The Literary Magazine of the Osterhout Free Library
At Odds
Bob Beagrie
When there’s no hope of a phone signal
and I know, if there was, you wouldn’t pick up,
these are the things I can use to call you:
the mat of moss sighing damp over a tumble of rocks
among an oak’s exposed roots beneath dripping branches,
the wind, carrying threads of fret into a white sky, Continue reading “Bob Beagrie, Winter 2017”
On Docks Off Eagle Harbor
Raymond Luczak
In the east, the moon rises
a contained ball of flame.
Winds surf the anxious waves
and around the lonely docks.
Unfamiliar stars tip their toes
in the vast lake of night.
Stale clouds coat the lighthouse
blinking its tired pulse.
The moon arches even higher
on the ladder with each minute.
The north leaks a faint light,
an unsettling of ghosts long past.
Isle Royale is a shadow,
trees unshaven in the swath.
Sprinkles of water thunder Continue reading “Raymond Luczak, Winter 2017”
Storm Clouds Over Fairmont
Ace Boggess
I’m in town to read poems about my troubles
“does it bother you
to talk about it?” someone asks
“no” I say “if I can’t feel
at home in my history
I’m a man with two faces staring at the sun”
not this sun
which hides
behind slow-
rolling cumulonimbus
while I stand outside
the hotel’s double doors to smoke— Continue reading “Ace Boggess, Winter 2017”
The Men in the White Vans
C. L. Bledsoe
They wake earlier than some go to bed,
the men with hard hands, and every one
of them smiles when he sees my toddler
daughter flounce by. Breakfast is quick
and on the way because there’s no food
in the house, or maybe no peace, and sugar
is cheap. I see them when I leave in the smoky
dark, lining the parking lot, an obstacle course
of battered whaling ships covered with ladders,
poles that resemble harpoons, tools. I don’t
know what they do, but it’s probably Continue reading “C. L. Bledsoe, Winter 2017”
Night Ride, NYC
Steve Klepetar
I was seven or eight, riding at night in someone’s car
over a bridge strung with lights,
the Whitestone or Throgs Neck, and we seemed
to be standing still
as the bridge slid past, pillar after pillar,
until my eyes blurred. My identity seemed to slip away
and I repeated my name to myself, silently, over
and over, until those words
meant nothing. Night loomed above, and lights Continue reading “Steve Klepetar, Winter 2017”
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