Camroc Press Review

Ross Eldridge

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:33:00 +0000

—Photo of Wancourt British Cemetery, France, by Ross Eldridge, 2008

The War to End All Wars

My little dugout, my home these last two or three days: I am in a narrow trench about four feet deep, and my dugout is a hole scooped out of the trench side and roofed over with a piece of corrugated iron. When, at night, we settle to rest, and hang up oilsheets at the openings, and light our candle, we are quite comfortable, and happy. —Lance-Corporal Frank Earley, 1 September 1918.

Earley was killed the next day, aged 19.

I didn't learn of the death of Lance-Corporal Earley on the Western Front until I read the Imperial War Museum publication, 1918 - Year of Victory, by Malcolm Brown. I was looking for information on my grandfather's older brother, James Arthur Lancaster, killed the same day fighting alongside the Canadians on an offshoot of the Hindenburg Line.

There are only five sentences in the book about that battle. I don't know how long it lasted or how many men died. Were there any trees left near Arras by 1918? Was it raining? Had the Tommies had time for breakfast? Were prayers held? Did anyone sing God Save the King? Did anyone try and run away?

Did my mother's uncle die immediately? Was he bagged or boxed? Was he missed? He was 24 when he died fighting for his country; since he'd volunteered in 1915, I imagine he did care about his country.

I've never seen a photograph of James Arthur as an adult, but there's one taken in about 1905, picturing him, then eleven, his sister Maud, about nine, and my grandfather, William Lancaster, four or five. The boys looked much alike, their hair freshly cut, dressed in identical fine suits that may have been hired for the occasion. The boys looked a bit flash, but Maud was dressed in many layers of unattractive cloth, set off by drooping ringlets. That sort of plain takes some work.

I have a number of James Arthur's military records now. He was sent to France in October 1917. One of the last papers says he was In the Field. And on 23 September 1918, someone wrote Killed in Action and stamped and signed the page.

My great-grandparents received word of their son's death at home in Harle Syke. Who answered the door? It was just a few weeks before the war ended.

Another document, dated 4 May 1919, has my great-grandfather signing for medals awarded to his dead son: The War and Victory Medals. I have no idea where they might have gone.

The exact whereabouts of James Arthur Lancaster's grave was not known in my family until five years ago when the Commonwealth War Graves Commission advised he was buried in Wancourt British Cemetery in Northern France, not far from where he died. His name is on two memorials in Harle Syke, one by the town's bowling green. I wonder if he bowled.

On 11 November 2008, we commemorated the 90th Anniversary of the Armistice that ended the War to End All Wars. Two Royal Marines were killed in Afghanistan that day, squabbling with Afghans over some dusty real estate they want for themselves and we wouldn't know what to do with if we could take it from them successfully.

Many more have died since. So it goes.

CP

Ross Eldridge lives in a tiny North Sea town on the coast of England near the Scottish border. He reads a good deal, has a go at photography, and researches family history. Ross has written a weekly newspaper column, but is now content to blog. His blog is called Barking Mad in Amble by the Sea, and it is dedicated primarily to his little dog, Cailean.

Mark Jackley

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:13:00 +0000

Appalachian Night

Enfolded by pure darkness
a train slips through the hills,
past the occasional litter of homes
leaking yellow light.

In a kitchen window
the silhouette of an enormous man who thinks,
gazing at the train,
he could love anyone on board.

—From There Will Be Silence While You Wait

CP

Mark Jackley is the author of three chapbooks, most recently Cracks and Slats (Amsterdam Press). His first full-length collection, There Will Be Silence While You Wait, is available from Plain View Press. He lives in Sterling, VA.

Nora Nadjarian

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:51:00 +0000

The Face of the Moon, And Another Story

We sat and looked at the moon, the way its face changed, and the way it didn’t. Of course, I said, it’s not the moon that changes, it’s us. We change by the minute, we grow older, and we see things differently. For example, I never noticed that the moon had eyelashes, not until tonight. You said you couldn’t really see that, not at all. You preferred the fact that the word “lunatic” sounded like an attic on the moon, and that it must be the only empty attic in the universe.

We talked for a long time. I said “awesome” several times and pretended I was cool, and American. But of course I am not, never was, can’t be, not even in my dreams. I’m no more cool and American than the moon has eyelashes. And yet, I can pretend. We can pretend to be at the edge of the world, as if we were the first people to discover America. We can pretend that maybe one day some old couple will find their old photos in an attic, and one of them will be a black and white photograph of the moon. We can enjoy all this pretense, drink red wine, get drunk on suppositions.

I must admit the moon looks very full tonight. Even you look–how can I put it–different in this light. That’s the other story: that I made all this up one night while you were asleep. The window was open, your face was bathed in moonlight. I wanted so much to be a part of your dream that I almost woke you.

CP

Nora Nadjarian is a poet and writer from the island of Cyprus. Her work has appeared in various publications throughout the world, most recently in Staccato Fiction.

DsD

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:40:00 +0000

On the Phone After Work

Don't sigh at me like that!
I deserve a beer.

Of course he does.
We have beer
at home, though.

My sigh wanted
to encompass
declined credit card,
potty training, & the fact:

I deserve to be held.

CP

DsD lives and writes in the raw. Trapped in a cave, she tends her cubs by day and licks her wounds at night.

Peggy McFarland

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:16:00 +0000

Left Out in the Cold

Too loud. Mom had kicked them out of the trailer for the afternoon. Daddy needed his sleep. She locked the door; he could not be disturbed. The teary-eyed sisters shivered as they sat on the wrought iron step, bored. Both wished their father worked days.

The frozen dirt driveway held nothing of interest for the three and four year old sisters. A sagging chicken wire fence bordered the back of their tiny lot, a visual divider at best between the trailer park and a forest of scrub pine. The girls gazed at the forbidden woods but did not want to chance their mother's anger. She had warned, "Stay close."

Bonnie's red tights and plaid skirt did not keep her warm from November's biting wind. The cold nipped her exposed skin—last year’s winter coat did not reach the waistband of her skirt. Karen’s coat was also too short but denim overalls protected her skin. Bonnie hugged her shins and rested her chin in the dip between her knees.

With a sidelong look, Bonnie watched her younger sister wipe her nose with the back of her mitten. Green snot stuck to the blue yarn. Karen tried to shake off the glob. She snapped her hand and then stopped to inspect. Still stuck. She flung her hand sideways. Bonnie shrieked. The offending mitten brushed against her skirt! Eyes gleaming, Karen jumped to play a new game: chase big sis and rub snots on her. Karen could play a long time; her nose oozed plenty of ammunition.

Bonnie ran to the fence. Another shriek pierced the quiet afternoon as Karen aimed another strike. The older girl ripped her tights on a jagged tine of chicken wire. Karen squealed but stopped before the fence. Fairy tales warned that woods were dangerous. And so did mom's hand.

Quick to spot weakness, Bonnie taunted her younger sister: baby, baby. Karen clambered over the fence.

***

Anna heard their muffled shrieks. If he didn’t yell, she could ignore the girls. Heartless maybe, but he'd hit her if they woke him.

She should be outside, with them, playing, laughing…. Anna allowed her defensive voice to beat down her guilt. The girls had to learn to take care of themselves and not depend on others and that life wasn't fair.

But, they looked so vulnerable. Anna reminded herself, they knew to stay-in-the-yard. Her right palm tingled, memory residue from the time she swatted (thrashed oh god she gave what she got oh god please forgive her) their backsides.

Tired. So tired. Of him, of the guilt, of the responsibility, of this shitty white-trash life. She needed sleep. Not now, with a basket full of his wrinkled shirts and the threat of a shiner.

With the television volume on low, she escaped to the glamorous world of her soap and allowed the monotony of ironing numb her.

***

The setting sun spotlighted red threads against the wire. Dried blood blended into a rust spot. Dead pine needles cushioned a tiny pink sneaker, its frayed shoelace loose in the bitter wind. The approaching sirens did not drown out the papery rustle of dried leaves, or the crow's abrasive caw, or her husband's ranting blame, or her own crushing conscience.

CP

Peggy McFarland writes one nanofiction story daily at twitter. Follow her at twitter.com/peggywriter, and soon you may read her blogs at http://www.pegjet.blogspot.com/

Suzy Devere

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:30:00 +0000

TIPTOE BABY

tiptoe
tiptoe baby

be loud
about me

but
quiet
about leaving

**
whistle
whistle sweetheart

then hold your
breath a little longer

don't
waste it
on reasons why

**

tap dance darling

stick to that
sweet
soft shoe

and i say

halleluja
for the
short goodbye

**

it's a slow
dark night

and you may
never
be missed

CP

Suzy Devere is a prostitute, a drug addict, a Dr.'s wife, a Lawyer's wife, a mistress to a famous Saudi Sheik, a mother, an intellectual, an academic, an athlete, a painter, a drawer, a photographer, and writer who feels utterly, stunningly alone. Her work has appeared in various sites on-line including Black-Listed and 3:00 AM. Suzy has lived all over the world but right now lives next door to you.

Rebecca Raskin

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:51:00 +0000

So What: A Love Poem

You came carrying
anachronistic bundles,

heirloom lettuce, soft cheeses,
crumbling rinds like ancient plaster,
and bricks of homemade bread.

You let us speak of density,
of a past we always live,
of a marriage long over, yes,
and getting better.

You tenderized frozen chicken
until it glistened.
How did you dislodge that pepper from the broken mill?
You let it all sit. So what.

I sliced the avocado.

Did I dream you standing beside me with your hand on my hand
just the slightest pressure—your wrist on top of mine—
a single plane,
helping me guide the knife
through the sweet green flesh?

CP

Rebecca Raskin is an attorney who is taking some time off to explore her passions, which include musical theater, poetry, and people. She lives in Burlington, Vermont, with her husband and two little girls.

Gary Presley

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:09:00 +0000

I Could See My Blood

Beth wore blue jeans and a pale pink bra when she slapped me. And the rest was familiar too. Our bedroom, hardwood floors, the desk and the lamp, and our wedding picture above the bed. Beth's black hair, ice pale eyes afire, the weight of her breasts, and the slope of her belly, and the cradle of her hips.

I even remember the low, hard description of Jill, her sister, and our dance at last year's family reunion. But I don't remember what I said, or didn't say.

A quick hard flick. Her hand hit my nose. My eyes pinched shut with pain. And back across. Her wedding ring cut a furrow above my eyebrow.

Then bright blood streaming down my hand and onto my wrist as I wiped my forehead, salty bright blood when I licked it from my fingers. And my hand raised, cocked, ready to swing. But then Beth suddenly sat on the bed, looked at me, and smiled, lips together.

"Do it," she said. "Mark me."

I banged out the bedroom door, across the hall, and down the stairs.

"Daddy," Katie yelled, coming in from the garage. "Two tents or one?"

"Geez, Katie, both. Four people, right?"

I cranked open the tap over the kitchen sink.

"I didn't know if Aunt Jill..." Her voice trailed off when she saw the blood."What happened?"

"Nothing. Bumped my head." I dipped my face and watched blood mix with water and swirl down the drain like some obscene confection. "Get some ice cubes and a paper towel. Then go load the tents."

I splashed bleach in the sink.

"I don't..."

"Go ahead, Katie. It's okay. I took a breath and let it out slowly, exhaling until the room began to shift. I pulled her to me. "And take the stuff in the fridge, too, baby." I kissed the top of her head.

Katie mumbled, moved, and I took another breath and started up the stairs, first one by one, and then by twos.

Then I was in the bedroom, and the door was closed, and my hands behind me gripped the knob and held steady against all I might have carried in with me. Beth sat where I left her, on the bed, on my side, in blue jeans and pale pink bra still. She didn't move, not even when the door clicked shut.

Silence. I willed her to look at me. Nothing. I drew in her woman scent, the flavor of my sheets and pillow cases, of my skin in the middle of the night, of my memories midday.

Silence. I moved, pushed her knees apart, and knelt. I lifted her chin, my hand on her throat, and felt heart beat, its rhythm slow, steady, undefeated.

She leaned into me, sealed my mouth with her fingers, and pressed her lips to the cut along my brow. I ran one hand up her ribs to cradle her breast and slipped the other into her hair. No words. Nothing but her lips and my hands.

Finally, she pulled back. "Not you," she said. "you're mine. She can take, take, take, but she'll never take you."

And I could see my blood on her lips.

CP

Gary Presley is an essayist whose memoir, SEVEN WHEELCHAIRS: A Life beyond Polio, was published October 2008 by the University of Iowa Press. Find links to his other work at http://www.garypresley.com

Ivan Jenson

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:50:00 +0000

Drifter

because of something
someone said
you are gun-shy
at sundown

because of something
that someone did
you are no longer
trigger happy

because of
something
that happened
once
upon a time
in your west

like Clint Eastwood
you squint
your eyes
at the bright
glare of love

CP

Ivan Jenson has published widely in the the US and the UK and received recognition for his bold Pop Art. His Absolut Jenson painting was featured in Art News, Art in America, and he has sold several works at Christie's, New York. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Word Riot, Zygote in my Coffee, Poetry Super Highway, Hidden City Quarterly, and many others. He now writes novels and poetry in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Diana Rosen

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:08:00 +0000

Gossamer Memory

Abandoning my storybook
tall, dark and handsome date,
I slink into the host's California blue pool,
get nudged into conversation

as if in mid-sentence
with a lame-legged nearly faceless man

whose every word
reveals
attaches
pulls
words that even now

haunt,

echo,

chime:

almost.

CP

Diana Rosen's work has appeared in the anthologies Kiss Me Goodnight, Those Who Can...Teach, and Bold Ink plus the journals Lucidity, convolvulus, and RATTLE, among others.

C.P. Stewart

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:34:00 +0000

The Road

Down an avenue of limes
into the setting sun,

one warm October evening.
Above, the rooks returning,

and the lights coming on
in the red-brick Georgian houses.

Two hundred yards, or so,
until the road bent left.

I shall not forget the way you went.

—From Taking it In

CP

C.P. Stewart lives with his family in North Yorkshire. Formerly singer and songwriter with the cult band Laughing Gravy, his poetry has been widely published in England, Canada and the United States. He is currently the poetry editor of Sotto Voce. Koo Poetry Press will be publishing a chapbook of his poems Taking it In on November 1, 2009.

Carolyn Srygley-Moore

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:23:00 +0000

Bright Green Thriftshop Shoes

What does he do
when I speak of the darkness that ate me inside-out
the darkness that ate me alive?
He watches me fold back into the blank
like a purple iris
the integer of nonbeing where I turn toward the homeless
woman dancing on the corners
where First meets Maple
dancing in her bright green thriftshop shoes.
As a small girl she says
long ago

CP

Carolyn Srygley-Moore lives in Upstate New York with her husband and daughter. Her work has appeared widely in journals to include Antioch, Mimesis, The Pennsylvania Review, and the antiwar anthology Cost of Freedom. She is a Pushcart nominee and her digital chapbook Enough Light on the Dogwood is available here.

xTx

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 05:01:00 +0000

Underwear

I have underwear
I want to show you.
They're only good
when I bend down
and lean forward a little
to go through the back
part of the filing cabinet.

They're only strings in the back
and they are black.

The front—a lonely triangle.

CP

xTx is multifaceted. Some facets reflect light, others are dark. More from her is here.

David LaBounty

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:43:00 +0000

April 27th, stopped at a light

a suburban junction
without a crosswalk, he

has empty hands, a

shirt and tie,
creased slacks
and wingtips
scuffed but new, he

looks both ways,
crosses the street, his

thin body leaning
into the wind that
blows the part in his

grey & thinning hair, his

gait is hurried,
awkward,
his right foot
at a 30 degree angle, and

I can tell by the walk
&
by the way the wind
throws his tie over his
shoulder that

there isn’t a lot
of money
in
whatever it is
he’s doing.

CP

David LaBounty lives in Michigan. His work has appeared in Night Train, Boston Literary Magazine, Word Riot, the New Plains Review, and others. His third novel, Affluenza, has just been released.

Nana Ollerenshaw

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:45:00 +0000

—Photo by Philippe Noret

VA 777 – 300

Sleek
a mammoth dorsal fin,
laterals wing back to lift
a fuselage that narrows to a cone,
tiny unkind eyes and pointed nose
sharp enough to split and ease
the space it lives in
when it isn’t beached at gate
empty of its people,
still with the stillness
of having run the distance.
But its soul—a maw louder
than all lions with one throat,
cavernous with awful atom-splitting power,
sweeps freight past continents and seas,
indifferently.
If metal has a soul
it would be a soul to match
the menacing of cloud outside the porthole
the broad unearthly scape
of emptiness
beyond the thin divide.

CP

Nana Ollerenshaw grew up in Connecticut, married an Australian, and moved to Australia in 1965. She changed from school teaching to nursing in 1988, and currently lives in Buderim on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland.

Suzy Devere

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:39:00 +0000

DARE TO DREAM

i hear him again and he's gone
again

i thought i'd left all this behind
and goddamnit if it isn't just right here
waiting for me

waiting to greet me
at the threshold of this
front-fucking-door

misery really is a constant lover

another reason
to hate it so much

CP

Suzy Devere is a prostitute, a drug addict, a Dr.'s wife, a Lawyer's wife, a mistress to a famous Saudi Sheik, a mother, an intellectual, an academic, an athlete, a painter, a drawer, a photographer, and writer who feels utterly, stunningly alone. Her work has appeared in various sites on-line including Black-Listed and 3:00 AM. Suzy has lived all over the world but right now lives next door to you.

Seth Jani

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:56:00 +0000

A Poem about Wind

I believe in the metaphor of wind,
The thought that we are circling through
Our lives
With the same quiet passion
That blows newsprint through the night,
With the same subtle violence
That makes the thrashing of the trees
A kind of music.

I imagine what peculiar lightness comes
After traveling for centuries across the sea,
Having picked clean the bones of mammoths,
Snuffed the first, feeble flames,
Seen generations
With all their precious battles
Reduced to rumor.

I dream of how I want my heart to be
Like those solar gusts
Shooting off the sun.
Unsettling satellites.
Lighting the wake of comets.
Dancing across the distant north
As though it were a burning breath
From the bellows of the universe.

CP

Seth Jani is founder and editor-in-chief of Seven Circle Press and EarthSpeak Magazine. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Holly Rose Review, Heroin Love Songs, and Shoots And Vines.

Gwendolyn Joyce Mintz

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:07:00 +0000

Weathering

He didn’t know any better so he wore it and just as proud as
anybody, that garbage bag his mama borrowed from a neighbor,
waking up to find it raining and him without a raincoat and it
would always be so because there was always something else
needed and anyway he’d die in his eighth year because not only
didn’t he own a raincoat, he didn’t own a jacket and certainly not
one that was bulletproof—but that day he didn’t care; he was
happy to be dry like everyone else.

—First appeared in Puerto del Sol, 1991

CP

Gwendolyn Joyce Mintz is a fiction writer and poet. In other incarnations, she is a teddy bear artist, a comedienne and somebody's mother.

Ivan Jenson

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:15:00 +0000

This is for you

this is
for the afternoons
you went
out of your way
and those
nick
of time loans
that
rescued me
from eviction
and this is
for picking up
the phone
past midnight
and for the
long rides
to destinations
that were
so very important
at the time
and after
all the
dues we paid
together
this is
still true:

I need
help

CP

Ivan Jenson has published widely in the the US and the UK and received recognition for his bold Pop Art. His Absolut Jenson painting was featured in Art News, Art in America, and he has sold several works at Christie's, New York. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Word Riot, Zygote in my Coffee, Poetry Super Highway, Hidden City Quarterly, and many others. He now writes novels and poetry in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Kevin Brown

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:13:00 +0000

Scarred

The note is from before there was email. Back during high bangs and power ballads. She found it in a shoebox of her old things. It was the only note he ever wrote her. Yellowing and worn along the folds, she spreads it flat, running her finger over the words scribbled in pencil.

It says: I’m sorry, I can’t do this.

I should’ve told you earlier.

It’s the timing’s all. We’ve got our whole lives ahead of us.

At the doctor’s office years ago, she’d found the note in her purse. And that far along, she had to choose.

She chose him.

There’s a guy who can help us.

We’ll do this together.

She stands, strips off each layer of her clothes, and looks at herself in the full-length mirror. Grabs the skin over her hips, turns sideways. She raises her bangs and lets go, and they drop back across her forehead. Touching her cheek, she hums “Heaven” by Warrant, her eyes slicking over. Their song from a yellowed note away.

She palms her throat and swallows the way she did the second time he told her, “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.” The last time she saw him. A tear pearls at the bottom of her eye and slips down her face.

Still humming, she slides her hand over her heart, across the ridges of her chest. Runs her fingers between her breasts and along her ribcage. Traces the scar that runs down her stomach like a fossilized lizard tail, ending in a purple fleshy point. All the parts of her he just couldn’t do.

—First appeared in Conclave

CP

Kevin Brown has won several fiction competitions and been nominated for Best American Short Stories. His work has appeared in Rosebud, New Delta Review, Underground Voices, NANO Fiction, among others.

Diana Rosen

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:37:00 +0000

Anticipation

Only one remains of four
images, printed at a photo
booth where couples pull
the curtain: smooch, giggle,
make funny faces for the
next bright flash. These two,
so side-by-side they’re one,
beam smiles, eyes of
glorious expectation
right through the lens.
Yes, she said. Yes.
But, this was way before.
Way before.

CP

Diana Rosen's work has appeared in the anthologies Kiss Me Goodnight, Those Who Can...Teach, and Bold Ink plus the journals Lucidity, convolvulus and RATTLE, among others.

Diane Boisvert

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:55:00 +0000

Twenty-five Pictures

Just twenty-five pictures
on this wall.
Extracting glimmer from the past.

A twinkle that expands
beyond the vast background
into the universe of emotion.

A gold bracelet stands out
with the smiles.

Unified children. Separate
but not equal to the older ones.

Tastefully collaged.

Images that reality has abandoned.

Memories that belong to someone.
More pictures are somewhere.
With other memories.

Births and funerals—weddings and joy.
Turmoil that spoils it all.

Perfect matches.
Not so perfect retractions of covenant
interactions.

Fantasy would work just as well.
The equation has no mathematical
formula. Chance and disasters are
part of the scene.

CP

Diane Boisvert lives in Malta, New York. Her work has appeared in Flask and Pen and Psychopoetica.

Carolyn Srygley-Moore

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:32:00 +0000

Commence with a Flower

Commence with a flower, imperfect, red
or the motion of mountains
by virtue of lightplay, shadow, the snow falling
or the grasses, river grasses, dying
as the boat forces its wake:

or his eyeglasses, balanced on the bedside table
with a bent arm
(I watch his eyes change behind them, all day long
a blink, a wink
held in the hot crease of my hand
as if clearing the old leaf-stains
making room).

All of it, as the oak resists the wind
& flails, against the wind
against strangers come with hammers inverted
to take the treehouse down, nail by nail...
voluptuous branches, memories
unripe pears, global, erotica:

& beside the shed, an upturned wheelbarrow, blue
an unused shed, dirty walls of vinyl, blue again
(the voluptuous memory of you
who do not remember
the space between heartbeats
wherein our lovemaking occurred)

& one must end in the blaze of the flower, scarlet
petals torn / whipping the wind.

CP

Carolyn Srygley-Moore lives in Upstate New York with her husband and daughter. Her work has appeared widely in journals to include Antioch, Mimesis, The Pennsylvania Review, and the antiwar anthology, Cost of Freedom. She is a Pushcart nominee and her digital chapbook, Enough Light on the Dogwood, is available here.

S.C. Morgan

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:42:00 +0000

Guaro

Her face is as hard and
drawn as desiccated beef liver.
Chopstick thin legs wobble
under a swollen belly.
Her companion,
with his wild blond Rasta braids askew,
gesticulates at druggies in the street,
proffering a quarter bottle of cheap guaro rum
for another fiesta:
tourists from Hell,
come to visit this tropical paradise.
Crossing the street, she staggers,
catching her balance
on wonky platform espadrilles,
and then drops
her dirty yellow Capri pants to her knees,
urinating for all the world to see.

Oh, señora, do you have parents?
And how do they reconcile
the child they knew with this lost life?

CP

S.C. Morgan lives on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. An American expatriate, her writing has appeared in Escape From America, Real Travel Adventures, and Notre Dame Magazine. She writes about nature and human nature—anything that is interesting.

W. J. Prescott

noreply@blogger.com (Camroc Press Review) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:43:00 +0000

You Hear It

The rumbling of artillery fire passing overhead, the sharp crack of a small-caliber projectile just missing you, the trembling roar of the exploding shell, the scream of agony, the filthy joke, the ugly language, the laugh of amusement, the hysterical laugh, the frightened laugh, the reassuring laugh; someone whistling, singing, whispering, yelling, and the slur of a drunk.

You hear the clatter of the tank, the whine of the shell, the cough of the mortar, the hiss of the flame thrower, the burp of the machine gun, the tinkling of glass and the silence, the loudness of the silence.

Shots in the distance, shots nearby, orders being shouted; complaining, excited voices, soothing voices, calm voices, and incoherent voices. You will hear the screech of an airplane, the throbbing of its guns, the impact of its droppings, the indescribable sound of a plane "going in," and again the silence.

An explosion followed by the tumbling debris of a building, the wail of a child, or of a hysterical woman, of an old man, of a frightened animal, and you will hear yourself curse, pray, then curse again.

You will hear the sucking wound you can't stop, names at mail call and the boasting about the letter they have just received; false fronts of indifference regarding a Dear John, yells of pride, curses of hate and words of hurt; talk of women, of the Old Man, of the Lieutenant, the Sergeant, of the man who didn't make it through yesterday, of his effects and what they found, of the censoring officer who mixed up some letters; of going home, being cold, hot, wet, hungry, thirsty and tired.

You hear boots sloshing in the mud, boots dragged along in the dust; moaning in the aid station, the quiet orders of the doctor, the urgent yell for "Doc!" and the radio operator desperately attempting to establish contact; noise so loud it hurts your teeth, silence so loud it hurts your ears; a bird singing, a cricket chirping, a dog barking, a vehicle roaring into life; the patter of rain, the sinking of a tent peg, a portable radio broadcasting the news, an ex-radio man interpreting the static as short-wave letters, sounds that are not there, and be prepared to hear this every minute for years, then brush it aside as though it just simply didn't exist.

—From "Combat: It Insults the Senses" in Army Magazine, December 1965

CP

Lt. Col. W.J. Prescott, an Army combat veteran and instructor, wrote of war's assault on the senses after being asked countless times by inexperienced young officers, "Help me prepare for war."