Alexis Rhone Fancher

Shittu Fowora

George Freek

Trois par Trois

 

 

 

Alexis Rhone Fancher

WALK ALL OVER YOU

 

The stiletto boots in the back of my closet are

restless, long to stroll the 3rd Street Promenade,

looking for a red silk bustier.  A Louis Vuitton bag.

A lover who won’t let me down. 

                              

The stiletto boots in the back of my closet

want to party, want to grab my feet, 

climb my calves, hug my thighs. They’re

ready for action. Ready to put on a skintight

Versace, and head for the club. 

 

They want to clack on terrazzo floors,

totter from great heights, see the world.

Escape the flats, the Mary Jane’s, the penny

loafers, the two-toned, two-faced saddle Oxfords

that guard the closet door.

 

The stiletto boots in the back of my closet

want to walk all over you, punish you for

cheating, make you pay.

They have a short memory, don’t care

why they were banished or what you

did. They’re desperate to reclaim you,

dig their heels into your shortcomings,

make little marks up and down your libido.

Welcome you home.

 

They long to wrap themselves around

you, put you in a headlock, rake your thighs,

want to lead you into ecstasy.

Saran Wrap. 

Whipped cream.

Wesson Oil.

Room service.

Remember?

 

My stilettos can’t forget you.

My stilettos can’t move on.

My stilettos want to forgive you.

Even if I cannot.

 

They bear the scuff marks

of your betrayal far better than do I.

 

The stiletto boots in the back of my closet

are negotiating their release, want me

to give you a second chance

to trample my heart.

 

Like the last time and the time before.

They want to get started, head out the door.

Who do you think gave me those fucking boots,

anyway?

 

 

WHEN

 

The regret that hides out inside our eyes when we say goodbye

when we see each other one last time when we wish we’d never

laid eyes on each other when we know for certain we’ve fallen

out of love when we realize we’ve made a mistake when he

back-pedals apologies and I grab his hand out of habit

 

and there’s that fucking spark

 

and then there’s him, pulling me in 

when I’m fragile and he has the upper hand 

when he sticks his tongue down my throat 

when I get that swirly feeling in my gut 

 

when I want him to stop when I don’t want him to stop

when he slips his hand inside my jeans when he wedges his

thumb inside my panties when I ache for the thrust of him 

 

when he pushes me onto the bed when he takes my breasts in his hands 

when his tongue moves down my body when I admit

he knows best how I like it when he admits he can’t live without me

 

The regret that hides out inside my body

when my husband gets back in town.

 

 

I’D NEVER SLEPT WITH A MEXICAN BEFORE.

HE WOULD ONLY DO IT IN THE DARK ON THE ROAD

 

I had a knife with me that day,

I don’t know why.

 

We just started driving upstate.

When I asked where we were going

he said, “Coffee.”

 

He was too short for me anyway.

 

In my dream there was poison in the coffee.

It tasted sweet. I didn’t seem to mind.

 

IN THE DINER

 

There were miles between us,

a Sahara.

 

“It’s okay to smoke,” he said.

“As long as you’re not a train.”

 

When he reached for my hands

I saw tattooed saints on his wrists

where the long sleeves shortened.

 

He let go like he’d been burned.

 

Folded. A barricade. A moat.

 

I fondled the knife in my purse

till he caught my eye.

 

“Keep ‘em where I can see ‘em.”

 

I could live with that.

 

IN THE MOTEL

 

We danced in the open space 

between the queen bed and the door.

He sweated through his button down,

a silver crucifix at his throat,

looked like Marc Anthony 

in the motel marquee’s light. 

 

Free Cable. Free Ice. No Vacancy.

 

He kicked off his pants, turned out the light. 

Fucked me with his shirt on.

 

IN THE MORNING

 

I surprised him in the shower,

saw his tattooed glory, sleeves,

the American eagle 

full-winged across his chest, 

“Semper Fi” emblazoned on a

ribbon in its mouth.

 

I threw the knife out the window

once the car passed Santa Barbara.

 

“The road is the journey,” he said, 

the sin of regret in his eyes.

 

 

Alexis Rhone Fancher’s work most recently can be found in Rattle, The MacGuffin, Slipstream, Fjords Review, Cliterature, Good Men Project, Poeticdiversity, and H_NGM_N. Her book of erotic poems, How I Lost My Virginity To Michael Cohen and Other Heart Stab Poems,” will be published this July by Sybaritic Press. In 2013 she was nominated for two Pushcart Prizes. She is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. www.alexisrhonefancher.com

 

 

 

Shittu Fowora

Are you a Learner?

 

“To teach is to learn twice” –Joseph Jouphet

 

 The girl? I thanked her 
for confiding in me, for saying how, 
even while her mother is a troubled feminist,
she is that girl who inherited fear and only got back her vane
after cracking her schoolfellow’s bully's nose with a drawing compass

 

Her mother? Conservative. Strong in her opinions 
even as she wears ODD everywhere 
like long flowing senegalese boubou

 

The boy? A Nancy too scared to pay attention 
in my classes
says his mother barks at him to flee or hide whenever
his Dad ploughed her with beating. 
Too scared to tell, too scared to comprehend how not to cry without being egged

 

Padre? Does not miss the Parents/Teachers meeting
but plays runaway on two women carrying imprints and burden 
from his youthful days of barracking sisters.

 

I? Learning from watching pupils in sarcastic exchanges,
word-slinging in balmy affaire d'honneur akin to rap battles
I? A teacher, learning how to be child/parent/educator 
without having to crack a jaw.

 

 

Hardest way to die

 

Starving is the hardest way to die

So for oxygen, we let it out of its birdcage, the canary

It gasped and sighed and thanked its quicksand stars

 

 At the fringes of no man's land, we fed the last cow

standing where humans and spirits dared not stay anymore

it mooed and smiled and tried to say “thank you”

to no avail

 

This denial, the girls at the nunnery know for a fact

they had since stopped confusing carrots and cucumbers

 as alternative items for salad

they got a Dobermann breed to rebuff tramps

who went there to get off some steam

 

For the ploughboy, he came around the convent with milk and excuses

asking the prioress about cops and of how to start an agrarian revolt.

The key to the library was handed him to cure his privation

there, he learnt –of the pistol and the pen, none was mightier

 

and that only when the pen is thought as seed,

thrust into trigger and shot off with steam of adventure 

only then could a starving countryside be liberated

from straying punters feigning to be land-development officers.

 

 

Until the blizzard

 

Mulling over what goes up when rain comes down

we must have spent miles and miles of imaginary miles like that,

agog like peanuts popping out of its pods

tasting wine with thirsty language

tongues tonguing hunger tongue-in-cheek-ly

barely touching, stealing bits per inch of ourselves

when the other wasn't looking thisward

 

It dawned on us, as every game of the clouds and the earth,

that before the fingers of rain reaches the thighs of earth

it raises its dust as if foreplaying with its dunes and sands

only the hill could tell how it feels when it is beaten by waves

and pubescent undergrowth is tickled in valley's underbelly

 

warm                     stormy                            wet

atmospheric river moistened our fun laden air

her head, the moon –nobly haloed with Cirrus clouds

signaling an approaching front. The clouds look like black smoke

we cast cloaks off, to see how much tresses it could soak

 

It turned on us, as every game of dice tends to do,

One day, on the hillside, static cling on her jacket /hay flakes in her hair

and the tremor of smoke on her breath, she fixed eyes on me,

pregnant with rain and sunlight and chi

 

The smell of umber, the feel of amber, rumbling thunder

we became light, lighter – weighting ounces of droplets

It was that simple, and then she said, let there be rain ;

with the tempo of sassy samba singers, we did rain.

 

 

Storyteller, poet, freelance writer and editor, Shittu Fowora, a lifelong fan of history and the power of scented words has recently been motivated by the winsomeness of birds and the wisdom of ants. Having been stung more than twice while attempting to lounge in trees to write verses, he now spends more time around PCs and electronic gadgets. His works have appeared/or about to appear on Sentinel Quaterly review, StoryMoja, RousingReads, Thewritemag, Helena Literary Magazine, WritersCafe.org, National dailies and various literary outlets. He enjoys sharing ideas, verses and stories with those who care.

 

 

 

George Freek

THE DAYS BECOME SHORTER (After CHU HSI)

 

Ravens pick at bones

in my fitful dreams.

When I wake I stare 

at stars, and I hope

to see day. Morning

seems far away. My wife,

wrinkled and fat, once

looked beautiful to me.

I look out a window,

and see dead leaves,

falling from dying trees,

so I search the mirror

for signs of disease.

But I must laugh.

If the tea is bitter,

I can drink wine.

And my wife has

now lost her spite. Her

words are still sharp,

but without teeth,

she has lost her bite.

 

 

I WRITE TO MY AILING WIFE (After MEI YAO CHEN)

 

The moon has no face.

It dies without grace.

It falls into the river,

a lonely grave.

And the clouds are like

dead sailors, sailing

in a dead sky.

They don’t look down

when they pass by.

You are far away, wife,

and I am here alone.

I write to you, but can

only think in clichés.

The right words

 are hard to find.

If you were here,

we might argue.

But you’d be with me,

so I wouldn’t mind.

 

 

NOVEMBER (After MEI YAO CHEN)

 

The clouds are silent,

as always. Leaves fall

in the moonlight.

I see mysteries in the air.

Clouds drift in pairs.

They might be lovers,

going anywhere.

In the darkness I hear

the dark river flow.

I feel a coming chill.

Soon it will snow.

Like life and like people,

winters come and go.

I look at my empty bed.

It has now been a year

you have been dead.

 

 

George Freek ~ As well as DM, recent poems have appeared in The Able Muse, Dewpoint, and The New Plains Review.