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Winter 2008

Poetry

Dean Brink
Alan Catlin
Jim Doss
Darrell Epp
Taylor Graham
Ken Gurney
Michelle Lerner
Michele Lesko
Lynn Lifshin
M
Corey Mesler
Mitchell Metz
Bryan Mitschell
Maurice Oliver
Patty Paine
Jayne Pupek
Nic Sebastian
Shawn Sorensen
Lynn Strongin
Christy Tomecek

Flash Fiction

David Jordan
Richard Rippon
Jack Swenson

Featured Artist

Don Snell

Congratulations
2007 Pushcart Nominees:

Editors:

Jennifer VanBuren
Jai Britton
Patrick Carrington
Alex Nodopaka

Mitchell Metz

Winter 2008

Telemachus on the Couch
 
Here’s the thing, Doc.  Athena, see, she talks to me.
She really does, all grey-eyed and goddessy.
 
That’s why I’m here, I guess. I’m strolling the vineyard
grumbling about Mom’s horny rabble and … boom!...
 
there she stands half-naked, grinning big, like sin’s her
middle name.  Tells me long lost Dad will soon
 
show up and kick some ass if I just search for him.
But ere you sail (damn, I love it when she says ere)
 
you best get hold of yourself, she winks, and trim
that jib of yours, young man.   I’m sixteen, it ain’t fair!
 
When I tell the guys, they give me shit about it,
call me names -- divinity bait, deity meat.
 
I mean I try to hold her gaze, ignore her tits
when she leans in, whispers top secret stuff complete
 
with cryptic, foreboding eventualities.
You try secret agenting an omnipobabe!
 
Still, she’s been a peach, a prince, a pal to me --
no, wait, I’m the prince and got me this new sable
 
tunic to prove it.  Has sable been invented yet?
Anyway, I’m all messed up.  I kind of enjoy
 
having Mom to myself, you know?  I watch her wet
fingers (she licks ‘em) warp and woof that wool.  I toy
 
with the image of being a shuttle in her weave,
plying back and forth among her fabric like Dad
 
among his seas.  Is that sick?  Every night she grieves
for him; I just want to fill her hole.  Is that bad?
 
What son worth his sword wouldn’t want to do the same?
And now Athena’s trying to break us up, the slut,
 
with some artificial DadQuest -- a stupid game
of hide-n-greek that I don’t wanna play.  Know what?
 
I think she’s got a thing for Mom.  That’s it, Doc!
Athena wants me gone so she can play the groom!
 
I’m staying home.  Homer than home.  Like a rock
filling Mom’s gaping ache before Dad’s empty tomb.
 
Thanks for figuring this thing out, Doc.  You’re the best.
Gotta run, meet a friend.  You know him?  Oedipus?
 
 
 

One Reason Why I Lift Weights
 
This morning I found a shitty nest on the lawn.
The work, no doubt, of some remedial bird.
Don’t know nests so, yeah, let’s just say
 
bird.  It made me sad.
Even the bird world
gots bad moms. No-
 
thing worse than a bad mom.
Dads can get away with bad
cuz moms cover their asses.
 
I mean this nest sucked.
It was all stringy and wove bad,
like the do of a welfare mom in
 
Ronald Reagan’s imagination.
You could see right through it
(the nest).
 
Made me hope to Christ eggs
was never part of the mix.
Cuz if they was,
 
what kind of chickhood did they hatch
to? Did she even bother to bring em bugs,
tuck em in at night? Didn’t see no down lining.
 
Or just go down
to the corner garden
and get wasted on sun-
flower seeds with the starlings?
  
Who knows,
maybe Birdette was just butt-ugly:
feather pattern fucked up and a harebeak to boot.
 
Couldn’t find a mate
to bird-n-bee with, but started to build
anyhow, out of instinct.  Then common sense
and despair took over, so she offed herself.
 
Flew headlong
into a picture window.  That
would be sad too.
 
Mostly, though, I’m thinking your basic birdivorce.
Bossman Robin with the bright red pecs
and babe-magnet chirrups
 
thought he had himself
a little tail-tufted homemaker,
and then, mid-nest, bigger & brighter
 
comes along.
It can happen.

A former All-Ivy football player, Mitchell Metz writes only because he never made it to the pros. His brothers like to remind him “you never even came close.” He is a two-time Pushcart Nominee. His work has appeared widely, including such venues as Southern Poetry Review, GW Review, Hiram Poetry Review, Fugue, and Underwood Review. His published work has twice been selected to appear on Verse Daily.