May 2022 – Fevers of the Mind

Shenandoah Tramps by David L O’Nan (Before I Turn Into Gold)

This is the revised version from Before I Turn Into Gold: Inspired by Leonard Cohen Anthology.

Shenandoah Tramps

You walk the streets like you are still in Tabriz
You miss the Iranian Summers
While fumbling full of wine
you feel the prickly goosebumps from the breeze.

And we begin to walk with a squint
as the sun masks the city
eyelids bouncing,
and quivering drunk lips.

You desire the kiss when the night stirs
dressed in scarlet red

looking for that efficacious effect
We are like the stars in the sky
celebrities in meteoric flash

We are just lost
from the waste to the lakes
trying to unlock the code
to flee us from the beams of Heaven's Gate

We can wish on these wine bottles
throw in the pennies for a little luck
we can invent beauty
out of the contagious Shenandoah muck.

Our city is just a bullet town
Our love will fall like tramps in the rain
with our hands becoming umbrellas
trying to protect us from the downpour
awake our celestial shine with this oncoming train.

And here come the dollies
and all of the sheepmen
who gather ours fossils
and they use them for swanky chaotic sin
our rose is a misery
burn the shell right off this redolent city.
The streetlamps are as dim as a yellow puddle
with a hint of chickweeds growing around the blacktop tumors.
And all we can talk about all of the music,
and hum until poetry rifles through our brains.
Studying the fallen art stuck to the limbs of trees
On the edge of what was Calliope.

When all was tame and flowery,
The strong was not frail without a care
Our frames were not broken, just skeletal grey

And we would dine on evening air
and dance to the melody of church bells
the hymns were our parade.

Current bio for Fevers of the Mind’s David L O’Nan editor/writing contributor to blog.

Hard Rain Poetry: Forever Dylan Anthology available today!

Available Now: Before I Turn Into Gold Inspired by Leonard Cohen Anthology by David L O’Nan & Contributors w/art by Geoffrey Wren

Bare Bones Writings Issue 1 is out on Paperback and Kindle

The return & revised version of “New Disease Streets” by David L O’Nan Poetry and stories

Poetry from David L O’Nan in the Famous Poetry Outlaws are Painting Walls and Whispers

Poetry Showcase for Owen Bullock

Bio: Owen Bullock’s most recent publications are Impression (Beir Bua Press, 2022), and Uma rocha enorme que anda à roda (A big rock that turns around), translations of his tanka into Portuguese by Francisco Carvalho (Temas Originais, 2021). His other titles include, Summer Haiku (Recent Work Press, 2019), Work & Play (Recent Work Press, 2017), and Semi (Puncher & Wattmann, 2017). He teaches Creative Writing at the University of Canberra. His other interests include juggling, music and chess. https://poetry-in-process.com/ @OwenTrail @ProcessPoetry

Latest found

drink a tankard of sweet Williams

spin-passing a rolled-up blanket

hide –

a common bird

lands miraculously

waterboatmen

skim dark water –

set resin

he’s caught a tree

will sending flowers to myself boost my serotonin?

no more crossing the suburbs

except for old pebbles

and lines the birds brought

cloud on cloud

I dream I’m dreaming

you might not have any eyes

a bouquet of orange

You hold out your hands & take it. It collapses, spreads, your feet soaked with the colour, you start running, running over day, you lose weight, you feel great, you’re young again. Some of it splashes off on your friend Serafim & she’s climbing, climbing the ladder to put the finishing touches to her sculpture, a thousand pom-poms made of wool, one bounces down & bobbles to the feet of a child, who picks it up & gazes, suddenly her hand is sore with hope, her eyes gleam seablue, seablue rides a sleek canoe in no time over rapids, lands at the base of the mountain, meets a boy in a barrel, gives him a bouquet of pink.

ghost bears

dressed to the teeth

guilt mechanics

the consequences are not immediate

it’s a work on

the hardest step is over the threshold

squeezing the stone

asemic

online psychic’s side-kicks

the orthopaedic surgeons are more like carpenters

spray-painted

on the power box

open your 3^rd eye

the architect thought of the building as a sculpture

the sculpture thought of the architect as a building

the building thought of the sculpture as an architect

the thought of architect as a building, the sculpture

of the thought as the architect building a sculpture,

the sculpture building a thought as of the architect

of the building, as a sculpture the architect thought,

the thought building as a sculpture of the architect,

the sculpture of, as building the architect a thought

a conversation with the garden

what do they do when they’re a fuckwit?

For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge

(Fornication Under Consent of the King)

or Old High German: to strike

(tips, golf and posh also aren’t acronyms)

I’ll just give you the wave tops

skype call unanswered –

not one of Philip Glass’

best

somebody came into my house and used my deodorant

I linger

For a word. For eye contact. For the assurance I’m not crazy. For the knowledge that you had something like this with your mother, with your father. Mother comes first, always. Mother. I linger in the hope you’ll need a hug of comfort. I linger so you know I’m here, listening, even to the trailing off sentence. I linger because you were kind to me once.

Sweating in the sun of summer.

Noticing the age of autumn.

Accepting long nights of winter.

Walking in the meadow of spring.

Poems are easier than small talk.

KING – MAN + WOMAN = QUEEN

did you ring the hospital?
did you phone the dentist?
did you book for Monday night?

I dare do all that may become a man

you could pull the curtains . . .

Love

YOUR

SELF

this morning’s

graffiti wisdom

Feelings of power deactivate parts of the brain responsible for ‘mirroring’, which underscores empathy.

I like to autumn through my schedule

my other life as a teacher

kiss the grim reaper

a new comprehension

poorly equipped poem

on a bus with nine other poems

making unreasonable demands on the commuter

collected in lever arch files

linger long after day

evening moon

admin –

you gotta go through us

to get a patch

Undercover

at the Buddhist Training Centre

everything is offensive to someone

Australians all let us rejoice

For we are old and . . .

de-emphasising the ego

preparing for death

I’m the one who goes around

turning the lights off

take the frustration out

make notes for the anthropologist

I let my music take me

where my heart wants to go

They say losing love

is like a window in your heart

Men wanted

for the Alpaca a cappella group

To save a day

the deejay said Karm
I say ‘deejay’, it was
the graffiti artist
MC of the street

The phone rang. It was a diptych. I eyed it with both eyes. The phone rang again. A triptych. I got confused (though dramatically satisfied by the hint of three-act structure). I went to the window, one scene: trees, mountains, grass. I took several paces back, a run up, crashed through the glass. Out.

I get in step with the water dragon . . . twitch my tail like it . . . tilt my head . . . scamper forward a few centimetres . . . I am old I watch the water I turn my head I watch the water skittle forward & when the crow comes I run a while and hey a cormorant pops up and I watch and scoot on the red gravel people talk in the park, the cormorant dives ripples spread till you can’t see anything except the ripples that were already there a pukeko struts, coots bob the water dragon comes back I’ll have to go soon the water dragon edges close waddle-walking green bobbles its jagged crown

I fantasise telling them the only way to make amends for this latest round of time-draining admin cock-ups is for the boss himself to come over with a handmade fruit cake. When I come back from lunch there’s a cake sitting in the kitchen. I missed the boss, it’s a bought cake and it’s not fruit, but . . .

it helps to know
that in some parallel world,
some memory or Youtube clip
Roger Daltry is still running on the spot
Pete Townsend swinging that arm
for the power chords
and the crowd taking up the chant
of teenage wasteland

be careful crossing the road, she says
forgetting I usually pole-vault over

so much to be
anxious about
the floodlights
reflect in the lake
like magic wands

Alone in the Tower from Andrea Lambert

Andrea Lambert is a queer writer, artist and filmmaker with Schizoaffective Disorder. She lives in Nevada with her four cats. Site: andreaklambert.com

Alone in the Tower

I live in a castle in the sky. The House of the Rising Sun. No men are serviced here. I only live out my days alone. In an ivory tower. My moon-colored bob too short, to let down.

I am not interested in men. Only a woman. Who is dead. I still wear her wedding ring. Diamonds on my hand. I am alone in grief.

Once we ate strawberries. Wasabi peas mixed with kisses. She. My domestic partner. My wife. Taken too young at twenty-seven. By her own hand. She took all of my psych meds. Left me alone. It is no wonder I am poisoned. For further love. My heart shattered.

That is what comes after being widowed, correct? I wait to die. Between these walls. Like a queer Miss Havisham. When’s the special day? Death is always a surprise. I will wait.

When my ghost wife comes. In her black Louis Verdad wedding gown. Black veiled hat. To carry me away. I shall go willingly. Peacefully. For only then will I be free. Of this worm like meat tube. I must feed and toilet. All for naught. I attend to the needs of the body. Because I must go on.

I am too cowardly to hasten to process. Of waiting. For death. I lie in stasis. In wait. In this locked tower. No air comes in. Only bursts of electricity. Flaming sparks. Will explode.

A Grammarian’s Love: Poetry by Matthew McGuirk

A Grammarian’s Love

I can’t write about you:
sentences don’t fall like your hair does,
fragments are too short to describe the big moments
and run-ons can’t even start on the small ones.
Transitions can’t bridge milestones
with any authenticity,
like the boxes from our last apartment shifting to our first house
or a ring that means so much
or our family expanding from 2 to 3 in the matter of hours
or 3 to 4 in just as long.
Exclamation points are nothing like your laugh
and semicolons connect clauses,
but it isn’t like your fingers in mine.
The only one that seems to make any sense is the question mark
because to me you are all the answers,
but maybe
I should just pick up photography
at this point.

Bio:

Bio: Matt McGuirk teaches and lives with his wife and two daughters in New Hampshire. He was a BOTN 2021 nominee, is now a regular contributor at Fevers of the Mind and has poems and stories published in 50+ literary magazines with 100+ accepted pieces. His debut collection, Daydreams, Obsessions, Realities with Alien Buddha Press isavailable on Amazon, linked in the bio and also on his website.Follow him on Twitter: @McguirkMatthew and Instagram: @mcguirk_matthew.

Website: http://linktr.ee/McGuirkMatthew Daydreams, Obsessions, Realities: https://www.amazon.com/Daydreams-Obsessions-Realities-hybrid-collection/dp/B09M5KY8HH/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Matthew McGuirk

New Poems from Donna Dallas

Half a Hole

Turned out when the din the twisted neon lights the swaying bodies all evaporated into green sulphury ghosts into boredom into heavy - meaning the fatness of calling it quits Turned out that when you turned up I threw in the towel it was wet and matted stank like mildew squishy under my feet I, just as squishy trampled it good though I became the harpsichord played to broken dilapidated elephant in the room withered and rusty brain tilting to one side a good lean into a hole but just half a hole Deadlock Everyday day at 1:45pm we kick off another round of silence I head out the door drive to the bay watch the waves cut into each other all the seagulls in swift play lurk for lunch Avoidance and I - we get along quite well I’ve stuffed my pockets with hurt they bulge in distress try to conjure up a way to transfer this awful distress pass it onto these ravenous gulls in waiting hunger but to no avail I find myself back home gorged with sadness only to run the gamut again it’s this ritual - this addiction that keeps me going Ride or Die In between your legs sits the red eye of a loon hungry and wanting behind your eyes dwells the mind of a bat shit waif ablaze with envy over the filthy loon hobbling alone along the edge of the storm ridden shore pecking and sifting ready to launch at any movement even a sand worm you’ve seen the shift from glazed purple skies all through speckled stars along the skyline and think the loon has it better in between your loathing and longing lives the ever-slightest seedling of good some little pocket of hope that pulls you along day after scarce day as if you didn’t long so loosely for the loon to be yours for the moon to be yours for the hole in your tainted head to close in the palm of your sweaty hand The Residuals Feel the cold against my skin sharp icy slaps could have driven walked instead to Maritza’s salon can’t do my own hair this is a necessity every four days Today the child is there in the chair agonizing screams while I sit and watch in horror I know something is wrong with her realize she is not a child at all but a little adult I’m late now stare at a roach creeping its way up the wall screams turn to howls the poor creature struggles to twist out of the grasp of her nurse she growls low and long Maritza picks up her left foot crushes the roach with her bright yellow patent pump I walk outside the growling rises into a high-pitched laugh a row of pigeons perch on the phone wire ascend in unison from the vibrations of this cackling pigeon shit on my windshield a ripe smelling homeless person walks by rolling four connected carts each filled to the brim with plastic bottles I just want my hair done I don’t want this cross nor to think of these horrors that are as real as these fierce gusts of wind real as those haunting bellows and my roots that also need a touch up I wish I was next in line for Maritza that nice nurse - taking the poor creature to the salon to get her hair done holding and stroking her bony hands cradling her fragile body Maritza trying so hard to apply the color in quick strokes Sky dark and deadly to a grey black if this were the end of the world who or what besides roaches plastic homeless people and pigeons would replace these screams and where would I go for a blow-out? Chagrin You’re going to hate him again and again his calloused hands initialed shirts perfectly shined shoes Saturday stubble morning erection the way the dog cuddles into him His muscular legs that long winded conversation he took over at that godawful dinner party to save you from stumbling into yourself his deep voice you know where this is going When Catullus said odi et amo (I hate and love) thousands of years ago you think Catullus didn’t know what he was talking about back then? before chivalry before sexting It’s as obvious as which cup you know your lover will choose in the morning glimpse his deep blue eyes as you pour his coffee this is a tragedy of torment that you love to play over and over Bio: Donna Dallas studied creative writing and philosophy at NYU’s Gallatin School and was lucky enough to write under William Packard, founder of the New York Quarterly. She has appeared in a plethora of journals, most recently The Opiate, Beatnik Cowboy, SpillWords and Phantom Kangaroo. Donna serves on the editorial team of Red Fez and New York Quarterly.

@DonnaDallas15