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Two Poems By Deryck Robertson
Coloured Pencils
A box of coloured pencils
(or, pencil crayons au Canada)
Lies unopened in my tired mind;
24 pointed tools of potential
Courtesy of
Crayola Canada, Lindsay, Ontario.
New dreams of
Golden yellow dawnings & mahogany red sunsets,
Fresh jade greens and emeralds blooming
Under white clouds leisurely floating
Through aqua blue skies.
Each moment in time becoming more
As the origin is reduced to
Unsharpened stub ends and broken tips
Lying at the bottom of what remains
Of the worn cardboard box.
At the end,
Only the oranges and browns remain.
F 150
Rusting truck beds carry
The memories of adventures
Of beat up backpacks and
Dusty, rutted roads
Tie downs and ratchet strap
Reminiscings
Each scrape, bruise, bubble
and dent
A story written in metal
That someday will disappear
Into the soil of time
To fertilize the imagination
Of those that long for
The things that
Rusting truck beds carry
Deryck N. Robertson lives and creates in Peterborough, Ontario. His work has appeared recently with Melbourne Culture Corner, Northern Otter Press, TunaFish Journal, Burnt Breakfast Mag, and The Minison Project. He can usually be found in Algonquin Park with his family of paddlers or thinking about practicing his trombone. His latest self-published zine will be printed as soon as he finds enough empties in order to pay for it.
Two Poems By Aaron Sandberg
Fortune
The dog tipped over the trash,
sniffed week-old egg roll with his snout,
found the cookies we couldn’t crack,
swallowed two still-folded futures,
then like us: gagged, hacked
one out.
Transit
We watched as
the new one
in foreign tongue
tugged on
his shirt
and asked him
to tell her
how to get
to the bus—
which could take her
to the train,
which would make her
board another,
which would get her
to the work
she was promised
from this land—
and listened
like her life
was held
in his hands,
whispered
his words
and then
doubled back
until she
could hold to
the first
before learning
the next,
like walking
the wire
taut over
the canyon,
both trembling
but trying,
then showed her
what’s meant
by tunnel
and ticket,
and when she
had repeated
all steps
back to him,
tore hearts
when she asked
if we
could explain
how then,
together,
to get her
back home.
Aaron Sandberg thinks ‘cellar door’ sounds fine, he guesses. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in West Trade Review, Asimov’s, The Offing, Sporklet, Lowestoft Chronicle, Abridged, Giallo, Right Hand Pointing, Monday Night, and elsewhere. A Pushcart-nominated teacher, you might find him—though socially-distant—on Instagram @aarondsandberg.
The Candle Maker
By Theodore Clemens
The roof was giving way. Already, it had begun to collapse in on itself. The lintel above the doors was rotting, the shutters hanging by a wizened nail, swinging with the wind. The timbered support beams too drunk to stand; the stone foundations overrun with lichen, cracked. Clearly, the cabin had sunk into desuetude in the days since the candlemaker left.
Inside, wax drippings covered everything like bird feces. Counters, benches, stovetop, walls—ubiquitous. Insects snared within, fossilizing, preserved. Obsequious armies of ants never to reach their queen. Grumpy spiders dead, unfed. A bottle solitarily stood: the centerpiece of a wax-laden table. It was empty, but the reek of cheap alcohol lingered. Whatever else had been left behind was gone, the space stripped bare.
The woman slid her finger through the wax and sniffed. Paraffin, she thought sadly. Refined petroleum. Or coal, or shale oil. Clean energy, yes, but what about clean candles? Beeswax, or better yet, soybeans for the apiphobic.
A wildcat stalked stealthily across a windowless sill, soundless. Black suit, white tie. Wrong, she thought. Tabby fur, wildcats have tabby coats. It turned its head, as if listening. Its gleaming yellow-green eyes met hers. Suddenly, it disappeared down through some hole in the floorboards. Curious, the woman followed. She inspected the spot of the incident but found nothing. Disconcerted, fear edged into her being: she was not yet afraid, but shivers of terror and panic danced around her, waiting to take over.
Hinges creaked. She jumped.
To her left, the wildcat was watching, encouraging, urging her without words: follow me, come, join me. And just as suddenly as before, it was out of sight.
This time she didn’t hesitate. The hole was no wider than an oak tree, and she struggled to fit her body through. Down below, darkness abounded. A subterranean blackness, endless, suffocating. She should have turned back, but she couldn’t. She squeezed herself through and entered freefall. Blindly, she fell. She might have screamed but for the taste in her mouth: a sordid mix of dirt and radish greens. She reached out her hands for support but found some material foreign and spongy. A soft, pliable dough into which her hands sunk readily, alacritously. Hastily, she retrieved her hands and tucked them tight to her chest. Her knees curled, and in a ball she sped through that bottomless blackness. Time stopped. She grew and shrunk and shrunk and grew. Her stomach swallowed itself. She was weightless. She was two-dimensional. Spinning, changing, falling. Blackness engulfed her, an ocean: capsizing, overturning, spilling chests and spreading contents whimsically across the seafloor. She fell, dizzily yet calmly, patient yet anxious, fearful but ready, poised.
Finally, she slowed and contacted the ground. It was soft, sandlike, but ungraspable, almost like some sort of carpet. Cautiously, she opened her eyes. The light was as blinding as the dark. How long was I spinning? Quickly, she banished the thought. Posted on the ground in front of her were footprints like trail markers deliberately placed to guide the way. She got up and brushed herself off, but she was totally clean. Not even a speck of dust.
The passageway was uneven, even hazardous with its pitfalls and jagged edges, and the footprints careened left and right to accommodate. She followed as best she could, eyes flashing up and down from trail to surroundings. Thrice did she almost fall, but always she kept her footing. Miles she must have traveled before the path narrowed. It was nearly impassable. Blood filled her body, her heart beat madly, muscles tensed. There’s no turning back. She turned, flattened herself against the passage wall and shimmied through to the other side. Breathing became difficult, her body sandwiched between sheets of unknown rock. But in the end, she succeeded; one step at a time, one foot delicately before the other.
The trail opened onto a hexagonal field. Flowers, vibrant and variegated, rung the perimeters. A spring flowed around its edges, and there was a ramshackle bridge of rusted iron.
“Turn back,” a voice warned. “This is not your place.”
But she knew. She couldn’t turn back now. Not even if she wanted to.
A figure approached, withered and wrinkled, hunched and hooded. Golden rays cloaked them. The air grew cold.
“Go,” they warned; though the voice was soft, sweet, like honeyed donuts and homemade apple pies. “This place is not for you.”
But she couldn’t move. She couldn’t go. Not even if she wanted to.
Face-to-face, the figure unveiled herself. Beneath the glowing robes rested a face aged by death. Pallid skin taut to the bone. Teeth missing, decayed. Eyes sunken. “Go,” she said again.
The woman smiled. Tears welled in her eyes.
“But I never got to say good-bye.”
Theodore Ludwig Clemens is a local of Buffalo, NY. His interests include avoiding the cold, chasing the sun, and eating with chopsticks. A proud member of the LGBTQIA community, he loves traveling the world.
Three Poems by John Grey
Lake Ghosts
I love that morning lake fog.
It’s the nearest I ever come
to seeing ghosts.
There is my mother and father,
my three sisters,
misting up in the tranquil transition
of night into day.
We had our disagreements
when they were alive.
But now they’re no longer here,
they walk on water.
A Teenager’s Wheels
I watch my father command the wheel
as he guides the car in and out
of highway traffic
at sixty miles an hour,
eyes and hands and feet
as coordinated as a fencer’s.
Or he’s in the passenger seat,
giving lessons with nothing more
than expression,
as I nervously nudge the vehicle forward
across the expanse
of a college parking lot.
We’re so often in the car together.
Like fishing is for some,
it’s our bondage.
For all the attention paid
to the way ahead,
there’s always a sideways glance involved
and the sense that, like love,
driving is unsuited to solitude.
Yet I can’t wait
to venture out on my own,
license tucked inside my wallet,
every street at my disposal,
one eye on the road,
one eye on the passenger seat
that will look so lost and forlorn
until it’s filled by someone.
Cedar Waxwings
January,
a high, thin cry of zee
draws me to the window.
Cedar waxwings
flash gray velvet feathers
from a nearby bush.
They peck through snow
at barely visible berries,
load up on winter’s chaff
to see them through the lean.
There’s something in a bill,
so small it barely warrants
the lift of a head while swallowing.
But the flock is relentless,
under orders from survival,
pecking furiously
even at nothingness.
My gaze is crystallized
in a window pane,
their essence likewise.
They’re too busy to notice me.
Even if they did,
I doubt that I’d astound their living.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Orbis, Dalhousie Review and Connecticut River Review. Latest books, Leaves On Pages and Memory Outside The Head are available through Amazon.
Shambles 