The Literary Magazine of the Osterhout Free Library
The Animating Spark
Raymond Cummings
When you turned away the sky fell apart for
just a moment before collecting itself. Doves
quit the refuge of Banaba boughs. Monarchs
descended into a yellow haze of irises and
lilacs. Fireflies slashed out like distant stars.
Jazz & Classical
Raymond Cummings
Here my recorder bore the brunt of the wind.
Night fell debased in chyrons. I’m much more
invested in a casual blues idiom, in melody,
Continue reading “Raymond Cummings, Spring•Summer, 2017”
A Shorting
Micah James Bauman
I have a shorting
in my heart
not a longing as some say
I have been living
a tiny thin truth
and by no shrink
of the imagination
can I explain it Continue reading “Micah Bauman, Spring•Summer 2017”
Gustav Vigeland’s Sculpture Garden, 1965
David Chin
Vigeland’s subject was the nude, what we are
without the trappings without the social uniform.
Atop the garden’s 56-foot-tall central monolith,
composed entirely of bodies, pressing and pushing, Continue reading “David Chin, Spring•Summer 2017”
Long Nights with B
Brian Fanelli
B liked to raise his fists,
sneer at me with booze breath,
College boy, what you got on me, huh?
B liked to call next morning,
not to apologize, but to plan the night,
promise to buy first rounds.
B liked to forget how he tangled with friends, Continue reading “Brian Fanelli, Spring•Summer 2017”
Literary Clerihews
Marjorie Maddox
Shakespeare
has an ear
for lovely sonnets.
He must know phonics!
* * *
Edgar Allan Poe
loves to scare us so
with thumping hearts beneath the floor
and ravens squawking, “Nevermore.” Continue reading “Marjorie Maddox, Winter 2017”
