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LINE DRAWINGS by Weston Cutter

Sunday, 29 March 2015 by Weston Cutter
dear salt dear water scribbling difference between where
I can dryly stand+not dear sea dear shell dear Florida
from your panhandle I'm staring past seagulls flit
+scurrying across sand white as my unsunned torso
at an oil rig miles offshore which must even now be barbing
into deep durk+mank to extract the treasure I'll later
pump a refined version of into minivan's rear flank
so we can trade this sucrostic malleability for the cold
bones of home dear edge dear border dear horizon
which just lays there flat as a that's that voice when
what's done's been done, when there is as the phrase
has it no going back up the road a thousand miles snow
drifts where I'm from on hurt+merciful alike as
it must, like Christ or a bad mechanic true cold
can make no distinction regarding whom it bestows
its shivery gifts upon dear south dear December I'm standing here
because I believe the ocean keeps saying stand there then
like any of us changes its mind, the way the waves gurgle
playing the game of life which is called get everything
then retreat dear boundary dear almost dear exact
location where self ends+beach begins I came here
to witness quietly shifting things: the moment one year
breathes out + the next in, to listen to an I do
transform Ellen's uncle+his love into husband+wife
but my daughter kept shouting so we went outdoors
where she again attempted to put the universe into
her mouth dear littered plastic cup dear cigarette butt
dear fallen palm leaves I watched the you may now kiss the
moment from beyond the church's window as Jo
said da and da and da pointing first at sky then trees
then the cars passing the small white chapel +finally da
pointing at herself, and then me, all of it da and how
can I not hope she's right hope she hope me hope we
never forget how the thin distinguishments of living
are temporary mercies setting us free within flesh
to believe beyond flesh dear wet envelope of ocean
from which the moon slides nightly like the lovest letter dear moment bread
becomes body there must be room within each infinity
for all of us seeking the phonebooth in which our true
selves stand waiting to answer whatever call finally comes.

 

 

Issue 7 Contents                                        NEXT: Four Poems by Christopher Kempf

Four Way ReviewLine DrawingsWeston Cutter
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  • Published in home, Issue 7, Poetry
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ORIGIN OF GLASS by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo

Sunday, 29 March 2015 by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
it is winter again as we feel our way through
a bed of glass in the river
                         we’ve been here before
                         everything’s the same
                         still the morning
                         still the pieces of glass
              we pile in the image of a child and praise
in truth we can’t make anything happen between us
            winter began inside you
            no one knew
            but I knew


            *

I want to believe this will end
with the child coiled around your finger
                         with thousands watching and throwing roses at us
                         with lights and glitter in our hair
but we both know how it ends
we practice until we don’t need to tell our bodies how to do it
            the child with her glass head—
            her lips curled in my palm trying to say her name for her

                         will you hold her to the light
                         will you breathe a little pink into her
your hands on her throat looking for the song at the other end

not everything is a bright flute made of bone

            *

we tried shaking her out of us like a bee down our shirts
                         but what if the bee had been a wasp
            what if it died not because it stung
            but because it grew tired of stinging

milk eyed small lunged prophet in the mud
you wash the sand out of your hair
                         where the mushrooms outnumber the stars
we sit on the bank in the sun
and quietly roll clay between our legs
and its hardening is a form of meditation

winter begins with her hands detached from the branches

you knew
you always knew

 

 

Issue 7 Contents                                        NEXT: Water and Island by Jennifer Sperry                                                                                             Steinorth

CastilloFour Way ReviewOrigin of Glass
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  • Published in home, Issue 7, Poetry
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TWO POEMS by Joy Ladin

Wednesday, 29 October 2014 by Joy Ladin

EARLY MORNING FLIGHT

Half-empty plane, hot black coffee – it takes  so many people
to keep my body soaring.
I must be important, or at least not dead,

and my not being dead must matter, or it wouldn’t be so sunny,
and if it’s sunny because I’m not dead
I must be the fulcrum, the measure of existence,

the line God draws
between meaning and meaninglessness
in sand composed of outgrown shells and diatoms,

animal and vegetable
ground into mineral glitter
by the pestle of existence.

I’m not ground yet, so I must be happy,
smiling for the camera
eternity, focused on me, must be.

I must be happy, falling asleep,
sinking into the clouds below my seat, soothed by engines’
rumbling stutter, the click-click heartbeat

of eternity’s shutter.

 

 

SMART WAYS TO DIE

That was a short list, wasn’t it?
An old man fingers a double fugue

alone on a famous stage.
There’s no smart way to die

during a Bach partita’s
helices of being and becoming

twinning, twining and untwining
chromatic, arpeggiated longing.

No genders, no time,
no way to die, smart or otherwise,

even though we practice death’s scales
day and night,

confounding individuation with despair, avoiding recognition
that the only part of us that lives forever

is the otherness we anticipate and echo,
a fugue that began before we began

and sings without a moment’s interruption
when our seats are emptied, our despairs compressed

into obituary and epitaph, our bones broken down
into nutrients absorbed by grass

nibbled by rabbits struck by hawks
and assimilated, briefly, into their soaring organs.

The smart way to die is to recognize
the stage is bare, the piano wheeled away,

the old man probably has a tough time peeing,
lets flattery go to his head,

foolish as the rest of us
when the universe serenading itself through him

lets his fingers become fingers again,
the universe too smart to die without rising,

twinning, twining and untwining
old men, vibrating strings, creaking seats and silence.

 

 

 

Issue 6 Contents                                       NEXT: Two Poems by Lee Sharkey

Four Way ReviewJoy LadinTwo Poems
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  • Published in Issue 6, Poetry
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LIGHT INSTALLATION AT THE HILTON by Iva Ticic

Wednesday, 29 October 2014 by Iva Ticic

there are galaxies
above what used to be the soft spots
at the top of our heads

we elongate our necks
at an angle
trying to take in

all that neon-filled fullness
of the light-splattered cosmos

 

it scares me — that I don’t know
what you’re searching for

me, the same old — a flickering
of some sort, a disjointed piece of wire

just as I used to compete
with my father, pointing out night planes

in place of dead stars

 

 

 

Issue 6 Contents                                       NEXT: Breath Memory [Breath Alphabet]
by Cory Hutchinson-Reuss

Four Way ReviewIva TicicLight Installation
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  • Published in Issue 6, Poetry
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TWO POEMS by Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Wednesday, 29 October 2014 by Rachel Eliza Griffiths

                                               DEAR AMERICA

I pick you up
& you are a child made of longing
clasped to my neck. Iridescent,
lovely, your inestimable tantrums,
I carry you back & forth
from the underworlds
where your giggles echo,
grow into howls.

Your alphabet wraps itself
like a tourniquet
around my tongue.

Speak now, the static says.
A half-dressed woman named Truth
tells me she is a radio.

I’m going to ignore happiness
& victory.
I’m going to undo myself
with music.

I pick you up
& the naked trees lean
into the ocean where you arrived,
shaking chains & freedom
from your head.

No metaphor would pull you
out of your cage.

Light keens for the dead.
& I’m troubled
by my own blind touch.

Did the ocean release
my neck? Did the opal waves
blow our cries to shore?

You don’t feel anything
in the middle of the night.

 

 

ANOTHER WOMAN’S COAT
                                         for J.H.

Alone with snowfall & pockets
of silence beneath shining streetlamps,
I pull her coat closer, finding spaces
in its arms. These seams do not belong
to me. And I won’t know this yet –
slipping down snowy Remsen. I stop
on the promenade, I’m solitary again
& stare at the city edging
the East River. Air blowing stings,
stinging, I pull the hood down,
burrow inside her wordless
flesh. Alive from dancing
with friends, & the music
of that. Pulled over me
like an eyelid of glitter.
As much as Manhattan
glares, can its insect
windows make me out
here on the other side?
Gatsby’s green heart
of a wish. Or whatever
was above me
that looked at my mouth
& said, Yes, it’s enough, isn’t it?
Blinking, immeasurable
in snow that needles
like fire, I’ll walk,
a Siamese with ten shadows,
amongst dense brownstones.
Heart, what telescope do you inscribe?
Snow light growing the shadows
of sycamores & fire hydrants
into giants. The bare pine seller
stands. The streetlights change
for nothing. When I get to my door
I’ll reach for a key
that opens & returns me
to myself like a rune. Then I see
I’m wearing a coat
that isn’t mine. Her syllables
& smiles & the wit of another
woman’s neck lingering
in the lining. Sweetness
& irony & how you couldn’t
tell, in the dark, you could wear
something so intimate
& otherwise? Hearing her
hands & breasts & ribs
murmur inside of the down.
The feathers you now
warm with your own
body. Inseparable
as the music we shared
as we danced,
the holiday like flecks
of tinsel caught under
the god’s tongue. Julie,
I hope you’ll forgive
me for wanting to
verse your instrument,
& how, when Brooklyn
wasn’t looking, I made
angels against the air,
our skin, like words slipped back
beyond midnight & knowing
I have no other way
to bear my life, you
laugh at the café
where we meet
& tell me
when we give
our coats back
with wonder
for ourselves
that the dance
was so lovely
your legs hurt
in the morning.

 

Issue 6 Contents                                       NEXT: Stack of Brightness by Rosalynde Vas Dias

Four Way ReviewRachel Eliza GriffithsTwo Poems
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  • Published in Issue 6, Poetry
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BREATH MEMORY [BREATH ALPHABET] by Cory Hutchinson-Reuss

Wednesday, 29 October 2014 by Cory Hutchinson-Reuss

Zero degrees again. Midwest winters confuse loving with not leaving.
Yes we are made of drifts. Yes we are made of degrees on a map of discontent.

[Aluminum breath, breath of absence and alchemy,
Breath of blood history, breath of aromatic bitters]

Example: I left my home full of salt and chrome and church manners. Moved away,
where I willed the memory of glaciers to silt me downriver again.

[Calamine breath, cypress breath and
Dogwood, devil’s food, breath of divinity with almonds]

Vacant hills of snow: fugue season, no permits given.
Under each fallow mound I idle and thaw.  GOODY’S BODY SHOP:  PAINT  REPAIRS  PARTS

[Engine breath and exoskeleton, eiderdown, breath of
Folly, fork in the road, breath of sod]

They swim up in the sun, the sleepers, the root-fish,
sow rain into beds,      they evaporate.

[Grass breath, breath of foam, breath of paper fans,
Hickory breath, hymnals, breath of leather, breath of sorghum]

Rivulet the dark with what do I remember: stop for an ache,
quarry-side: peer into its deep gunmetal eye:   hello, loaded chamber.

[Ingot breath, salt lick breath, breath of tails, revivals,
Jam breath, cherries jubilee, gin breath of bathhouse row]

Pews lined end-to-end with legs like piano keys break into rafts
or into song. They glide and steam.     PINE BLUFF ARSENAL   EXIT 2 MILES   CLOSED

[Katydid breath and kudzu, breath of cashmere, breath of rope,
Lotus breath, bobcat laugh, breath of lone oak]

No one told me not to:            I yelled down backwaters that echo.
Mud face named, catfish alien, puppy-hushed. What did swim up.

[Mimosa tree breath and mattress, breath of windowsill,
Nickel, new roads, breath of soffit and tornado]

Lampshade sun:           loaded barrel chest:     mountains
knuckle the sky. The river                   cracked slate and chalk.

[Oxbow breath, breath of okra, peach orchard and pine,
Phantom breath and pantomime, breath of empty frames]

Jesus of Billboards and Hearts’ Doors. KING BISCUIT TIME. My
itinerant bridge of blue mud and mosquitoes, interstate of homeless lights.

[Quake radius breath, breath of quotients and remainders,
Ridgeback and breath of rice fields, breath of accents]

Hunger-nested, I swarm, I hive,          in fault lines, in
golden meat, on the backs of wild boar, in the rough of diamonds.

[Skull-shine breath, salt lick, breath of kiln and locust,
Terrace breath, breath of taffy, tree swing breath of currents]

Ferry across the lake to the island with the cliffs. Let turkey vultures
eat the gift of my violence.

[Undertow breath, caliper breath, breath of sieve and cleaver,
Velvet breath, breath of grease, breath of fire]

Darlin’, what’ll ya have?                  Fingers licked clean.
Can you pay for what you’ve taken?           Not even close.

[Wire breath, wolf breath, breath of state lines,
Xiphoid breath of bone tongue, breath of shoal]

By what shore my hands have emptied me.     No pennies
and no receipts.           At what tables I swam and fed.

[Yam breath, breath of butter, breath of yoke, breath of yawl,
Zodiac breath, zenith, breath of weather, teeth, and grammar]

 

 

Issue 6 Contents                                       NEXT: The Landlord by Peace Adzo Medie

Breath MemoryCory Hutchinson-ReussFour Way Review
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  • Published in Issue 6, Poetry
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TREES by David Lawrence

Wednesday, 29 October 2014 by David Lawrence

The log that fell into the river went for a long swim into a hidden country where logs were the dominant culture and the trees wept as they saw their barky cousins floating home.

My wife loves trees
And cries
When a branch breaks on 72nd Street.

I don’t care whether trees come and go like soldiers in formation and lie down like one of the wounded in a futile war.

My wife likes plants too.
She puts an orchid on the windowsill.
I bought it for her for Mother’s Day.
She is not my mother.
I want her to be happy.

When we walk down Madison Avenue to the St. Regis Hotel for our Sunday tea sandwiches, I will pretend that I am a tree and hold her with my leafy hand like we are nature’s thrill.

 

 

Issue 6 Contents                                       NEXT: Light Installation at the Hilton by Iva Ticic

 

 

 

Lane-Changes-Cover

Get David Lawrence’ Lane Changes at Four Way Books

 

David LawrenceFour Way ReviewTrees
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  • Published in Issue 6, Poetry
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BIRTHDAY by Lauren Hilger

Wednesday, 29 October 2014 by Lauren Hilger

 

     On a stone wall, no one around            I stole my mom’s mink stole
               I stare the doe in the face            self-reflection in a lap pool

                  March, my month, cold            I want this to be the last awful
                        cake white on white            of winter

             my mother sends daffodils            in an open courtyard
            that are chives unblooming            I wait for Jane Kenyon—

              thunder over the meadow            we hide how much we love
             will you allow yourself this            so as to appear merely happy

Old Style Russian, March 19, 1805             I am like a railroad tycoon
    Lise dies, Prince Nikolay is born             with a stack in my hands

           How you felt in 6 PM sun—             my hood
                                      somewhere             makes the view a circle

                              how remarkable             the green isn’t lurid it’s just
          if she and her dog were near             mossy

  would I ever, if not now, be ready             for her visit

 

 

 

Issue 6 Contents                                       NEXT: Two Poems by Rachel Eliza Griffiths

BirthdayFour Way ReviewLauren Hilger
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  • Published in Issue 6, Poetry
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Reprise by Kathleen Hellen

Wednesday, 29 October 2014 by Kathleen Hellen

Reflex. Automatic. My son with that look when I slapped him.
Something in the genes, the violence of pathways reenacting:
biologies of caterwaul of bottle-fights of fists into the wall.

I saw Mother with her twin colossals jug-drunk dancing jigs. Her laugh,
big or bigger, her three sheets to the wind—My Father’s hands like blackened mitts.

I wanted none of it—that phonograph. The crankpin, that turntable
that played the groove over and over. I put the toys away. A ball,
a holstered gun. Things to tell me I was having fun.

 

 

 

Issue 6 Contents                                       NEXT: Birthday by Lauren Hilger

Four Way ReviewKathleen HellenReprise
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  • Published in Issue 6, Poetry
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PERSISTENT DESIGN by Nate Pritts

Wednesday, 29 October 2014 by Nate Pritts

Wasps keep circling
the shutters, long stalks
of grass dangling
from thin back legs,
and when they crawl between the slats
into the small dark,
they bring their greeny materials
with them.

There is nothing here
you can’t leave.  Despite
all your kind diligence,
the actual time, the slow
and loving duration of our attentions,
there is nothing in this world
we can’t abandon.
We are human.

The movements of wasps
are terrible, hovering
sometimes, sometimes
jabbing through the air.
I watch them at their task—
how they build
and build again
calmly.

 

 

 

Issue 6 Contents                                       NEXT: Two Poems by Joy Ladin

Four Way ReviewNate PrittsPersistent Design
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  • Published in Issue 6, Poetry
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FIRST WINTER by Hala Alyan

Wednesday, 29 October 2014 by Hala Alyan

Our bodies are urns full of rain,
spilling during the harvest. The elders
speak of clemency. The army marches on.

We watch them across the ocean,
speak their undead name in our sleep.
Some of the sisters still make mosques

in abandoned lots. They auction their gold
for Allah’s ninety-nine names, while
the neighborhood boys hawk the spires

for cocaine. In the hour of the blizzard,
the devout speak of owls rising from
fossil. When they bathe, they hear

children’s voices in the pipes, open their
mouths wide to catch that scalding
song. Their wombs are empty now.

They name the trees in the projects for
Hagar. Snow fills the minaret and they wait
to arrive, finally, shaking, to god.

 

 

Issue 6 Contents                                       NEXT: Two Poems by Patrick Rosal

First WinterFour Way ReviewHala Alyan
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TWO POEMS by Lee Sharkey

Wednesday, 29 October 2014 by Lee Sharkey

CIVILIZATION

Even  in  the  most   inhospitable  circumstances   there  is  always  time  for  a  cup  of tea.
Say you live in a cup with a hole blasted in its side in a blasted landscape, by a blasted tree
and    an   empty    barrel.   You   can  still  park   your   worn   down   shoes  side   by  side
at  the  door  and  steep  your  questions  in  hot  water.   Since   you  are  a  man  of letters
I  imagine  you  have  many.    As  steam  brushes  your   cheeks  you  may  read  the leaves.
Take  your  time.  The  wind  is  aroused  and  the  clouds  are  either  massing  or  clearing.
You have  lost  everything but not what makes you human.  I don’t mean your coat and tie.

 

SHELTER

The forebears have gathered. The clocks have split open. Clock hands lie on the ground
like bent utensils.  The forebears emerged through the rock.  They are  ruins. Dissevered.
Parallel  faces  frozen  in  profile.   The  forebears  are  listening.   And  there  you  stand
(I almost missed you),  memory’s  king,  an  ant  among  giants,  hands  tucked  in  your
pockets,  downcast,  with  a  stone  for  a   shadow,   waiting  for   whispers,  husbanding
wisdom,  at  home  at last  in an  old  stone Eden.   Whose  face  does  the rock face bear
and  repeat,  each  and  every — your  face,  God  face,  Jew  face,  membranous blessing.

 

 

Issue 6 Contents                                       NEXT: Trees by David Lawrence

Four Way ReviewLee SharkeyTwo Poems
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  • Published in Issue 6, Poetry
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