Gleam Issue 7
The following poems were selected by the editors
for Issue 7 of Gleam:
Understanding what I Didn’t, by Tina Barry
On the Verge of Recognition, by Rose Mary Boehm
“End”, by Jamey Boelhower
At the Poetry Conference, by Becky Boling
Wisps of Black Smoke, by Becky Boling
Glimmer, by Sarah Carleton
World Inscrutable and Amazing, by Ginny Connors
Where once was river, by Kate Copeland
Tricks of the light, by Jane Dougherty
Still, by Sara Dykins
Colors, by N.L. Holmes Kantzios
To find the dance, by J.I. Kleinberg
GULLS, by Tara Knight
Surprise, by Carolyn Martin
Seneca Reads His Tea Leaves, by Jimmy Pappas
Outtakes with Luster and Plunge, by Kathy Peterson
Rainmaker, by Jenner Shaffer
Spellbind, by Jenner Shaffer
At the Margins, by Merril Smith
Seasoning, by Merril Smith
An Hour North, by Mary Stone
If You Find Yourself Missing Gentleness, by Catherine Strayhall
Reflections; Unbroken, by Catherine Strayhall
Bright, Dangling Stars, by Kathryn Vanspeckeren
Lone Lovebird, by Susan Vespoli
Hibernal, by Sterling Warner
Anthropocene Dreaming, by Ingrid Wilson
A Different History of Damage, by Jon Yungkans
For You Knew You Would Have Something Better: Five Questions from Neruda, by Jon Yungkans
Pondering a Theorem: What You Said a Hotel Was, by Jon Yungkans
1.
A man peddles up to me on the bicycle he rode when we were children,
its handlebars festooned with sparkling streamers. His milkweed hair
parts to reveal a wide swath of pink scalp.
I reach for him and he’s gone.
2.
The first summer in Maine, we rented a house on the ocean. We couldn’t
see the bell, but we heard its chime. One person compared
the sound to a sleepy kettle’s whistle.
Another, a pirate’s song.
3.
When my father wrote, his pen scratched across paper, ebony swirls
and sweeps. Once, standing near his desk, I said his hands
moved like birds. He waved them
making shadows on the wall.
4.
I discovered a photo in a friend’s book. Rivers of blue veins traveled
beneath a woman’s flour-pale skin, ample hips
tapered into a glittering fish tail.
Tell me, I said.
5.
My neighbor is inked from neck to feet: birth dates, favorite bands;
her cat Misty sleeps inside a heart on her shoulder. I never
understood the desire for tattoos. Now I do.
No one is ever lost.
1
Homer’s wine-coloured seas touch the washed-out sky.
Blue travels on shorter waves.
Colour is rejected light.
2
A butterfly’s birth, delicate wings on summer’s breeze.
High grass ripples, whispers of secrets.
A meadowlark rises.
3
Kitten in the afternoon sun, dreaming of softness.
Willow watches its reflection.
Day slides into night.
4
The woman bends and lifts clothes onto the washing line.
White wings whirl with the ashes.
Golden beetles in centipede grass.
5
You dip your slim fingers into the travelling brook,
touch my cheek, sparkle, remind me of promises.
Love stories from an earlier spring.
1. Leaves change colors because
the air becomes filled with
whispers of lost summers
and dying flowers. Each
hue reveals empty veins.
2. The glass shimmers between
the cracks and neon lights.
She swallows golden fire,
feeding the darkness that
sits in the corner booth.
3. The undertow pulls down
frantic feet. Life guards too
late. Generations lost
in a moment that changed
the axis of belief.
4. Fingers lost in the clouds.
Shifting edges with a
rough excitement found in
late night kisses and shared
secrets below porch lights.
5. A forgotten bookmark
leaves the impression of
his dreams on page twenty,
a quote, underlined, reads,
“When all is lost, begin.”
1.
The lake is taking a shower. A trickle becomes
a downpour. Under skylights, wooden beams,
thick canopies of leaves, we huddle, clock
the deluge. The pitying woods umbrella us.
But the lake wants a thorough dousing—
one to swell its vanity, to wash away
our debris and beach trash, to clear dusty
pollutants from its sky, to rewind the world.
2.
I scrub Mom’s casserole, its glaze yellowed,
pocked, and scratched. The tempered-glass lid
is chipped, the seal broken after all those family
potlucks when Grandma’s brothers, war and cancer
survivors, still argued over football scores,
wore overalls, ate too fast, left the table early.
A kitchen work-horse, this casserole outlasted
them all, graced the table after each funeral.
3.
Butterflies pummel the gut as you eat
dread. A lump of lead anchors you
in place, holds you to a pact with defeat
forcing preemptive retreat. How do
butterflies have such weight? How do airy
nothings on wings keep a grown-ass woman
grafted to vinyl and metal, in a backrow seat,
dry-mouthed and emptied of words?
4.
Her first day at the nursing home, my mother
asks the social worker their rate of success.
Faux cottage shingles greet those who visit.
From her room, she sees only the parking lot.
In the indoor pond, the Koi are coy in their cold
trough. Wheelchairs circle like a rival school.
Mom sits at the care meeting like a centerpiece
on a table while we talk around her.
5.
When we met, we circled each other in the ring,
I sized you up, and you did likewise.
A jab, a hook, an uppercut to the jaw,
I pinned you against the ropes and held on.
Since then, we’ve dropped our gloves, trained
sullen tongues to speak a lover’s art. Now, you
and I conquer, submit, and cleave—bones,
blood, and flesh. Defeated, yet unmatched.
1.
The neighbors’ wall has stolen my scenic
view from the patio. Gone are sunsets,
valley lights that creep up the sierra
slopes. Thirsting for a blushing sky
at dusk, I turn my back on white-washed
adobe to feast on wine-red petals bursting
among thorns on a potted cactus. I revel
as lit candles quake at dark’s descent.
2.
She considers stuffing herself in the freezer
to preserve her heart from snow burn.
Shivering in the park, her fitbit loses
count after a thousand tiny steps. A hot
burst of breath fogs the window glass—
a fleeting silver-toned masterpiece.
She trickles a stream of water, lets it freeze
in mid-fall, grows an icicle to tell time.
3.
The world makes little sense to them
since dragons came. Pavement burns.
Bridges melt. Oceans, lakes, rivulets
grow too warm for fish to spawn. Inside,
the lucky ones stare out on parched,
blistered lawns, sweat under fiery
sunsets, whisper of snowdrifts, ice
caves, and fishing holes on frozen lakes.
4.
Time to fast, put chocolates aside, take stock
of pantries to cull temptation, reset appetites,
meditate on our hunger for more. The want
tempers our wanting, weens us, sends us one
step toward satisfaction. A crutch on the path.
Cravings unfed dwindle. Pleasure shifts.
Siddhartha fled the palace to become Buddha.
Jesus dined on fish and bread, not caviar.
5.
I no longer see bats on wing at dusk, not
like my childhood days when I rode
a one-speed blue bike on neighborhood
streets from morning to well past sunset.
Wisps of black smoke or gray ash, bats caught
warm, humid updrafts to soar. Now, a colony,
all male, hangs under my eaves, radar set to scan
empty twilight for the ashen flutter of a mate.
1.
Candles in paper-bag boats drift, pairing up
and forming groups on the water like party guests
turned this way and that, except one
that floats toward a wall of shadow trees
where pinprick lamps bead the lake’s edge.
2.
In an unlit art museum passage, we groped till
a voice said, “Over here,” and we felt the wide air
of a room on our fingers and grabbed at it. We stared
at a square of colors till our eyes understood the dark
and could detect people huddled by the wall.
3.
My student, 80ish, reads an essay in careful English.
He looks at me, head tilted, wrinkly face shining
through the screen, and I do my best to shine back.
“Why would someone think about going to Mars?”
he says. “We have a delicious planet.”
4.
Children’s torsos strewn. A woman dragged into a car
by the hair. Heaviness wakes me too early,
and I shuffle around the murky house till sunrise.
On my iPad, a camo-clad man stands in an open
door, begging each of us to be somebody’s light.
5.
Last week on my walk, a small human tottered over,
eyes alighting on me as if I were her best friend.
She lifted a hand for me to hold, and we stood
together, pleased with our achievement, till
her father laughed and told her to say bye-bye.
1
A corn maze is for getting lost. And the mind?
Gropes blindly through its convoluted labyrinth.
The heart howls and pants in its wilderness.
I find myself here, in a universe of brilliant surprises.
2
Blackbirds swim through their ocean of sky.
Worms, tunneling the earth, respond to vibrations
above and around them. Schools of silvery fish
dart in silent synchrony. So many ways of knowing.
3
Today I walk beneath a storm of falling leaves,
dizzying swirls of red and yellow,
sunlight glowing through and between them.
In this difficult world, moments of joy.
4
Three hearts pump the blue blood of an octopus.
Its arms move in a graceful ballet, reaching out,
exploring, tasting everything they touch.
As it dreams, the octopus changes colors.
5
My arms want to wrap around the long ago,
the distant, and the near. If I could bend time,
continuous, I’d watch a blue planet evolving.
And the light around it, and the darkness.
1.
I am in Sundown Town, stuck in the hour
between wolf and hound, one more shade
before dark, and far away from glimpses
-in which they love themselves- is way far
from ways I have ever mastered, I am less
connected to them, my weight is changing.
Please note that I showed up all days during
that jazz festival, for days, cups of tasteless
coffee, bodies on bean bags, whilst they just
cut in on singers’ songs. Flawless arrogance.
2.
I am knocking down fish, snogging a guy,
outside the Greek hotel, am unable to tell,
when to go home, away, just another day?
They are all married as I still chase squirrels,
still, remember the dog down the desert; he
trusted a graveyard full of rabbits and just
followed me, down where once was river.
I like perfection, like mornings to wake up
to with sun in eyes, past and now the same,
the Friday night joining a Sunday morning.
3.
I am walking in Black Hills, the Italian bars,
their expensive drinks, and I danced with you
down your kitchen, but far away from home
(in this dust-pink light of day), seems farther
away from ways I am used to show manners.
You seek my flat stomach, but, please forgive
me my distance, Uber will show any minute,
you gave me this coffee card, tasteless, and
only livened up for taxi-girl, once you saw
her heels in the trunk. You stopped singing.
4.
I am clueless to why no one takes what I say
is beautiful, what I say on freedom, on legs;
so I decide to stick to Fiona’s words, ballads
about far from feeling, about love until moon
lives upside down. I sing out loud, and move
to curved surfaces, I see the pool where Stevie
simply wrote and wrote, and loved; I love a
reliving, the velvet-veil hotels down valleys
where pale-pinks create a canopy. They do,
a union. I don’t need the barren winter trees.
5.
In the end, I stay sun and follow the culverts,
my afternoons fill up with side streams. I stay
far away from the foxgloves, far enough from
forever iron songs and crazy bus tickets. I slip
away to salute the extra shade and smile at my
red-carpet cake, no effort sound enough to stay
the golden one. I still have the manual, straight
lines, and highlighted words. I love my love,
he practiced the starfish-song for me, he did.
And I melted. I am home, it may be the day.
1.
Ask the wind where the soft light has gone,
the green of spring. I see only
the prismed hues of rainbows,
the bruise-purple cloud of sunsets, breaking
through the lead seal of coming storms.
2.
I could be treading upon diamonds;
the sound is the same as gravel,
and in the river shallows, quartz glitters
just as bright when the sun strikes.
My feet make no distinction. Should they?
3.
Hanging on the rail in the ship’s stern,
spray veils the waves, the shore receding,
with the feather-white of gulls’ wings,
and sings in the high-pitched notes
that only dogs can hear.
4.
Moon swims, floats, drifts, never marches.
Not from femininity, but because
only aberrations wade through blood,
singing their fierce martial songs
on their way to eternal darkness.
5.
I am all of the above, I said,
because I am a human being.
Your choice of determining characteristics
is arbitrary. In the body electric,
I am the green and yellow earth wire.
1.
In the weird hours of the day, stillness
combines with the offset sun to pierce
the veneer of normalcy. I find myself
between laundry and a moment I can’t
recall; haunted. Stale air coagulates around
the clean linens. I’ve been here before
outside of time.
2.
She didn’t eat lunch. She drinks wine
as she works to define the differences
between “Excellent!” and “Strong effort!”
The cursor blinks impatient, and she
battles boredom: toes twitch, eyes go
sideways. Still the same answers
twenty years later.
3.
The house was hollow. Everything was still
in its place, but emptiness echoed between
the walls. The fridge rattled. Fish swam.
The dogs rested quietly, one in his bed,
the other on the sofa. Even when they
barked, a stronger silence smothered
the sound.
4.
Orange light on an October evening
plays hide-and-seek against the
white-tiled kitchen wall. Olive oil spits
its welcome to garlic and in seconds
their perfume inhabits the room, warming
shadowed corners. Even with the heat low
the garlic burns.
5.
I’m still here. That’s what the gunmetal-
and-raspberry ink on my left arm says
every moment. It’s been six years since
her emaciated body stopped breathing
in that dimly lit place made for dying.
And I’m still here staring at the space
where she should be.
1.
Three plums are left in a blue dish in the kitchen,
three topaz spheres touched with luscious rouge.
Should we eat them or mount them in a golden bezel
with marquise of lapis lazuli at either side?
This is the only crown I want to wear.
2.
Wet stones mosaic the long Ravenna of the road –
tessellated gleam of gravel, years embedded,
emeralded with moss, rubied and pearled by earth’s
largess, trod slick by ink-eyed doe and dewy fawn,
by tusked dark lord of oak groves on his night’s maraud.
3.
By the hearth, two tabbies curl in twitching slumber,
their camouflage no use upon a salmon cushion.
Outside, grass waves with the passage of small feet,
and birds, distracted by their dreams, might dip low
enough to snag with a slap of switchblade paws.
4.
There is no darkness. Night wraps us in a spangled cloak.
Below, gaura’s pale stars dance in pre-dawn breeze.
An owl’s cry flutters. Why are they always far away?
The silhouette of forest is a crumpled heap of velvet
In which the drowsing barnyard, nestled, sleeps.
5.
A liquidambar flames outside my door, the funeral pyre of
chlorophyll. Summer is over. Fall’s vermilion flare
in a billion shades of rust ignites in me a lust for change.
The wild geese range. I too could turn a page and be
more beautiful in age than I have dared to be before.
1.
Your shadow genuflects over your sleeping body
attended by a dun moth yearning for the streetlight.
The portrait’s ghost, a pale rectangle on the wall,
craves the touch of canvas, faint scent of linseed oil.
A candle, dark now in its splayed skirt of melted wax,
aches for the quick sulfurous match, the warm yellow glow.
2.
A rat has prowled the garage, shelves no obstacle
in this fortress of labeled bins, Kirkland wine bottles,
envelopes of seeds tucked up in jars, mason-bee boxes
barricaded behind paint cans amid implements of lost hope:
flat-tired wheelbarrow, broken strings of holiday lights,
hoses curled like dozing dogs banished to threadbare rugs.
3.
Longshore drift moves entire beaches: footprints,
sand castles, jellyfish, the lingering scent of coconut,
a tiny silver ring. In pre-dawn scows and plows, how many
cubic yards of memory will it take to heal this loss?
The faint aroma of last night’s dream follows you all day,
a pallid scrim, wood smoke from a forgotten campfire.
4.
Is the wolverine the shadow of the dog or is the dog
shadowed by its own vocabulary of desire?
Understanding temptation, artichokes arm themselves
and pomegranates burnish their red leather jackets.
Hastily stitched, a graft mends beneath a bandage,
tender welt all that remains of feather, glass, grief.
5.
Your heart, the terminus of unnamed constellations,
recalls the astronomer’s homeopathic admonition:
to find the dance, examine every bone. Obsidian
lusts for sapphire, and so you felt the owl’s flight
and wished for wings. On your mouth, salt and sugar
look the same, but which enflames your kiss?
1
The asphalt is a black mirror ribbon sliding past the Seabird Hotel. The requisite neon colors the rain today, creating a fuzzy veil. The house beside the sky-rise has left their laundry on the line again. Sweaters, T-shirts, socks, and jeans hang defeated and grey in the half-dusk. The patrol car is festive, its flashing lights pinpoints beating back the mist. The officer is leaning in the window, but his thoughts are far away. His eyes slide to the horizon, scanning the thin blue line.
2
Killing time without consequence, a clock sits in the hallway murdering minutes. Tile squares stick inside their contradiction, fables of stone. These walls hold days that are years and seconds that change lifelines. For what it’s worth, the ceiling fan keeps turning a rhythm. The ticking mixes with the gulls today, a timepiece inside wings. Its beating heart is made of moments, saved, and then falling. Every instant collected in the corners, a puddle to wade through again.
3
On the 8th the ground finally froze past that line on the map. Before the migration, the birds hung around in the space that ice lent them. “If you don’t, you surely won’t” is a promise written in frost and feathers. At -4 degrees there are no lies, but they come in time. The sky is too blue when it’s alone over white fields. Just for now, perhaps we’ve been chosen as the cold sets in. Up North, we always seem to find out what we’re worth.
4
Twenty tiny paper-wrapped missiles explode like confetti on the sidewalk. Once a pocket package of cigarettes, they are reborn to floating in puddles. A careless umbrella showers droplets, tiny diamonds of water. Some embrace so casually with leather jackets running rivulets. Others sit and watch over coffee cups behind the glass. Just a product of the weather and whether, yet they still remember. There are ways a heart can fly on certain days inside uncertain updrafts.
5
The trees are braving the bay as resentful waters weave around. The shore shares
its granite glance when the waves break into whitecaps. A yellow sky is yawning
as the dogs dance ahead alone. A walk with some seasons has no destination or trail.
There is a purpose in being lost without cause. It reminds me maybe I missed
taking time together. There are no clouds today, and I will make it up to you.
1.
Yesterday we were afraid.
The firs disappeared in solid smoke.
Every bird went somewhere else.
Even the feral cat laid low.
Today a reprieve: the cat gasps
fresh air, fills her belly
from a plastic dish, ignores
chickadees pecking suet cake.
2.
Dawn needs a song. That’s why
roosters break out of unrepentant night
with wild authority. They cheer
the redundancy of light and prepare
to revel in another day while a solitary bee
leaps into his last chosen bloom
after forty relentless days committed
to the pure genius of honey.
3.
Midnight and the backyard sounds
like a battleground. Five raccoons ruin
my sleep and dare me to step onto the patio.
This morning begonias and salvia,
torn-limb victims, need a replant.
They invite me to think about
war zones around the world
where sleep disappears day and night.
4.
It’s true: Hawaii’s hibiscus, protea,
ginger, plumeria, and red ti leaves
define beauty as steady and intense.
Add mourning doves, trade winds, and palms
and it’s unfadeable paradise. Yet,
I prefer the deep-rooted hope of crocuses,
quince, daffodils, and flowering plum:
surprises rising up once a year.
5.
Cleaning out the garage:
on a top shelf––above boxes
of family photos, Christmas lights,
and Easter bunnies waiting for spring––
cross-country skis you glided down
our street when snow packed
below 500 feet. You balanced perfectly.
My boots fumbled through your tracks.
1. Infanticide
The acorns that fall to the ground
under the mother tree will be
smothered Medea-like as young
saplings unless a bird comes along
to take a seed & drop it elsewhere;
even the raven will leave its carrion
to bury one in a hole & cover it with dirt.
2. Of Tea Leaves and Conch Shells
The conch shell tells me one thing,
but my tea leaves tell me another.
The entrails of the goat I sacrificed
today cancel them both out until
I find myself sitting on my recliner
waiting for the knots on my deck
to form two eyes that won’t look away.
3. Someone I Once Knew
I knew a man once who had the answers:
he placed postage stamps in his pocket
& was returned with address unknown,
he wrote squiggles on a blank paper
& found he had to keep explaining
the unexplainable, so he quit squirming
& pretended to be a lawn flamingo.
4. Seneca in the Plum Orchard
Seneca tried to lead men to virtue,
to think about their position in society,
& to focus on making goodness
be their all, but when they ripened
like plums in a deserted orchard
their ill thoughts returned & left them
pointing a gnarled finger at your face.
5. Existence
We are all be & been & not been
& will be at the same time &
if I had my tenses straight I’d
probably list more except I can’t
get past the feeling that eventually
I’ll be a never was because how can
I be without someone to notice me.
-1-
From the terrain of swale and bluff, dreams
display interpretations the way a river stirred
by an oar tells an evolving story — leaves
floating on their way, the weight of a rowboat
and its destination, bent light signals its refraction.
-2-
I stare at voluminous sunsets and overlook
my drop of time evaporating: my open
palm displays a lifeline broken by the force
of impulse. Dragonflies of consciousness
glide and wander near the water’s edge.
-3-
Easily fooled by my need to avoid anxiety
I invite the Gardener of Deception to plant
bulbs that will flower year after year without
interference, spiraling from three dimensions
to four by mathematical extension.
-4-
Yet in the real world I find my clearing, grasses
flattened. Some of us shrivel and some of us
inflate. My skeptic sneers, her tears held back.
Toward inertia groan the crumbling hills,
their influence a confluence of less and less.
-5-
In the town that fostered us, drought brought
yellow brittleness to leaves. We spoke in gusts,
breaking branches in an autumn storm. Etched
with clouds, the sky assigned the task of saving
everything awaits arrival of our billowed selves.
1. Trinity Rails
Through here, and make sure to turn up these stairs,
then it’s straight across, then down, and exit. Don’t deviate.
You’ll hear the doors swing open and close behind you.
And before you. Others are present, you won’t see them.
They know your route better than you do.
Go no further than the second light down the tracks.
We’re contracted to the fifth, but if you go there
we won’t see you again. No blade, no 4-cell,
and in the morning, move with a quickness–
the diesel crew coming in always wants to fight.
2. Christian Goodfellow
wasn’t his name. True name, had he one, is lost. Adopted
from a service, native from Oklahoma, a couple from Portland,
Oregon, raised him. Grew big, mean, lowering his head, barreling.
Put a fist to the locker door, took what he wanted. Eyes solid pupils
the night he wouldn’t stop staring at me. Busted my lip, gave me black eyes.
Not sure how Horace came to be his close friend. He’s changed, Horace said.
I didn’t believe it. On a broad walk, bright fall day on campus,
we chanced to meet. Shook my hand, hard: I wanted to tell you I’m sorry,
I was messed-up then. Obit didn’t say how; ask Horace had he not gone first.
Doesn’t matter. Talking’s made it worse, bless it. Let go, if you must.
3. Leapt
to the midstream boulder, buggy-whip pole a wand
in hand without necessary magic; an interior sound
has filled his head, a tinny ring compels him stand
still and watch. Thick leaves where the gravel ends
begin to shake, steps out a pack of wild dogs led
by a white Alsatian. The abandoned and escaped
pad by, sad glances of fear, longing, disinterested disdain.
The clear tone has gone. Bright eyes of soundless progression.
Among the burble of river a stoneroller plops, bird chides,
rumbling car revs in the distance. A time to wait, he considers.
4. The Premier
Dark and past the previews,
show’s already started
and you are making your way down
to the only seat left.
Wedge your jacket in beside you,
rearrange it for a back brace
to assume a sprawl
to see the spectacle. Neck doesn’t bend
well that way. Better to be on the sticky floor,
but, ah, appearances.
5. Stock Characters
Too lanky. Not wealthy. Not material.
Lacks pedigree. Wrong side of town.
Inadmissible faith. Have to say no,
with good reason– a bird told me so.
She nodded, saying in her head:
His hands are strong,
know how to pull my hair,
on a levee in moonlight.
We’re running away
and we’re never coming back.
*Jenner Shaffer is on hiatus from his editorial position with Gleam: Journal of the Cadralor. This and future issues of Gleam may feature the work of Gleam editors on hiatus.
1. Olbia Dolphin in Galatia
Several stories yanked in a freak to unfilter
perception: thugnation. Worse than we thought. Tarnation.
Missives of the self dared not to send,
made brave to have suspicious servers call them
undeliverable, disallow petition. Gratuity applied.
We can call it. Has Emerson paid your due?
See the flicker glitch the other way. When the power
fails a major town, the confab in idyll walls present
barbarian. At checkout, promote the mite. Outside is
one whose mother saves. Pirate purpose to the horde.
2. Crown Shyness
Lament of the dryads. Pantheons ascribed among living souls,
not the minor gods reckoning themselves unanswerable.
Belfry of the ruinous toll. Going to erase the debt, and the date.
Left tenant. The grove orphaned attendant creatures, threads of roots
expose, arbitration of lichens draws farewell, to the walker of woods
the plaintive thrush says: Go.
The ruin is left a ruin and the creatures breathe a sigh of relief,
lavender is pleased, toads pat each other on the back,
lizards lick their lips, snakes rub bellies for joy.
The giants have been repelled! In one version of the story.
3. Year of Five Emperors
The worth receding, slunk to half-past November,
warm as a midsummer’s eve and the neighbor’s light
glares from once the eagle family’s favored perch.
The dead tree was bulldozed and burnt. Splashed diode
white against the leaves. Tomorrow’s colors hold
beyond the epoch. Arid as a bonehouse
in the depth of mid-winter. Arachne, until
the pot is black. Wear the red flag countdown, own it.
Water left on to boil, walk away from it, no alarm.
Last drops dance. House afire, envenomed talon.
4. Shadrach Buried His Cash in the Backyard
after the panic of the gas shortage. A man of cloth,
to see! Short few years in to check, the ammo box
let damps, let seep. He was embarrassed, asked around,
enough the word got out. Took the ruined bills,
red-faced, and exchanged for silver dollars.
Horace, son of Shadrach, one to act, found the stash
in the attic corner, delivered it to party on. Mouse years.
Trippingly sure on the day, with his pops hot and smart
in his face, Horace said: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures . . .”
5. Sea-Legs
Sink deep. The famished snow crabs fell apart
on her shelf. Stars melt in her Arch. Window
of a dripping nymph. Goat’s Rock tiburon
angel has turned over an age. Swimmers
of skies. Bull-ram, fish-bowl of water-love–
hear waves that hove stone open. I went too
doubtful asleep one night. The Pleione
daughters in unison: Don’t you worry.
I wondered had I failed them. They said:
You could never. Keep doing what you’re doing.
*Jenner Shaffer is on hiatus from his editorial position with Gleam: Journal of the Cadralor. This and future issues of Gleam may feature the work of Gleam editors on hiatus.
1.
Parchment does not disintegrate like paper;
the lapis blue still bold, the gilding still glints. Here the scribe paused,
leaving a small blot, but it’s the paw prints that catch the eye–
as once a cat walked across the page
and left a trail for the future.
2.
There is a mother, a baby at her breast
the scent and sound of each locked within their cells.
They are binary stars in orbit, two points of revolving light
glowing in the center of a milky spiral,
unaware of suns, moons, or time.
3.
A woman with a haunted look
emerges from an alley, red bricks slick in the rain,
walks past a mural of golden flowers and perpetual sunshine
where she disappears into the murky shadows. Years later,
her face stares at me from a crowd on another painted wall. Still haunted.
4.
In the desert, she dreams of broad, blue rivers,
of velvet grass, emerald forests of ancient oaks,
of the sea whispering her name in the dark, pulsing waves pulling–
but when she sleeps among tropical blooms, she aches
for red rocks flaming in the sun, sharp stars that scissor the sky.
5.
This is what she wants to tell him,
that blue light transcends black holes, the shimmer of
echoes only seem to end, and archived memories glimmer–
because even darkness can’t resist the lure of light like an outstretched hand
that beckons, bends, and twists into a glowing coronet.
1.
As Dorothy’s black-and-white Kansas gave way to
Technicolor Oz, grey potato eaters vanished in golden wheat fields,
mustard-yellow flowers, turmeric suns, and a palette
of sky-blues. Still, the peppery crows tossed out salty oaths.
Exclamations punctuating a story.
2.
Apollo is cloaked in verdigris, the green of Greece’s
blue-green variability created by chemical reaction
and perception, like the changeable color of the sea,
as if the sun god stepped behind a storm cloud,
as if emerald eyes no longer held sparkle or life.
3.
In November, squirrels scamper between shadow arms
and the bare root-feet of trees.
Beneath them seeds sleep—and dream
of spring’s sugared-lemon sun, confident of its return. Again,
again. It always returns.
4.
A flash of red on wings, the blackbirds chirp
gathered on branches at wetland marshes where three egrets,
like fates in white, feathered shawls soar. I smell
summer on the breeze–honeysuckle and lilac–and I long to gulp
the tangerine clouds drifting in the sky.
5.
When she closed her eyes that final time,
the human world was shuttered, but the Earth, mother to mother,
bloomed; pink and white blossoms opened, then fell,
softer and more fragrant than our tears. And we remembered,
love is a vine that keeps flowering.
1.
Ashdod welcomes us with fireworks in blue sky,
laser streaks of orange light, blooms of smoke,
sirens. I’m always on deck to watch our ship’s
comings and goings, but today, I can’t name what
I’m seeing: the ship, nosing to dock, and suddenly,
not. It pivots, hastens out to sea. My husband’s
in the shower. Tracers, I yell to him, reaching for
a TV term, the wrong one. These are rockets.
All day, sailing north, Israel’s coast is violet haze.
I can just make out the skyline as we sail past Tel Aviv.
2.
The train, a puzzle to us. We almost miss it, waiting
in the Portland station to be called. You offer me
the window; my claustrophobia always needs a view.
This pane unwashed, encrusted with salt, rain, dust;
its patina, a mirror. First, I’m blinded by glare, then
catch a glimpse of steeple, station, bog. Each bog,
a ghost-forest, trees salt-poisoned by the rising sea.
Inebriated Red Sox fans carom up and down the aisle
to the bar car. The train shudders to a stop an hour north
of Boston. “We’ve hit a deer!” one drunk hollers.
3.
In the mural, a figure who resembles Dad as he looked
in 1935, shirtless and skinny, belt cinched to hold up
cheap pants. Bent to the jackhammer, chiseling sandstone
where a dam will rise. He never worked for the WPA,
but he would have, given the chance. Why do I miss him
more than the others? Today’s autumn air is cool and still;
the summer sun stung, but now it’s lost its stinger. Did he
ever buy himself nice pants? He could have, later on.
His second wife, the elegant one from Pasadena: I bet
she made him buy nice pants, and a dinner jacket, too.
4.
I buy three-dollar eclipse glasses, red, white & blue,
with an eagle, serious, but not fierce. From the parking lot
of the Speedway Fuel and Convenience store in Gallup, NM,
I watch the moon slide into the center of the sun, and then,
snap: a perfect gold ring. You’ll have to take my word for it.
No camera, no tripod or solar filter, and my retinas, too delicate
to mess with sun in cellphone’s lens. The moon slides on.
I gaze through my safety glasses till my neck aches.
A few pickup trucks pull in for lotto tickets, 12-packs.
Most locals stay indoors, observing the death of the sun.
5.
A mockingbird is singing in the chimney,
its song, spring-crisp, yellow as the blooms on
the paloverde trees. Amplified, pouring
from the fireplace into the room where
I love you. In and out of this room we amble.
At times, all I hear is birdsong. Other times, none at all.
Was it you who showed me how to reach up the flue,
open the damper, admit more song?
Was it me who said, enough music
today: I want to hear you.
- Laughter, swirling—bright like
glitter catching light. My cousin’s
arms around me. An almost bitter
wind haloing stray hairs above my
head. Country-quiet, shushing all
around us as the winding driveway
empties. Reunion ends in long goodbyes
and dark dusk beneath the clouds. - Water, dripping—loud like shouting
into silence. Keeping my sister in
my sights as the daylight shrinks
to nothingness. Without electricity,
so far below the surface—imagine
the lights failing us. Imagine reaching
in the black. The air is still and cool
and constant. Steadier than my heart. - Hand, warming—held like the
cautious way you catch a firefly.
My occupational therapist applies
healing pressure. The coiled-up
tension in my finger begins to
ease. Pain begets salve begets
the tactile way another human’s
touch can soothe; can strengthen. - Embers, dying—glow like winking
stars lifetimes beyond me. I lean
close to the fire, my face softened
by the lingering of heat. I try to
keep the flame alive with just my
little breath. Embers chase their
way through a shifting maze of
wood and ash. Smoke remains. - Hair, cutting—the swish of
scissors excising years away.
Gentleness of water; the whispering
touch upon my head before it’s all
washed clean. Memories of my
mother’s hands. She eased my head
over the sink. Water ran. The way she
sheltered my eyes from the sting.
- The theater is holding its breath. Onstage, the band
is bathed in turquoise light, smoke drifting upwards
from the shadows. The man’s voice echoes like out
of a dream, and I remember tragedies and joys I’d
thought forgotten. Thought lost forever. I am alone
and not alone here. I am smiling old and crying young.
I feel the heavy melodies as they expand within the
ballroom. I close my eyes. Hear the banjo in the dark. - My car comes to rest in a muddy ditch in the October
rain. Even the whoosh of vehicles flying past on the
highway seems to have gone silent. I am alive but
I am cold. The wet seeps down to my skin as I wait
for help to arrive. My black boots squelch in the
tall, sodden grass. I lie to kindhearted strangers
asking if I’m okay. In the waiting car, the heat
is turned on high. But the cold doesn’t go away. - We call them whistling tunnels—metal passageways
through the dirt. Above them, cargo trains blast
by, drowning out the nearby stream; our footfalls
on the blacktop. We whistle and yell until our echoes
find us again. Until we’re out of that uneasiness of earth.
The wooden fence along the path is eclipsed in spring
flowers; in fallen leaves; in untouched drifts of snow.
At the tunnel’s end: a mirror. Twilight reflections of us. - Today we are making wreaths. My mother, my
sisters—we all shape our careful circles around
the soft exhales of our hearts. I wrestle the woody
vines into something unbending, unbroken; wrap
smooth ribbon and rough rope between glinting
glass and cracking seashells. I place plastic pearls
together; imagine the storm-strong sea that once
covered this land. Outside, the Kansas wind is waves. - I climb down a mountain, singing poems to the
evening. I follow my sister’s footprints home
again. I pray for safe returns and peaceful skies
and to hear the voices of the ones I love. The clear,
chilled water is on its way to wide-flung oceans, to
waves that crest like mountains in the night. My car
eases through the darkened canyons, the pulse of head-
lights in the mirrors. Blessings are closer than they appear.
1.
The kapok tree’s thick branches reach out and out — a city block
from its short pillar of trunk. My friend shimmied up,
lithe in bright skort. I’m almost 80 with hip replacement.
My rebuilt shoulder sports 12 titanium pins.
I’m glad to think I’m still able. Why didn’t I climb it?
2.
Warriors leap to immortal fame in the Iliad.
With Priam, I walk a cracking seawall
whose rusty iron protrudes from cement.
Through the V-shaped gap the bay shines.
Waves pry. Ends no longer align.
3.
The starfruit was yesterday’s takeaway. At the entrance
to the St. Pete Orchid Farm, a tree of overripe yellow fruit
greeted the throng. After milling about, a few bought
orchids. On leaving, they were invited to take all they wanted–
ladies jumping for bright, dangling stars.
4.
The fur of Alaskan Eskimos comes off in your hands.
You almost don’t need a brush. The hairs form snowdrifts
in your rugs, stray hairs float weightless up into your nose.
What possessed us to buy them? Black noses and eyes.
Today is their fourth birthday: elk horns and squeak toys.
5.
Help; I am out of time. The turn is over, your parking
space is overdue. His book is late to the library; her
fried eggs long since turned rubber. Daylight savings time
came too late. What to do, dear one? Our time
together so dear, so soon over.
1
At the mall, I slide a dollar bill into a massage chair and sit down. One dollar buys three minutes of nurture, view of the kiddie rides: merry-go-round, whale, and a lion; tables and chairs, a food court selling crunchy things, mostly tasting of salt.
2
The shower wand falls off the tile wall onto the floor, fire hydrant
of water shooting through the hole into the stall and I have soap
all over my body so I turn around and around in the stream to rinse off.
3
Half-moon visible this morning. Wedge of lemon. Last week, top
curve of a fingernail. Soon, a light bulb, orb, paper globe, illuminated
sugar cookie. Sister in the sky. Mood maker. Month marker.
4
Hello new neighbor, a young woman who says, “Right on,” wears fuzzy pink slippers, pushes her toddler in a plastic swing dangling from the branches of a tree. Green leaves, eyeball bark, seedpods. Little girl’s head topped with water-fountain ponytail.
5
A lovebird waits on a clothesline of electrical wire
strung between tall oily brown poles. She stares south,
perhaps waiting for her flock so they can fly together toward warmth.
1. Winter Berries
Winterberry shrubs—bright & luscious—
decorated an urban landscape lined
with sycamore trees, juniper bushes,
& holly clumps inviting hungry, snow
deprived creatures food & visitation.
2.Grateful
Hanging onto primordial spiritual vestiges
like wisteria grasping dense fog attempting
in a vain to establish a foothold amid bygone
ephemeral moments, I found harmony
in medicinal herbs, reflecting on past infirmities.
3.Simplicity
Coaxing rainclouds to christen its body, Cathy’s
green wheelbarrow begs for waterdrops to glaze
the pitted steel tray free of dirt & gravel where
neighborhood cats cradle dreams of white chickens
vistas painted with words like William Carlos Williams.
4.County Fair
Fungi in our refrigerator incubated in half eaten cups
of cottage cheese, tapioca pudding, fromage frais & yogurt
moved on to produce where it flourished amid rotten
radishes, slimy lettuce, and liquified red cabbage.
first place at the science fair never came to us so easy.
5.Perspective
In barren fields where tumbleweeds seldom grow,
purple fruit freezes into hard marbles during
dawn’s early hours, thaws into firm but supple
jewels offering nourishment & beauty, beheld
raising frosty eyelashes as they blink icy sleep.
1.
Lowther Castle
skeletal, among the autumn leaves
ablaze beneath the hill of Askham
shedding skins through centuries
2.
Buoyed by Storm Babet
the broken body of the whale
along coast at Whitley Bay
skies, gray as gunmetal
3.
Aerated concrete
school walls crumbling
like porous teeth shield
stomachs rumbling
4.
Sharp-suited fascists
roll in cash, and demonise the poor
dig down into the great divide
and buy their votes in beer
5.
It’s just another dreaming
at the end of the known world
outside, the winds are howling:
the die not cast, but hurled.
12
He pointed the revolver toward his abdomen and fired, a Western
take on hara-kiri. Resounding as a wave-crash while wheat rippled,
a lustrous gold and copper tide, backlit by the mid-afternoon sun.
This is what we were told about Van Gogh. Locals who knew him
held that a cowboy killed him in anything but a climactic shootout.
Teenager in a Stetson, packing a six-shooter which misfired when
he and his friends, weaving a little from drink, were walking home.
Van Gogh studied the boy’s shocked face, took the blame himself.
But the geometry of the fatal bullet’s path was too oblique to pass
as a straightforward lie—as if lies travelled straight toward a truth.
23
Wooly mammoths slog through thick sheets of snow on the wind.
Long brown hair stands out from white drifts, mirrors mountains
whose pines, like hair on a scalp, prevail with ice-blackened bark.
Mammoths stand chill much better than Asian elephant mothers,
through which they were cloned. Dark-olive tanks take the place
of Neanderthal hunters who slaughtered their ancestors in droves.
They don’t move, authorized to fire only if a mammoth goes rogue.
Long trunks pull black branches down to mouths. Grey ice clouds
explode from them. Wood fragments rain down like shattered glass,
spotting the snow beneath, and vibrate as the beasts, leaving, pass.
34
Black-and-white cinderblock walls. Red brick sign taunts, “Welcome.”
White wooden crosses in front of the sign, with flowers and pictures.
Texas walls. Halls where Whites banned Spanish from being spoken.
Walls where a brown flood poured when the school’s first Hispanic
and only bilingual teacher was fired. Classes which courts blended
white and brown. Classrooms crimsoned when a shooter gunned all,
teachers and students alike. Some walls torn down, others about to be.
Parents walk there nights. They wait for bulldozers to match ground
to hearts scraped bare. They claim what was robbed at Robb Elementary
drowns out the place’s history. It’s a coyote howl on a chill, cutting wind.
45
An axe. A high-powered hunting rifle with silencer. Wire cutters.
Sealed packets of dehydrated camp food—enough for several days—
neatly packed, amid scattered bits and pieces of three men. Leftovers
from a pack of lions which had skulked in and blended into bush grass,
tawny brown on straw brown, as if night’s blackness weren’t enough
to hide either them or the group of men sneaking in to poach rhinos.
Cut the barbed wire fence. Shoot to kill. Chop horns off heads. Leave.
Quiet as ghosts, without even the wind’s whisper. That was the plan.
Anti-poaching dog barking alarm to its handler. No clue to how many
lions feasted, how many men in the meal. The matter is under review.
56
Baby girl’s velvet-soft face looked vellum with its yellow undertone,
whites of her eyes more eggnog than eggshell. Jaundice, which would
fade with time and light—phototherapy. Both of these her parents
gave her at their home’s soft colors and patterns, not hospital’s white
walls, clear hard-polymer preferences. Outside, badges glinted gold,
handcuffs silver. Keys fished from the father’s pocket jangled as they
turned to open the front door. Wrong name for mother on warrant as
police took that black girl, birthed with a black midwife, away from
black parents. They didn’t count the black mothers in hospital morgues,
four black to one white and growing under sheets on sliding metal trays.
1Title taken from the poem “Affinity” by Diane LeBlanc, which appeared in Gleam, Issue Five (Fall/Winter 2022).
2Source: Author not given. “Van Gogh did not kill himself, authors claim.” BBC News, October 17. 2011. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-15328583 Accessed February 5, 2023.
3Source: Newcomb, Tim. “Scientists are reincarnating the wooly mammoth to return in 4 years.” Popular Mechanics, January 31, 2023. https://www.wlky.com/article/scientists-reincarnating-woolly-mammoth/42722067 Accessed February 4, 2023.
4Source: Holland, Kate, Hannah Prince, Ismael Estrada Maria Elena Salinas and Jenny Wagnon Courts. “Robb Elementary School to be demolished, Uvalde contends with conflicting emotions.” ABC News, February 3, 2023. https://abcnews.go.com/US/robb-elementary-school-demolished-uvalde-contends-conflicting-emotions/story?id=96857809&fbclid=IwAR2d2KhGkvHb9uIFoKnH87kp1acfvwzs6NSuny1LIcNDy5R-3aVW18U_Vv8 Accessed February 5, 2023.
5Source: Martinez, Gina. “A Pride of Lions Killed and Ate a Group of Rhino Poachers Who Broke into a Wildlife Reserve.” Time, July 5, 2018. https://time.com/5331205/rhino-poachers-killed-lions-south-africa/ Accessed February 10, 2023.
6Source: Cheung, Kylie. “Black Couple Says Texas Authorities Seized Their Newborn Because They Chose a Midwife Over A Hospital.” Jezebel,com, April 7, 2023. https://jezebel.com/black-couple-says-texas-authorities-seized-their-newbor-1850309498?link_id=17&can_id=954802bb7b8d157652aeb3d0025f3beb&source=email-tennessee-house-goes-full-fascist-with-purge-of-black-dems&email_referrer=email_1873189&email_subject=tennessee-house-goes-full-fascist-with-purge-of-black-dems&fbclid=IwAR3tQwWKiQLK9Lk_neHGvwNrEIUCLwkeelZrJVAzknFIevYyWRMrvlfeMYk Accessed April 16, 2023.
For You Knew You Would Have Something Better: Five Questions from Neruda1
By Jon Yungkans
BACK TO TOP >>
1
It is bad to live without a hell:
aren’t we able to reconstruct it?
Two owls perch atop adjacent wooden power poles in predawn blue-blackness. Grey and black plumage helps them blend into the weathered wood. Motionless, the birds could have been carved from it. They’d been hooting loud, back and forth, half an hour. Hear me outside, and they go mute as trees in a flat calm. I ask Google what portent owls bring with them. Google says it depends on what happens next, ill or good. Could go either way. Wait and see. A neighbor steeped in Mexican culture says owls are witches transformed into birds and I should have killed them.
2
perhaps the fish dressed
themselves in nuclear scales
Rounds whiz past shadowy mountain peaks—a nuclear power plant’s twin cooling towers. White streaks underline a black mood as tracers and artillery slice and burn. The late-night sky’s paper, with holes edged silver and gold, glowing. Flashes ricochet off dull steel scaffolds holding high-tension wires. One round strikes a transformer, Shrapnel sprays a reactor containment vessel. The transformer doesn’t explode, hissing and spitting, into phosphorescent streaks. The containment vessel doesn’t erupt into a mushroom cloud. Dawn, across a river, sunflowers undulate in waves. Leaves rustle in a breeze. Stalks rock as it passes. Nothing dares to break the peace.
3
Then it wasn’t true
that God lived on the moon?
Lunar craters gaze, eyelids filed away. We’re both captive audiences. Nothing better to do than for me and the moon to project where else we’d like to be. We wish good and ill upon each other’s stars, floating in our respective moods of India ink. There is much I wish the moon could do for me. Rob a bank. Wash the sea into my ears until what weighs me to the sea floor turns loose. Pour me a whiskey. Wash me back onto shore. Night sky’s velvet or smoke, stars gone elsewhere. Black ice crystals rasp, glass shavings and silver.
4
Do the o’s of the locomotives
cast smoke, fire and steam?
Summer thaws a derelict steam locomotive. Which is stronger—a forest whose trees band together or a boiler’s fortitude, firebox a void and having nothing to lose? Pine, spruce and fir surround it. Larch and cedar enter. Steel remains, rusting into the deep brown of cedar bark. Rail tracks remain resolved when a bridge tilts like a drunk, is condemned and remains, permanently shitfaced. Rails bend and buckle but do not break. They warm in sunlight, no knife-sharpening grind from passing trains. The locomotive remains enveloped in woody fragrance without breathing an inferno or suffering the thirst which accompanies steam.
5
What makes one smile
and the wind dance
and a touch last
and on what does your song subsist?
In a photo, the bride wears white, the groom the best suit he could find. They stand, facing each other, holding hands. Pieces of stucco and cement block litter the ground around them. Splintered wood. Broken chair. Disemboweled couch. Picture askew on a wall. Scene’s similar to other photos, taken in a different city, a couple of missile attacks away. High-school girls in brightly colored prom dresses, hair coiffed, flawless make-up. High-school boys in tuxedos. In a video, a woman sits at a dusty baby-grand piano and plays Chopin. The out-of-tune instrument sighs the melody the best it can.
1Title taken from Hebrews 10:34. The complete passage, in The New Living Version (Tyndale House, 2015), reads, “You suffered along with those who were thrown into jail, and when all you owned was taken from you, you accepted it with joy. You knew there were better things waiting for you that will last forever.” Questions in Stanzas One, Three and Four are from Parts XXIII, XVIII and LXVI of The Book of Questions (Copper Canyon, 2001). The question in Stanza Two is from the poem “Bomb (2),” in the collection World’s End (Copper Canyon, 2009), and in Stanza Five from the poem “The Fist and the Thorn” in the same collection. Both books are translated by William O’Daly.
1
Browning maple leaves pile along corridor sides, along which a doorway leads to a large, vacant room filled with gym equipment. Tendrils stretch down a wall of windows. They lengthen as I watch, while I climb on a stair stepper, going nowhere. Do I climb to escape my thoughts? Or because my thoughts are chasing me? Elongated, deep-green spearpoint leaves, ribbed with thin black lines. Purple, star-shaped buds appear at the ends of tendrils. They blossom. Drop through glass, onto carpet. Already limp, the flowers are fragile as snowflakes. Gifts to cheer me up? Something poisonous from inside my ears?
2
Between white powder-finish walls, conversations rattle plaster until the red bricks beneath vibrate in mortar. Given the chance, that masonry would probably hum. Upstairs, curtains hang with a negligée’s looseness. Polished mahogany bedposts capture what light filters through opaque fabric. Reservations lounge, waiting under bedsheets, lipstick-lipped and bedroom-eyed. How many are masks, other than all at one time or another? That’s the pot calling the kettle beige, but we can discuss it over coffee. Let’s rut around in a lie, first, just for old time’s sake. I don’t care which. Just make sure it feels good for everyone all around.
3
There’s only so much vacancy a person can take when he’s wheeled into a crowded room, locked inside a glass ideology like Houdini’s water-torture chamber. Suspended upside-down, feet in thick wooden stocks. Glass tank filled with water. The band strikes up a tune. While the audience dances around the booth, two ushers place a full-length mirror to face the tank so I can watch my lack of progress in complete isolation. It’s like the poem about Buffalo Bill. He shot and broke all those clay pigeons, just like that, then left like a good blue-eyed boy with Mister Death2.
4
Half a blue supermoon onward in night’s muggy air while hell freezes over. Cement-block walls. Painted Swiss coffee to hide red, green, black streaks that scream, given their birthing pangs as graffiti. Mugging stories we don’t want to talk about. Concrete poured to set rebar, bar moisture to start rust. It’s only a matter of time. Umber granules—oxidized metal—accumulate in the bottom of an hourglass. Umber or umbrage? The anger in shadows cast by trees? Or simply what’s behind a façade, corroding as the aggregate surrounding it breaks down? Eyes follow traces of names, words through weathering paint.
5
I dwell in too many rooms, all at once. Wishing for a place like home that is also an escape. Bed made. Clean sheets. Ocean view into which to drift after a long walk on sand, thinking something cool and aquamarine would crash any moment. A room of yellow roses, butter-yellow wallpaper. Walls of a noun which once meant error, heresy, madness, into which I was born. As if dwell could be dwale— nightshade in the guise of fresh black coffee. And I will dwell in the lobby of the Lord forever, watching angels pass. To sleep. Perchance to dream
1Title taken from the poem “Frogs and Gospels” by John Ashbery, in the collection Your Name Here.
2E.E. Cummings, “Buffalo Bill’s” from Tulips & Chimneys.
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About Us
Gleam is a journal wholly devoted to the new poetic form, the cadralor, created by Gleam’s founding co-editors, Lori Howe and Christopher Cadra. The cadralor consists of five short, unrelated, highly-visual stanzas.
Get In Touch
If you are interested in submitting your own cadralor poem or if you have questions, you can reach out to our Gleam email. We look forward to hearing from you!
Meet the Editors
The cadralor was co-created by:
• Lori Howe, Editor in Chief
• Christopher Cadra, Senior Editor
Gleam: Journal of the Cadralor 