turn to earrings organic garlands tiny leaves and buds when they grow long enough I will be one with earth Vicky Reuter is a true Montrealer by way of Moscow, Sofia, Paris, Tbilisi, Jekyll Island, and the Florida Keys. She is a linguist. Applied. Four languages under her belt and the fifth in gestation. Her translations of poetry and fiction have appeared in many literary magazines and journals in Europe. Her new short story "Red" is forthcoming in Marco Polo Quarterly, several poems will appear in Prose-Poem anthology in 2011 (Vermont). |
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Poetry and Paintings by David Chorlton
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Windy Day Watercolour with pastel, 30 x 40 inches, on paper. Border Weather Whoever wanders lost in March where the purple wildflowers chatter to the yellow must keep a straight course and climb to the forested canyons then follow the water down into the valley where the moon is a reflection in a bobcat's eye. * When grasses sing and the high rocks lean into blue the air tastes of rain and the rain of dust you may hear with an ear to the white datura rumours from the spirit world concerning thirst and the distance of mind from body along a trail winding into a hallucination. * When summer's thunder breaks from a sky darkening to the colour of the mountains at the border and the yucca stalks are lightning dry to the touch, there will be a country in the thunderheads beyond the arguments over who goes where and why. |
The Muses My first muse is a dominatrix. She's stern and not interested in fun. Concentrate, she tells me while polishing the studs on her belt, and don't waste my time. The other muse wears an old raincoat and looks the type who only wants to watch but he's trying hard to understand her. My job is to mediate between them and explain the role of discipline in what I do. When he asks in his slow, colloquial manner what something I've written down means I refer him to her but she cracks her whip and says He thinks this is easy. Show him it's not. Keep working until you've got it simple. 
Moving Along Watercolour with pastel, 30 x 40 inches, on paper. David Chorlton was born in Austria, grew up in England, and spent several years in Vienna before moving to Phoenix in1978. He has exhibited his art work and published several collections of poetry, including Waiting for the Quetzal, from March Street Press, and The Porous Desert, from Future Cycle Press. He recently had a poem included in the anthology, BIRDS, from the British Museum, won the Ronald Wardall Poetry Prize for his chapbook The Lost River, from Rain Mountain Press, and the Slipstream Chapbook Contest with From the Age of Miracles. |
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| Poetry by William Root |
Poetry by George Anderson
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Footsteps, Before the Hike The breeze blows, pushing Off the hot granite, drying The banks of the Hoh river. It mesmerizes the land, gently Rocks her like leaves, falling Between the Olympics' curves. Wilderness that runs, slowly Pushed by the sun, climbing Through land that has no time. Heroes of Olympus sit, waiting On her peak, whispering Blowing new breezes to come. Wil Root recently received his undergraduate degree in philosophy from Southern Illinois University. Epiphany - epiphmag.com is pleased to have the opportunity to be the first publication to "...put (his) written words out into the world." |
Flathead You kept your hands on the wheel northwards, past Sea Cliff Bridge foreshore hugging Flathead a spear's throw off Stanwell Park. In the six foot swell the dingy rising & falling like the nausea in my throat the touch & stench of the prawn bait. you tell me to focus on the 4WD on the beach the wrinkled face of the escarpment kids thrashing in the water my line lilting on the sea bed a sharp bend of the rod the surface rivulets of blue beads. Later, we fire up the barbie gut the tails, lightly floured drink dark brew & eat the tender flesh the sway of the sea still buoyant in our swagger. George Anderson was born in Montreal and lives in Wollongong Australia. His chapbook 'Dancing On Thin Ice' is available through erbacce-press (UK) and Interior Noise Press (USA) will shortly publish his latest. A children's book of poetry 'Melting Voices' is also forthcoming. Visit his poetry blog here: http://georgedanderson.blogspot.com |
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Poetry by Paul Sohar
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LISTENING POST
True listening means thinking about a telephone pole standing still by the clamorous rivers of busyness, standing patiently and dry with nowhere to go but listen and forget what the wires whinny whispering to one another, it's not the pole's job to understand, only to listen. SINKING FAST Sunk in the sidewalk up to your hips, it's no time to fumble for words; just scream and let the passers-by know the horror that grips the part of you still under your own command, spit your horror on the helpless hands they dangle limply in front of you, vomit the pain brewing in your chest! Don't hold back till you're sunk down to your neck with no hands left to shake at the world around you, don't wait until your lips are under the grime of the sidewalk to spew your story to the town! Bite the shoes that trip on you and bite them now, chew their pity to shreds! Once your hair is flush with the asphalt you'll be no more than a crack, less than a pothole, less than an old newspaper swimming on the pavement in search of the gate of your descent. |
GRANDFATHER'S CIGARETTE
Without a word, grandfather sits down on the doorstep and rolls another cigarette, lavishing all his attention on the task; he isn't finished until he'd stick the little white stick in a crudely carved holder, made of a cherry branch and sold cheap by the dozen at the fair; pots and pans are banging out a slow evening serenade under grandmother's direction inside the kitchen, out of sight; here on the doorstep, the nearest place to rest his bony trousers, now grandfather is lighting up the cigarette with his hand-made lighter. The smoke doesn't twist his face as it escapes his patiently panting lips; with one eye shut; maybe he's looking down along the holder to see if it lines up straight with the cigarette. He always cut the paper in half which doubled the work, but work he didn't mind and I don't remember what excuse he gave for doubling the ritual. The old house too is in a cemetery somewhere but my grandfather is still sitting on the doorstep ready to tell me between carefully crafted puffs if that used bicycle I am showing him is worth the wages of last summer. Paul Sohar got to pursue literature full time when he went on disability from his day job in a chemistry lab. The results have slowly showed up in Agni, Chiron, Grain, Kenyon Review, Main Street Rag, Rattle, etc, and seven books of translations from the Hungarian. His own poetry ("Homing Poems") is available from Iniquity Press. His latest work is "True Tales of a Fictitious Spy", a creative nonfiction book about the Stalinist prisons. |
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| Poetry by Michael Estabrook |
Poetry by Jane Rice
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Angel Wings
Hours at the top of the ladder, painting shingles and shutters, windows and gutters, swatting mosquitoes, shooing away wasps, sweating in the stifling noon-day sun, nervous and cramped, weary and bored, until a lonely moth, large and light brown, fluttered its soft dusty wings across my aching sun-burnt back. cool and light and delicate as angel wings must be. Anguished Human Voices sitting in my car looking down from an overpass at the blurred lanes below when there in the distance an accident happening so fast a car skidding around mounting the barrier between north and south plugging up instantly completely the traffic in both directions suddenly - everything is silent and still no more droning metallic din I roll the window down and listen and listen expecting to hear shrieking of anguished human voices Michael Estabrook is a baby boomer who began getting his poetry published in the late 1980s. Over the years he has published 15 poetry chapbooks, his most recent entitled "They Didn't Leave Notes." Other interests include art, music, theatre, opera, and his wife who just happens to be the most beautiful woman he has ever known. 
"Face" |
The Meeting of Edges
1 Pounding silence dry crumbs thirst dreams of water and glass what I dream is dry words push through a tube thin as spaghetti, hours long I remember the evening it was evening when memory's subject closed her eyes definite unhurried sorrowing wave nourishment a liquid the color of pale yam. 2 Memory hears five sisters clapping my eyes sing to me air weaves what it understands seven steps descend mingled waters gently loosen closed door blinds the men one man cries his joy swims like a fish as if we had kissed by feel landscape of our faces so close. 3 Sound takes flight the mind is a cloud part noisy sun blue-tinged moon tongue carves nest of twigs night so marked begins the sea itself flies out I startle - at the excess inkling ancient mirrors black ink across sheets of days the way hope explodes breath unlatches pale powder against my skin. 4 Thought upon thought seals me in outline after all, a wave can only be what the ocean becomes forces at play what the ear retains of each walking room wisdom not fast like the rest of life. "In all my poems I seek to create a tension between coincidence and the expectation of sequence. The mind yearns to find meaning in the connections of things. Yet we ascribe meaning only to a fraction of the coincidences that surround us. I live in San Francisco and pursue my interest in languages, art, and art history." - Jane Rice. You may also see examples of works by Jane Rice at propolispress.com and qarrtsiluni.com |
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Contact Us Poetry, Prose and Artwork Submissions Call for submissions. Epihany Magazine, epiphmag.com, welcomes submissions of Poetry, Prose, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Creative Non-fiction and Book, TV, DVD and Music reviews. Please visit our Submission Guidelines page and email submissions/queries to address above. Design and Content copyright 2010 by J.W. Smith/epiphmag.com and its contributors. All rights reserved. epiphmag.com Copyright 2010 Authors, artists and contributors retain copyright over individual works All rights reserved |