Slipstream Issue 36    Slipstream Issue 35
         2016      $10.00      96 pages      Shadows & Light Theme
 

Home Page     New Releases     Poetry Chapbook Contest     Back Issues     Video
 
Poets featured in this Issue:

Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco, Stella Reed, Ceridwen Hall, Daniel Lassell, Kathryn Merwin, Faith Shearin, Annie Lure, Avery Leigh Thomas, Matthew J. Spireng, Douglas Cole, Alison Stone, Lynn Pattison, Kyle McKinney, Jason Irwin, Alan Catlin, Mike McGeehon, Michael Brosnan, Theodore Eisenberg, Mark Fitzgerald, Matthew Nye, Eric Gelsinger, Simon Perchik, Larry W. Kelts, Sarah Daugherty, P.D. Lyons, Donna M. Davis, Charlotte Covey, Matt Dennison, Mark B. Hamilton, Catherine Keller, Alex Thomas, Michael Estabrook, James Crews, Katharyn Howd Machan, Paula Brancato, Riley Ward, David Chorlton, Jim Daniels, Jack Lindeman, Serena Fusek, Frank J. Dunbar, Carol Dorf, Hollie Dugas, Ann Folwell Stanford, Roy Bentley, Lauren Yarnall, Steve Klepetar, Suzanne Rancourt, Mary Carroll-Hackett, Gail DiMaggio, Linda Scheller, Gloria Keeley, Stan Zumbiel, Ed Taylor, Dorian Kotsiopoulos, Carl Mayfield, Vicki Mandell-King, Robert Cooperman, Lyn Lifshin, John Gosslee, Livio Farallo, Kenneth Feltges, Karen Paul Holmes, Dan Sicoli, Ginnie Goulet Gavrin, Allyson Jeffredo, Michelle Perez, Jerry Garcia, Catfish McDaris, and Gerald Locklin.

Front Cover: Kris G.
Back Cover: Karen Lee Lewis

Featured photography by: Aria Riding, Riccardo Mottola, Kris G., Lisa Sweet, Pierre Lagarde, and Oleg Podsorov

  

 

Sample Poems from Issue 36

Old Man Tilly  by Jason Irwin
Dark Passage  by Alan Catlin
Stalling  by Catherine Keller
Wyeth  by Michelle Perez
 

Old Man Tilly
by Jason Irwin

Even today I shudder
when I think of his yellowed underbite.
How I’d watch him stagger
from his front porch to the curb
in the hazy dawn light,
where he’d stand,
admiring his shit-colored
El Camino, piled high
with tires
and metal pipes.
His floating left eye—
swimming like an egg yolk
inside a carpenter’s level.

I remember that summer night like a movie,
when he threw his girlfriend down a flight
of stairs, then gave me the finger
as I stood watching from my driveway.

Later that evening, after the ambulance
had taken her to the hospital
and all the neighbors went back inside,
I sat by an open window
and listened to him breathing,
mumbling to himself,
and just for a moment
I thought I heard him cry.
But it was only the wind
moving through the neighborhood,
rustling the maple leaves.

© 2016 Jason Irwin


Back to top




Dark Passage
by Alan Catlin

"It’s a damn shame you have to be bothered with breathing."
                                                                                    —K. Patchen

In noir movie night, on silver
trolley car diner stool, slouched
over coffee spilled counter,
fried eggs and bacon sandwich
smells. Time has lost all meaning
on dim lighted, stale air edged
by neon, leaking definition, fading
into endless grease-coated patterns
of shadow and light, of radio loop
tapes crackling static, storm front
from nowhere, tornado thick and
churning. Unmoving waitress,
dead eyed and a cigarette break
shy of frozen in place forever.
Distant sirens and barking dogs,
precarious, no-hope tower of loose
change and spilled shaker salt,
torn-into-bits tickets and pay-as-you-go
chit, face down by soiled spoons says
Thank You Come Again but no one
expects you back or to believe what
it says. Fade to black.

© 2016 Alan Catlin




Stalling
by Catherine Keller

Hiding in bathroom stalls,
Has become a habit for me,
The cold tiled floor,
And shrieking of the stall door closing.
Silently praying that no one comes in,
So you can have some time to yourself,
Even if it does smell like too much bleach,
And mis-aimed urine,
Flashing back to eating my paper bag lunch,
Because I couldn’t find anyone to sit with.
Those close four sides,
Are awful for anxiety attacks,
Claustrophobia gets the worst of you.
My only companions are the burned-out bugs,
In the cheap ceiling lights,
The loud silence,
And the soap dispenser that never completely,
Washes the blood off of your hands.
Don’t stare at yourself in the mirror for too long,
The lighting doesn’t flatter you.
When the bell rings and kids pour through doors,
The background hum of pointless conversations
Scares me to death,
Because I don’t know which one of them,
Is next to come in.
In between and during classes,
I’ll be there,
Hiding from the sounds of clacking high heels,
And responsibilities.
Listening to people cackling in the halls,
Wondering why you couldn’t be a part of it,
Girls come in giggling about last weekend,
And you wish you knew what was so funny,
The ultimate exclusion,
You on one side of the stall,
Them on the other side, clueless as to who you are,
Or if you’re even there.

© 2016 Catherine Keller

Back to top




Wyeth
by Michelle Perez

I needed to read
the article. I
don’t know
his paintings. I don’t
know about Maine.
I don’t know Helga
or nets,
the texture of corn
flowers
or seasons
of soil.

I needed to know
how light lingers,
an old porch leans,
how sunlight
streams emptiness
into a room
and shade brush
strokes the side
of a clapboard
home.

I wanted to learn
about darkness—
how solitude
angles a door jamb,
about space
allowed to
slant through
weathered
frames
outlining harbors
and sea
scapes,
about loyalty
and the guarding
of time.

© 2016 Michelle Perez


Back to top