The first day of winter always means a new issue of 2RV. So click over to 2River and follow the link there to the winter issue of The 2River View, with new poems by Brittany Barberino Evans, Benny Biesek, Bri Bruce, Christien Gholson, D.B. Goman, Romana Iorga, Elizabeth Majerus, Kelly Nelson, Annmarie O’Connell,Claudia Reinhardt, and Claudia Serea.
Jump over to 2River next week for the Fall issue of The 2River View, with new poems byBrittany Barberino Evans, Benny Biesek, Bri Bruce, Christien Gholson, D.B. Goman, Romana Iorga, Elizabeth Majerus, Kelly Nelson, Annmarie O’Connell, Claudia Reinhardt, and Claudia Serea. Meanwhile, here’s a teaser:
Claudia Serea
The flower of blood
After Imran Qureshi’s installation at the Met, New York, 2013
1.
A flower of blood opens
on the rooftop overlooking Central Park
and another one on the asphalt below,
next to the black tire marks
and the little girl’s slipper.
Sirens wail
every time a flower of blood
opens in the city,
in a hospital room,
or at home,
in my father’s heart.
Other times,
it opens in silence,
in the face of the dying child
and the face of the mother holding him,
and in the mouth of the gun
that his brother holds.
2.
100,000 flowers open in Syria,
a field of bleeding poppies,
and in every square of every city,
on every street,
and tv screen,
with every scream and explosion.
And the world watches the petals unfurl,
the breathtaking spectacle,
again and again.
No one can stop it,
and the world blooms
with pain.
A flower of blood opens on earth
and you can see it from space.
Claudia Serea immigrated from Romania to the United States in 1995. Her work has appeared in 5 a.m., Apple Valley Review, Meridian, New Letters, and Word Riot. Her books include Angels & Beasts, The System, and A Dirt Road Hangs From the Sky.
Jump over to 2River for the latest Fall 2013 issue of The 2River View, with new poems by Lenny DellaRocca, Judith Barrington, Rebecca D’Alise. Karen Donovan, Gary Dop, Marcel Gauthier, Marjorie Maddox, Christine Marshall, Carolyn Murdoch, Barbara Schwartz, and Lauren Shimulunas. Don’t let the halloween art scare you away.
Jump over to 2River next week for the Fall issue of The 2River View, with new poems by Lenny DellaRocca, Judith Barrington, Rebecca D’Alise, Karen Donovan, Gary Dop, Marcel Gauthier, Marjorie Maddox. Christine Marshall, Carolyn Murdoch, Barbara Schwartz, and Lauren Shimulunas. Meanwhile, here’s a teaser:
Bird Café
Lenny Dellarocca
There was a dusty bird finished with everything,
evening stirred in the trees
and the figs were never consumed.
Above the noise of conversation
at the sidewalk restaurant,
I overheard a man say something
about the Café Verona. I wondered
why my ear tuned to just his words
in the miscellaneous air,
why my eye sought out that bird
sleeping among elms and wrens
as if nothing on earth mattered.
These were equations to me,
physical realities
caught by chance in nonlinear
verbatim by the formula
which sends art out among chaos
and finds a place for itself.
As if all possibilities had been
ruled out
except that bird
and a voice saying Café Verona.
There was, and could not be,
anything else in the world.
2River’s a big fan of Breaking Bad and think it’s cool that the show makes use of good poetry. Here I-am-the-danger reads a poem that perhaps points to his fall.
Summer is here, and the living is wonderfully easy. Kick back with something cold–a drink, a slice of watermelon, a bowl of strawberries–and spend some time with the Summer 2013 issue of The 2River View. You’ll be wading into a river of wonderful new poems by Taylor Graham, John Guzlowski, Kip Knott, Katherine Mitchell, A. Molotkov, Dave Nielsen, Andrew Oerke, Suzanne Parker, Andres Rojas, Megan Volpert, and Steven Winn. Be swept away.
Muddy Bank 