Fish, poem by Gaia Holmes

FISH
Poem by Gaia Holmes 

“There are plenty more
fish in the sea,”
he tells you with conviction
knowing, as he does,
the whole spectrum
of glitter, silver fin and gill.
 
He knows fish
that would shock
with their electric,
sheepish fish that graze
on plankton, sea furze
and the moss
that clads shipwrecks.
 
He knows fish
that you can trust
for their regularity,
fish that get high
on the lights
of midnight trawlers,
fish that freeze
mesmerized
by the clank and hum
of ocean liners.
 
He knows fish
that fall in love
with pebbles,
fish that get giddy
when wind
fingers the waves.
 
He knows fish
that would gracefully
take your hook
into their mouths
without wincing.

“Fish” and two other poems by Gaia Holmes appear in the  Silver Birch Press Silver Anthology, available at Amazon.com.

Illustration: Drylcon Graphics

This Gray Hair Means Something, Story by Thom Kudla

THIS GRAY HAIR MEANS SOMETHING (Excerpt)

Story by Thom Kudla

…I was 18 when I noticed my first gray hair. Actually, it wasn’t me that noticed. My girlfriend, my high school sweetheart at the time – she noticed that gray hair. That single gray hair wandering from the center of my scalp, as if aware of the wars fought inside my mind, sought refuge in the escape toward the sun. We laid there, our eyes entranced with that shining orb’s setting motion in all its variegated splendor, and she brushed her petite hands through my hair. She always loved how soft my hair was, “for a guy.” We lay there, watching that sun sink deeper toward the earth, and we talked about many things – I discussed my parents’ impending divorce; she told me about how happy her parents were together. I mentioned how sad I can get sometimes; she said she smiles whenever she feels that mood strike her, and it changes everything. Then she found it – that gray hair.

“You’ve already got a gray hair,” she said, her dimpled smile and light voice hiding her judgment. “You work too hard. You stress too much. Someone your age shouldn’t have gray hairs.”

I laughed it off and kissed her. I kissed it away, all my fears about being too serious or being too sad or being too dysfunctional or not being enough for her or being too much for her. I kissed it away. She reciprocated my kisses in innocent pecks, naïve to the reality of where those gray hairs came from. She thought she knew. But I knew better.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Thom Kudla is an accomplished author and poet  from Chicagoland. He has written a variety of books, including the novel Confessions of an American (2005), a nonfiction book What My Brain Told Me — finalist in the 2009 National Indie Excellence Awards — and a poetry collection entitled Commencement.

NOTE: “This Gray Hair Means Something” a 1,000-word story by Thom Kudla will appear in the upcoming Silver Birch Press release Silver: An Eclectic Anthology of Poetry & Prose (available November 15, 2012).

Fish, Poem by Gaia Holmes

FISH

Poem by Gaia Holmes 

“There are plenty more
fish in the sea,”
he tells you with conviction
knowing, as he does,
the whole spectrum
of glitter, silver fin and gill.
 
He knows fish
that would shock
with their electric,
sheepish fish that graze
on plankton, sea furze
and the moss
that clads shipwrecks.
 
He knows fish
that you can trust
for their regularity,
fish that get high
on the lights
of midnight trawlers,
fish that freeze
mesmerized
by the clank and hum
of ocean liners.
 
He knows fish
that fall in love
with pebbles,
fish that get giddy
when wind
fingers the waves.
 
He knows fish
that would gracefully
take your hook
into their mouths
without wincing.

NOTE: “Fish” and two other poems by Gaia Holmes will appear in the upcoming Silver Birch Press release Silver: An Eclectic Anthology of Poetry & Prose (available November 15, 2012).

Illustration: Drylcon Graphics

Novel Excerpt by Vickie Lester

ON A SILVER PLATTER

Excerpt from You Don’t Own Me, a novel by Vickie Lester

Billie sat from morning to early evening in an editing bay at USC putting together a three minute 16mm film… She liked working with her hands. She liked the process: putting on the thin white disposable cotton gloves so her fingers wouldn’t mark the footage, breaking down the raw film reels on a Bell & Howell splicer and hanging it on neat strips on a rack over a bin at her workstation. She liked running the strips back and forth on the illuminated bed until she found where to trim and where to splice. She liked the physicality of it, the finality of it, positioning the film sprockets down exactly on the pins, swiping the blade across the film, sanding down the edges of the cut, applying the glue, dropping the plate to make the weld. Repetitive, detailed, and from bits a pieces of celluloid she could make a cohesive narrative…Three minutes of film, it was short, but it was whole, it made sense, and she was in control…control, she really liked being in control.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Vickie Lester’s people came from Moscow and a London slum called Whitechapel. When the British portion of the family arrived in New York they headed out to Seattle by train, way before the plane was invented. Finding only rain, and more rain, mud, and wooden planks for sidewalks (a segment of which appeared to be an orange crate from sunny California) they immediately booked tickets south…Or so the story goes. And thus, Lester’s father’s grandparents came to LA. Her friends and family continue to toil in the industry, and she tells her tales of beguiling Hollywood under the name Vickie Lester.  Visit Vickie Lester at her website, BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD, where she features rare photos and insider stories about tinsel town.

NOTE:  “On a Silver Platter,” a 2,000-word excerpt from Vickie Lester’s novel You Don’t Own Me, will appear in the Silver Birch Press upcoming publication Silver: An Eclectic Anthology of Poetry & Prose, scheduled for release on November 15, 2012.

How Many Times…? Poem by Fred Voss

HOW MANY TIMES CAN WE FOLLOW DANTE DOWN INTO HELL?

Poem by Fred Voss

I still have moments when I look around and wonder what I’m doing
in this machine shop
with these men
wearing steel-toed shoes
acting like I never read Shakespeare
Dostoyevsky Plato
I will never tape a poem to the side of my toolbox like
a drill chart
or a picture of a 1932 Ford
or a woman in a skimpy bathing suit
all
these poems forming inside my head secret behind my sparkling eyes
as my machine plunges smoking drills through slabs of steel
am I insane
between tin walls where never once in 100 years has a poem
been mentioned
where men would rather go to County Jail
than read a  book of Keats
looking
for poems in tool steel worm gears
bloody knuckles
eyes
of old men who can still break out dancing
like 5-year-old boys
because they’ve made a tool bit shave through aluminum until it shines
like silver
there are enough poems about sunsets
about leaves
falling onto grass
how many times can we follow Dante down into Hell
admire
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
pretend
each drop of sweat that ever rolled down the skin of these men gripping
machine handles isn’t
a poem
each nut and bolt
tick of time clock
ache of bone
sacred
each hand
dripping with machine grease and cutting oil the one
that made
the world?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Fred Voss, a machinist for 32 years, has had three collections of poetry published by the U.K.’s Bloodaxe Books. He is regularly published in magazines such as Poetry Review (London), Ambit (London), Rising (London), The Shop (Ireland), Atlanta Review and Pearl, and has twice been the subject of feature programs about his poetry on National BBC Radio 4. In 2008 he was featured at The Ledbury Poetry Festival, and in 2011 he and his wife, poet Joan Jobe Smith, were featured readers at the University of Pittsburgh and in 2012 were featured at The Humber Mouth Literature Festival (Hull, England). His latest book, HAMMERS AND HEARTS OF THE GODS from Bloodaxe Books was selected by the UK newspaper, The Morning Star, as one of the Top Seven Books for 2009. In 2011, he was featured poet in a hardbound limited edition of DWANG (London, England), and in winter 2012 World Parade Books will publish his first novel, MAKING AMERICA STRONG.

NOTE: “How Many Times Can We Follow Dante Down to Hell?” and two other poems by Fred Voss will appear in the upcoming Silver Birch Press release Silver: An Eclectic Anthology of Poetry & Prose (available November 15, 2012).

1965 Watts Riots Story by Joan Jobe Smith

BY THE LIGHT OF A SILVERY WATTS RIOTS MOON (Excerpt)

story by Joan Jobe Smith

A jet airliner flew overhead, a golden rod in the setting sun, getting the hell out of town while a full moon came rising like no other, just like every moon ever born is like no other moon before and that particular moon was the L.A. Watts Riots Silvery Moon, and it stared down at us with grand magnificent indifference and satisfaction for being faraway from the pyromaniacal crowd that was riot-making L.A.

 “Wow –” Mick panted, patting his chest to calm himself, as the hot August 12, 1965, sun dropped behind the Pacific Palisades to the west of us and the sky turned royal blue and the horizon turned magenta, then blood red, the smoke from the riots’ fires baking one of the most spectacular sunsets I’d ever see. Los Angeles can be so beautiful if, when, it is. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  JOAN JOBE SMITH, founding editor of PEARL and Bukowski Review, worked for seven years as a go-go dancer before receiving her B.A. from CSULB and MFA from UCI. A Pushcart Honoree, her award-winning work has appeared internationally in more than 500 publications, including OUTLAW BIBLE, Ambit, Beat Scene, Wormwood Review, and Nerve Cowboy – and she has published 20 collections, including Jehovah Jukebox (Event Horizon Press, US) and The Pow Wow Cafe (The Poetry Business, UK), finalist for the UK 1999 Forward Prize. In July 2012, with her husband, poet Fred Voss, she did her sixth reading tour of England (debuting at the 1991 Aldeburgh Poetry Festival), featured at the Humber Mouth Literature Festival in Hull. In September 2012, Silver Birch Press will publish her literary profile: Charles Bukowski Epic Glottis: His Art & His Women (& me), and later in the year, World Parade Books will release her memoir TALES OF AN ANCIENT GO-GO GIRL.

NOTE: “By the Light of a Silvery Watts Riots Moon,” a 2,000-word creative nonfiction story by Joan Jobe Smith will appear in the upcoming Silver Birch Press release Silver: An Eclectic Anthology of Poetry & Prose (available November 15, 2012).

River, poem by Tamara Madison

RIVER

Poem by Tamara Madison

In dreams my roads fill
with clear sweet water
flowing gently; there is nothing
to carry, I can swim
beyond the flooded buildings,
through countryside covered
with this vast river
to anywhere I need to go
where warm cool water lifts,
surrounds me; it is silver,
it is gray, it has no color, it shines
like fish, is dark and soft
like sleep.  When I wake
the bell pricks like pins
and I want that water
to fill my veins and carry me
on that river back to sleep.

Note: “River” and two other poems by Tamara Madison will be featured in the upcoming Silver Birch Press release SILVER: An Anthology of Eclectic Poetry & Prose.

Photo: “The Tetons and the Snake River” (1942) by Ansel Adams

Silver Anthology from Silver Birch Press

Silver Birch Press is pleased to announce its upcoming release SILVER: An Eclectic Anthology of Poetry & Prose, which will feature contributions from a range of established and on-the-rise authors. The poems, short stories, novel excerpts, and essays in the anthology all touch on the theme of silver in some way.

WHY SILVER? The publisher is Silver Birch Press, so silver seems an obvious choice. But the selection  goes deeper. We like this theme because it’s rich, varied, and offers a wide range of possibilities – from second-place finishes, to eating utensils, 25th wedding anniversaries, hair color, swirling fog, coins, bells, jewelry, the tin man, space suits, car bumpers, airplanes, family heirlooms, and on and on.

Release Date: November 15, 2012