Category Archives: poem

“Intuition” by Andrew Merton

232 Replies

(featuring the late Burt Lancaster in a supporting role)

The six of them squeeze into a booth in a seedy diner just outside
. Newark:

click for more info a balding child dressed as a monk

a woman with eels for fingers

an ambulance driver munching a ladder

an alligator wrapped in a boa

the late Burt Lancaster

and a swarthy, mustachioed man
with ammunition belts crisscrossing his chest,
who gazes fearfully at his companions
before revealing himself
as the great-grandson of Pancho Villa
and muttering through clenched teeth:
One of you spent time as a violist.
I can just feel it.

–Andrew Merton,
Evidence that We Are Descended from Chairs
Accents Publishing

Andrew Merton has been a political reporter and columnist for the Gloucester (Massachusetts) Times, The Boston Herald Traveler and the Boston Globe, and a contributing editor with Boston Magazine. His articles and essays have also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Ms. Magazine, Yankee Magazine and The Boston Phoenix. His book Enemies of Choice was published by Beacon Press in 1980, and his anthology In Your Own Voice: A Writer’s Reader was published by Harper Collins in 1995. His poetry has appeared in The Alaska Quarterly Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Powhatan Review, Paper Street, The Comstock Review, Silk Road, Third Wednesday, The American Journal of Nursing and elsewhere. He teaches writing at the University of New Hampshire.

“Prey” by Patty Paine

9 Replies

I was the one sliced

from the herd, dragged

from the din of hooves.

It was my blood

glazing his muzzle,

my muscle and sinew

warming his gut.

When he lay down, I lay

with him, and together

we heard rabbits snapping

twigs underfoot.

We felt sun loosen our back

and fell into a long,

uncomplicated sleep

where we honed in

on a gazelle limping

behind its herd.

Our claws tore

into a quivering

haunch, our teeth

ripped flesh.

When I awoke,

the air, clean

and dry as a crystal,

tingled with light

–Patty Paine,
The Sounding Machine
Accents Publishing

Patty Paine is the author of Feral (Imaginary Friend Press), Elegy & Collapse (Finishing Line Press), and co-editor of Gathering the Tide: An Anthology of Contemporary Arabian Gulf Poetry (Garnet Publishing & Ithaca Press). Her poems, reviews, and interviews have appeared in Blackbird: an online journal of literature and the arts, The Atlanta Review, Gulf Stream, The Journal and many other publications. She is the founding editor of Diode Poetry Journal, and is an assistant professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University Qatar where she teaches writing and literature, and is assistant director of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

“Falling Off the Earth” by Gregory Luce

19 Replies

is easier than you might think
sit in a small room dark or
dimly lit and avoid
the window (remember Chet Baker)
remain inside and don’t answer
the telephone you will fall
away or float up.

–Gregory Luce,
Bigger Than They Appear
(Accents Publishing)

Gregory Luce is the author of the chapbooks Signs of Small Grace (Pudding House Publications) and Drinking Weather (Finishing Line Press). He lives in Washington, DC.

“It’s Still the Same Old Story” by James Doyle

13 Replies

A sailor props his bicycle
against a tree and swims out
into the only ocean within arms’
reach. The exact lady for him
is starting out from the opposite
shore. They will meet by chance
in the middle, in the place called
Neptune’s Gold Teeth, where sunlight
crusts in the mouths of sharks.
They will hold hands and tread
water together. The waves will lift
or lower them 50 feet at a time.
Just when they are getting to know
each other, they will drown. Or
the sharks will go off their diets
and on an eating binge. But
the couple, of course, can’t see
the future, so they keep going,
long calcium strokes towards
each other. And maybe they
never meet, just miss as so
often happens in mid-ocean. Salt
bleaches their hair, water shrinks
them down to size. They each
emerge on the opposite shore,
lie around on the sand a few
years like driftwood, open a curio
shop. They think to themselves
how rich their lives are, how
nothing is missing. Then one day
each walks into the other’s shop.

–James Doyle,
The Long View Just Keeps Treading Water
Accents Publishing

James Doyle is retired, 75 years old, and lives in Ft. Collins, Colorado. His publications include The Governor’s Office, The Sixth Day; The Silk at Her Throat, Einstein Considers a Sand Dune, and Bending Under the Yellow Police Tapes. James Doyle’s poems have appeared in numerous magazines, including Atlanta Review, Cimarron Review, The Iowa Review, The Massachusetts Review, Notre Dame Review, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, and others. His poetry has been featured on Garrison Keillor’s PBS radio show, The Writer’s Almanac, and on Poetry Daily. Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry has featured his work, and his poetry has appeared over a dozen times on Verse Daily. His poems have been reprinted in many anthologies, including Prentice Hall’s Literature: an Introduction to Critical Reading, used in universities across the country.

“Shut Up!” by Suchoon Mo

19 Replies

upon the roof of a funeral home
a little bird sings
hey you
hey you
hey you you you
shut up!
a mortician says
to a corpse

–Suchoon Mo,
Frog Mantra
Accents Publishing

Suchoon Mo is a Korean War veteran and a retired academic living in the semi-arid part of Colorado. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and taught at the University of Detroit and Colorado State University. He is the author of a number of scholarly papers and articles. His poems have been published in The Battered Suitcase, The Bitter Oleander, BlazeVOX, Dissident Editions, epiphany, Hobo Camp Review, Journal of Truth and Consequence, Lucid Rhythms, Mad Hatters’ Review, Message in a Bottle, The Muse, The Ranfurly Review, Segue, Spillway Review, The Tower Journal and others. His music compositions have also appeared in a number of publications.

“Homecoming” by Krasimir Vardyev

5 Replies

come back
to the garden of eden
even
the worms
there
grieve
for you

the fruits
there
dream
of your teeth

the lianas
thirst
to embrace
your white
waxy
ribs

at the memory
of your slender
body
the lake
smiles
in waves

the ghost
of your old dog
under the bench
dreams
and twitches

the green moss
under the apple tree
still holds
forms
of bodies

the spiders
heard
you’re coming
they’re knitting
bed sheets
for you

the blossoms
of the trees
fly away
each spring
seeking
your hair

the empty pantry
dreams of
holidays

the great grandchildren
of your first
cat
recount
legends
of people

scattered
in grass and flowers
the beads
think
they are stones

the elastic native
presses you
the legs
start resembling
roots
breathe deeply

-Krasimir Vardyev,
translated from Bulgarian
by Katerina Stoykova-Klemer
The Season of Delicate Hunger
(Accents Publishing)

Krasimir Vardyev was born on May 17th, 1978 in Beloslav. He holds a degree from Kontantin Preslavsky University of Shumen. He has received awards for his poetry and prose, among which is the Southern Spring Award for his debut poetry collection, Curb, in 2001. From 1998 to 2003, he was a co-organizer and participant in the “Street Poetry” campaign. His second poetry book, Symbiosis, was published in 2007. Krasimir lives and works in Sofia.

“fable” by Mark DeCarteret

“Billy” by Sarah Freligh

20 Replies

Summer before last I parked cars at
the country club—high-class rides with seats
softer than a baby’s face, as wide as beds.
Men in white dinner jackets dropped tips
in my palm, told me to watch myself
with their brand new Caddies or else.
My boss called me kid if we weren’t busy,
hey assface when we were, threw rings of keys
at me. I used to pretend those cars were mine
and the world was my kingdom: the dimes
riding heavy in my pocket, the wives
who smelled of smoke and roses, the chime
of ice against glass, the sprinklers tossing
silvery coins of water to the grateful grass.

–Sarah Freligh,
A Brief Natural History of an American Girl
Accents Publishing

Sarah Freligh is the author of Sort of Gone (Turning Point Books, 2008). Her work has appeared in The Sun, Rattle, Brevity, Barn Owl Review, Cimarron Review, Iowa Woman, Third Coast, Tar River Poetry, and Painted Bride Quarterly and on Garrison Keillor’s “Writer’s Almanac.” Among her awards are a 2009 poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a poetry grant from the Constance Saltonstall Foundation in 2006, and an Artist’s Exchange grant from the New York State Council for the Arts in 1997. She is a visiting assistant professor of English and creative writing at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York.

“the set-up” by tina andry

2 Replies

i am a tire swing
with no rider
i am high
over creek water
i am cool
by brindled shade
i am descending
to hang

–tina andry,
ransom notes
(Accents Publishing)

tina andry is a writer/poet. she has had her work published in Bigger than They Appear: Anthology of Very Short Poems. she is originally from new orleans, louisiana but currently resides in lexington, kentucky with her two children. she is fond of spiders and secret pacts. she really enjoys being herself.

“Chevrolet” by Ivan Hristov

11 Replies

A white Chevrolet,
year 1990!
He tossed me the keys
and said “Try it.”
I was amazed,
because it wasn’t
that old car from my dad,
who would smack me
on the back of the head
for every mistake.
Four gears?
P—park
R—reverse
N—“neutral” he said,
“like Switzerland”
D—straight ahead
Only gas and brakes!
When I turned the key
the lights even lit up at night.
With that car I toured
the lakes of Wisconsin.
Moccasin Lake,
Storm Lake,
Sunset Lake.
Sometimes I stopped to take pictures
of herds of deer.
Other times I filled up the tank.
I floored the pedal
and discovered America.
A white Chevrolet,
year 1990.
My first car,
even though it really
belonged to Douglas,
my wife’s father.

–Ivan Hristov,
translated from Bulgarian
by Angela Rodel
The Season of Delicate Hunger
(Accents Publishing)

Ivan Hristov was born on February 16th, 1978 in Borovo. He holds a degree in Bulgarian philology from St. Kliment Ohridski University in Sofia and a Ph.D. in Bulgarian Modernism from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, where he currently works as a researcher in the Institute of Literature. His first book of poetry, Farewell to the 19th Century, won the 2002 Southern Spring Award for the best debut book, and his second collection, Bdin, received the 2006 Svetlostrui Prize for poetry from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Ivan lives and works in Sofia.

Accents Publishing Blog

an independent press for brilliant voices