December 5, 2023

“Happy Birthday to Us,” Poetry by Bruce McRae

“Happy Birthday to Us,” Poetry by Bruce McRae

Happy Birthday To Us I arrived mid-century. A flaw in the seamed dimensions. A stone dropped down a cistern. Already ancient, wonderstruck, fire in my gills and hair, life-naked. I was born all of a sudden. A shift in the given paradigm. A handheld globe of teeth and fur standing athwart of all of history. A faint itch, a rudimentary element, I appeared as if quite by accident. A figure blurred by the side of the road, an eleventh planet, a tiger’s teardrop, a snowman in the parson’s orchard. Heavy with dreams, I was awoken early for my rough appointment. A manic isotope in a fat-lit cavern. One of those molecular contrivances you hear so much about. A mighty atom. A coy abstraction. ** Reality The rules of the game remain couched in esoteric phrases…

Continue reading →

November 27, 2023

“As the Storm Arrives,” Poetry by David Dephy

“As the Storm Arrives,” Poetry by David Dephy

As the Storm Arrives Silence with its excellent syntax is so real, rhythm compensates breathe when the stream of our thoughts shapes our lives, we are the same and always seek each other when silence between us dies. Are we all identical in nature, different in degree? Children can smell the wind more than pets, as you know they prowl the streets, and the smell of the wind will color them lilac, though for now only the moon rises, and each tree, remains as the heart of a wind, each wind a string on time’s lyre, divine love reflected upon its own reflection, wickedness kindling that flame of darkness, but when the hero strikes her anvil of freedom, the vision returns, here the mist is a single thought floating within islands of silence, and the…

Continue reading →

November 13, 2023

“Wednesday in a Factory Town,” Poetry by John Grey

“Wednesday in a Factory Town,” Poetry by John Grey

WEDNESDAY IN A FACTORY TOWN Sunlight succumbs to weather and chimney, fat gray clouds, much billowing of smoke. In a town of factories, faces stare, solemn and blackened like stove flues, through windows, as red eyes make tunnels in the gloom. Rivers wait like standing water for more dust and grime to fuel their current. Shoppers cough their way from store to store. Kids grub up without even trying. No sky as once was promised. Not even the church, chiming three o’clock, can get back God’s attention. ** EMMA, A MONTH BEYOND THE DEATH OF HER FATHER She can’t swerve to avoid the dead possum on the road without crashing through huddled sobbing mourners and braking just in time so she doesn’t topple down into the freshly dug hole, and smash headlong into her father’s…

Continue reading →

October 11, 2023

“Taking Daddy’s Photograph,” Poetry by Gopi Kottoor

“Taking Daddy’s Photograph,” Poetry by Gopi Kottoor

Taking Daddy’s Photograph Daddy’, I said, ‘Stand by those shoe flowers, there are so many of them blooming this morning’. Daddy took a step back. There is a strange beauty, in the hibiscus sheen, when, from the fresh green the hundred shoe flowers mount red. Daddy now looked like he was some God coming to me in a dream of sacrifice. He puffed hard at his cigarette, its red butt putting all the hibiscuses to shame. Looking on into the camera eye, Daddy said, ‘Be careful, son, The sun is still in front of you. Don’t let in too much light’. I remember, I knelt down, so the lens could take the shade, holding him right. Dad smiled, as though in the camera eye Lay his only woman. And in that stained Hibiscus silence, Time…

Continue reading →

August 9, 2023

“Coddled by Mountains,” Poetry by PS Conway

“Coddled by Mountains,” Poetry by PS Conway

coddled by mountains watercolor skyline we have forgotten the artist but recall the art on a wall, set apart while all the while Cézanne lies face down in a field surrounded, coddled by mountains carefully crafted by the same god he helped re-create ** seaside ministrations bundled warm and dry midst the juniper subtle scents of pine and lavender blend to blunt the violence of raging surf and the winds that lament with banshee song first days of February, tides carry reminders of winter’s devastations flotsam mottles waves snowflakes cascade white blur the aplomb of the horizon line springtide seems so far away, here amongst the rocks and sand, no driftwood dry enough to light a fire no reeds to weave a holy rood nor to silence the dogged banshee keen the poet has denied…

Continue reading →

May 9, 2023

Col. Jon D. Marsh — Poetry and Prose

Col. Jon D. Marsh — Poetry and Prose

“Pagan” THEY made this so. It was so even before the Others came. Too many moons ago to consider. Even before the Fathers of the Father’s Fathers, it was so. But that does not matter. Before the Others came They called Us Mana-Hoka. The Others called Us Machu Grande, and They were forced to use the Other’s words. The Others are gone now. They gave the Others to their Gods to appease them. Now We are Mana-Hoka once more. But that does not matter, either. At those times when They became of many, the Gods would often grow angry and send a curse of hunger or sickness, so They learned to appease the Gods, as They would on a night when a complete moon fills the jungle with soft light. Just as They had many…

Continue reading →

April 27, 2023

Our National Poetry Month Finale: Vera West

Our National Poetry Month Finale: Vera West

Please welcome Vera West, The Fictional Cafe’s Poet in Residence, who shares her thoughts about our National Poetry Month celebration: chickadee  I’m not always angry but  I am mostly melancholy,  thinking about those  little potholes of memories   riddling a twisting road  of disappointment;  these memories jar me:  pancakes, carnivals,   front yard barbecues,   black fridays and   pastel pink egg hunts,  nicknames no one else called me;  these memories always jarred me,  they’re so different than   the standard of both  back then and now.   ** thinking of you Things you did right: encourage me to be authentic, drive me around town, instill independence, and push high expectations. [I want to be somewhere in the middle, between the good and the bad, between emotion and logic, but I’m stuck in extremes. either I miss you terribly or hate you…

Continue reading →

February 6, 2023

Deux Poèmes from Deux Poets

Deux Poèmes from Deux Poets

Today, Fictional Café introduces two fine poems from two fine American poets in our virtual magazine. Please let us know what you think of their work in the Comments section at the end of this post. Frank De Canio Language Primer     I might as well become a child again,  since my substantial English goes as far  as what my senorita comprehends.  As such, my native tongue becomes a bar  against pronounced exchanges with my friend.  She understands enough of what I say  to stumble through the meaning I intend,  but not enough for me to get my way.  Yet, speaking fluent Spanish to her peers,  she leaves me feeling witless in my age,  while she with rapid fluency endears   herself to those in the proficient stage  of verbal mastery.  And I must wait  on textbook…

Continue reading →

February 1, 2023

Robert Lunday’s Poetic Moments

Robert Lunday’s Poetic Moments

Little Man I need what I earn and could use a little more. But the little man in me needs none of it. He squats like an undiscovered arthropod and bottom-feeds on my mutterings. He sits in the position known as Lotus with his knees at forty-five degrees. The supposed virtues are his zodiac and if he’s naked you try not to notice. Fragment Please believe in me and do not doubt what I say. This foaming mouth is Aphrodite but the hands are Hephaestus clawing the air as he falls through the heavens in dismay. You break my heart but I take the pieces and make from each a thousand more. Gravel Gravel was on the menu. It was the thing you weren’t supposed to eat. It was there to make everything else look…

Continue reading →

January 29, 2023

“Man Does Not Live By Words Alone”

“Man Does Not Live By Words Alone”

Poetry by Dana Yost Rainbow   Through the window  the sun blew into  a glass of white wine  then refracted into a rainbow  upon the skin of lemon-pepper chicken  as we talked about Nazi death camps  and soldiers killed by sniper fire  in Vietnam. A teacher dead  in the recent derecho.  It was such a peaceful  setting for death, wasn’t it?  The seven of us around the table  and one finally mentioned  amnesty for draft-dodgers,  and no one went berserk,  no one even disagreed.  We shook our heads  at the insanity of war,  at the cruelty of death,  and my classmate  posted photos on Facebook  of herself in hospice,  ready to die from cancer.  “I’ll be here for the end,”  she said from her living room  couch, under a blanket. I looked   for a rainbow but…

Continue reading →