Acceptance: Pirene's Fountain

The delicious journal Pirene's Fountain has accepted three of my poems for its April Issue. I'm a fawning fan of this sonorous oasis and you can read my review here:

Diving Delectably In


You have one last chance to submit to PR before it morphs and merges with Glass Lyre Press in 2014. There will be a reading period in September for the Fall/Winter Issue in October. After that, the Fountain is becoming an annual and -- EXCITINGLY -- it will combo with a press that is currently and enthusiastically calling for manuscripts--SUBMIT YOUR POETRY BOOK NOW! The guidelines for Glass Lyre are here:

http://www.glasslyrepress.com/submissions.html

This is a great time to submit, because the press is just starting out and that could mean very careful attention to your work. Let's face it, sometimes when you submit a manuscript, it hits the slush pile and languishes. Odds are good that won't happen at Glass Lyre.

I have very much enjoyed working (albeit ephemerally) with the editing team at Pirene's Fountain, and many of these same folks will be running Glass Lyre. They are kind, they are generous, they are lit savvy, and they are extra smart. These are the sorts of word-empaths you want reading your heartsongs. As always, check the guidelines for their needs, and what you can expect in return.

Congrats to Glass Lyre on its launch, and Viva La Fountain!!

Owl


PS: The three poems of mine accepted for the April issue are: "Air Meditation," "Over Arizona," and "Moth."

Release: The Writing Disorder, Spring 2013

Check this. Five of my poems in the latest TWD. In case you're not hip on the haps, this mag is ultra-cool, turns contraries into synch. Retro/avant sassy/serious seminal/germinal. Click on this link. Go on, I dare you:

I HAVE A WRITING DISORDER

To read my review of TWD:

Neurotic Owl Rant


Salva Veritate,

CCC

PS: Here is an excerpt from one of the poems, as an enticement


(Excerpt from "Land Of the Crumbling Abacus")

it was a place that knew
the slope of every woman’s breast,
obscured in succulent heat waves.
hips reared out of the dunes for hours,
their trysts undulating into guitars.

Poem: Even Then

Trying to encapsulate the gist of the problem in a nutshell...

This was originally published in The Earth Comes First.


Owl


-------------------------------------------------


Even Then


The lesson of history
is that we don’t learn the lessons of history

Thomas G. Donlan


if the world blew up,
would we wake up?
would politicians admit their lies
as countries sizzled away?
would followers of Christ
drop their bloody Cross?
would the rich forsake gold,
and the gun-happy
shed their weapons?

who would dare to shout,
in that last minute,
that our ways of living
had been sick and perverse,
if only because they led
to everyone burning?
would we realize
that our friends
and family and god and culture
and everything on tv
and on our computers
had been infected with a sly form
of deceit?

could we tear off
the paper-thin straitjacket
that squeezed our minds
into little balls, turned us
into fetal prisoners
within the unmentionable asylum
of the work day?

could anyone be a hero, even then,
faced with the strongest evidence?
would anyone die
ashamed?

I'm featured in Philosophy After Dark!

TELEPORT to PHILOSOPHY AFTER DARK

I’m infatuated with this relatively new journal, run by its discerning and meritorious editor, Max Sipowicz. The poetry is engaging and, true to the spirit of the zine, whirls you down conceptual as well as emotional water slides.

I want to underscore, though, that there is nothing dull, humdrum or anally academic about this site. It is fresh and quirky in a playful-surreal kind of way, not afraid, for instance, to include in its roster an occasional “Historical Fact of the Week,” brought to you by Daniel Vancea. Not afraid to ask raw questions like, What is philosophy?, and provide links to idea-edged commentary. Not afraid to casually remark that a certain perspective in the Paris Review is pretty darn worthwhile, and send you off on a more-than-memorable sojourn of the mind.

I’m extremely honored than my quasi-existential poem, “Value Less” is currently featured. The speaker in the poem is anguished at the level of awful, enigmatic yet essential questions. Here is a teaser line:

she had sealed off wounds
even Equuleus could not soothe.


Go to the site for the whole thing. Even better, write to Editor Sipowicz to thank him for all the hard work he is surely putting in. Editors rarely if ever get unsolicited praise, and they deserve it more than most any single poet. This editor, I feel, is particularly worthy.

Also, think about submitting to Philosophy After Dark. And if you are a woman, please think even more about sending something in (all the recent authors are men). This young journal deserves to soar and garner all kinds of fans and ferment. Dare to reveal your deep-seated questions--or just comment on others’--and you will find a place here, one that welcomes you to haunt and screech.

Owl


PS:

Here are the recent poems offered at Philosophy After Dark :


Pavane at Twilight by Robert Gross

Four Metaphysical Errors by Askold Skalsky

1930 by Frederick Pollack

Acceptance: Bacopa Review

Eldon Turner, the Poetry Editor of Bacopa Review, has informed me that my poem "Plastic Shred" was accepted for the 2013 issue. Bacopa is run by the Writer's Alliance of Gainesville, and they look like a dedicated, passionate, and enthusiastic group of bards:

http://www.writersalliance.org

If you want to join WAG, you will be undertaking a serious and special event, making you eligible to join Critique Pods and participate in the apparently dynamic and vivacious functioning of the Alliance:

http://www.writersalliance.org/bylaws.html

I was born in Gainesville, so it's nice to return home in some sense! Thank you, Editor Turner, and best to all at WAG!

Carry On and Forth and Around and All That,

Owl

Acceptance: Viral Cat

READ the SPRING 2013 ISSUE

Viral Cat has released its latest issue (Spring 2013), which includes my poems "Cassandra Reflects" and "Nameless Wife On the Flood." I love this zine. Of all the zines I know it most effectively combines modalities: poems, films, painting, illustration, media, mixed media and screenplay excerpts. I kid you not. All these forms are in the vcat, intermixed into a mind-whirling stream of idea, symbol, sound and art. This zine follows passion with agile metamorphosis through many rabbit- and wormholes!

Both of my poems are in my prophetic voice and appropriately society-stinging.

The editor prefers anonymity on the site, so I will offer that person phantom yet heartfelt kudos. Thank you for being!

Fly Well In the Dark,

Owl

Portrait of an Owl Who Laughs

Check out the portrait of me by artist Peter DeVeber!

Portrait of the Poet as a Young Owl


And here is the photo that goes with it:

Poem: Hetaera

Recently published in Danse Macabre Magaine.

Enjoy!

Owl

---------------------------------



Hetaera

it was necessary to
kept twisting, a painful
incessant slip.
she had to get free of
the jelly rolls of men
who defined what
she lived for,
what she would
have to need or try.
there were already
sacrifices of silence,
lubricious on the altar
of her cut/e heart.
the chest of any kingpin
pressed her ear like a wall,
fraudulent coos
and debauched loves.
it was necessary
to flee the grizzled grip,
to abjure the click-lock
of diamond circlets.
to sexually abdicate.
no trysts in chateaux
of complex elegant sin.
no more mornings
on blue horizons
of imprisoning yachts;
or high above the scurry
of everyone else’s night.
she wasn’t downing again,
or sinking on a lap
during ascent. she wouldn’t
pretend angelic
in the belly of a monster
in the sky.


---------------------------

"We are all vampires, consuming the light of living jewelry to survive."

Leonard Atwater Williardson, Comes a Spider