“It seemed like a matter of minutes when we began rolling in the foothills before Oakland and suddenly reached a height and saw stretched out ahead of us the fabulous white city of San Francisco on her eleven mystic hills with the blue Pacific and its advancing wall of potato-patch fog beyond, and smoke and goldenness in the late afternoon of time.” JACK KEROUAC, On the Road
Photo: Sunset Magazine, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
shadowed
by Alexis Rhone Fancher
I am ice
I am water
I am frost
cut by glass
I am a
whistle thru my teeth
I lose my hat
My eyes are locked
my bones are soup
I am stone
I am mad
I stare out. broken.
SOURCE: “shadowed” by Alexis Rhone Fancher is based on “I Am a Shadow” by Diane di Prima.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Alexis Rhone Fancher is an L.A. based poet/photographer whose work can or soon will be found in Rattle, Fjords Review, The MacGuffin, Deep Water Literary Journal, BoySlut, Carnival Lit Magazine, Luciferous, HighCoupe, H_NGM_N, Gutter Eloquence, GoodMen Project, Bare Hands, Poetry Super Highway, The Juice Bar, Poeticdiversity, Little Raven, Bukowski On Wry, numerous anthologies, and elsewhere. Her photographs, published worldwide, include a spread in HEArt Online, and the covers of Witness and The Mas Tequila Review. A member of Jack Grapes’ L.A.Poets and Writers Collective, Alexis was nominated for two Pushcart Prizes in 2013. She is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. www.lapoetrix.com
NOT LONG AGO JOY ABOUNDED AT CHRISTMAS (Excerpt)
by Jack Kerouac
…Christmas was observed all-out in my Catholic French-Canadian environment in the 1930s much as it is today in Mexico…When we were old enough it was thrilling to be allowed to stay up late on Christmas Eve and put on best suits and dresses and overshoes and earmuffs and walk with adults through crunching dried snow to the bell-ringing church. Parties of people laughing down the street, bright throbbing stars of New England winter bending over rooftops sometimes causing long rows of icicles to shimmer. As we passed near the church you could hear the opening choruses of Bach being sung by child choirs mingled with the grownup choirs usually led by a tenor who inspired laughter more than anything else. But from the wide-open door of the church poured golden light, and inside the little girls were lined up for their trumpet choruses caroling Handel…
Note: “Not long ago joy abounded at Christmas” was first published in the New York World Telegram on Dec. 5, 1957. Read a longer excerpt at richardhowe.com.
Photo: Jack Kerouac as a boy during the 1930s.
ORCHESTRA
by Ricki Hunsinger
I wept in the muffled orchestra;
tones and rhythms
calling, trampled words
made thin.
The orchestra would resume
a void, filling up private lessons
with string quartets.
“Orchestra” is based on page 95 of Minor Characters, a memoir by Joyce Johnson.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ricki Hunsinger holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Chatham College. Her writing has been published by small independent presses. She is currently a Baltimore-based freelance writer and assistant librarian.
$$ Abomunus Craxioms $$
by Catfish McDaris
Mummies are dancers
alcoholics make root beer
jazz down the river
licking stamps
fat automobiles laugh
Men die become seagulls and fly
roaches are not happy
people are not very happy
People get sicker quicker
the sky is the way out
laughter sounds orange
reality xists
“$$ Abomunus Craxioms $$” is based on the poem of the same name by Bob Kaufman, found on page 306 of The Beat Book: Writings from the Beat Generation.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Catfish McDaris has been active in the small press world for 250 years. He lives in a cave at a nudist colony. His biggest seller is Prying: with Jack Micheline & Charles Bukowski. His latest book is a hardcover called Jupiter Orgasma from Lulu.com.
REMBRANDT—SELF PORTRAIT
by Catfish McDaris
Magnificent girl
peachwolf browngold
shepherd foxglove an angel
I believe in God
sorrow of men
death of a friend
life sadness
Each brush stroke
feeding the void
Paint the human
face the inhuman
gold jewels let
lightdrench the
saddest.
“Rembrandt Self-Portrait” is based on Gregory Corso‘s poem of the same name, found on page 15 of The Beat Book: Writings from the Beat Generation.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Catfish McDaris has been active in the small press world for 250 years. He lives in a cave at a nudist colony. His biggest seller is Prying: with Jack Micheline & Charles Bukowski. His latest book is a hardcover called Jupiter Orgasma from Lulu.com.
FIRE
by Brinda Buljore
Those who have burned
in the so-white fire
on the beach
now
small clowns
held to the flame
“FIire” is based on Lawrence Ferlinghetti‘s poem “Oh You Gatherer.” Read the original at poemhunter.com.
one 1
by Thomas R. Thomas
I met
my life
my life
on the road
to Los Angeles
I was
sweetly
intellectual
Then
for the first time
there was
Marylou
I
had arrived
“*one 1*” is based on page 1 of the novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Thomas R. Thomas was born in Los Angeles and grew up in the San Gabriel Valley west of LA. Currently, he lives in Long Beach, California. For his day job, he is a software QA Analyst. He volunteers for Tebot Bach, a community poetry organization, in Huntington Beach. Thomas has been published in Don’t Blame the Ugly Mug: 10 Years of 2 Idiots Peddling Poetry, Creepy Gnome, Carnival, Pipe Dream, Bank Heavy Press, Conceit Magazine, Electric Windmill & Marco Polo, and the Silver Birch Press Summer Anthology. In November 2012, Carnival released his eChapbook, Scorpio, and Washing Machine Press released a chapbooklette called Tanka. In October 2013, World Parade Books published a book of his poetry, Five Lines. Visit the author’s website at thomasrthomas.org.
POUND AT SPOLETO
by Donna Hilbert
saw Ezra
mandarin statue
aquiline in abstraction
a tear drop by the aqueduct
chestnut trees in bloom
“Pount at Spoleto” is based on Lawrence Ferlinghetti‘s poem of the same name, found on page 174 of These Are My Rivers: New & Selected Poems 1955-1993. Watch Lawrence Ferlinghetti read the poem on youtube.com.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Donna Hilbert’s latest book, The Congress of Luminous Bodies, is availble from Aortic Books or at Amazon.com.The Green Season (World Parade Books), a collection of poems, stories, and essays, is now available in an expanded second edition. Donna appears in and her poetry is the text of the documentary Grief Becomes Me: A Love Story, a Christine Fugate film. Earlier books includeMansions and Deep Red from Event Horizon, Transforming Matter andTraveler in Paradise from Pearl Editions, and the short story collectionWomen Who Make Money and the Men Who Love Them from Staple First Editions (published in England). Poems in Italian can be found in Bloc notes 59 and in French in La page blanche, in both cases translated by Mariacristina Natalia Bertoli. New work is in recent or forthcoming issues of 5AM, Nerve Cowboy, Pearl, and Poets & Artists.Learn more at www.donnahilbert.com.
DRIFT
by Winston Plowes
My heart hates me.
Growing just behind my throat.
Like swimmers
with the dizzy procession of waves.
We loved,
parts of us loved,
and the rest of us will remain two persons.
“Drift” is based on page 178 of Jack Spicer‘s collection My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer (Wesleyan Poetry, 2008).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Winston Plowes is an award-winning poet who lives in the U.K. His poetry has won competition and and has appeared in Found Poetry Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Big Issue, Turbulence, The Best of Manchester Poets, Words Undone, and many other literary journals and has been aired on local and national radio.
Silver Birch Press 