Poetry by James White λ Collage Art by Hannah Dickinson
They stand, a dole
waiting for take off;
five in side light
learning how to flock—
a rise on their skin
answers movement
on each current,
responsive flight,
until one leads a dive,
an unexpected
bank out far,
leaving forms
of four others
still in shadow.
Flash Board II
C11 …….
I exercise at the wayside, pacing
stationary on call—there was gunfire, and
yellow boxcars, delineated, this year
there must be a lull in the juniper;
in season I hear my name scratch like a quill,
a mantra lying to be helped (it’s just an inkling),
there was an uneasy reliance in telegraphs.
B2 …….
January treads in the owlry, fleeting
decisions, her gut wrenched—
the old school square’s hightower
bell tones exercise for apathy,
buys everyone drinks. Us evidendly
turned on by argument. Joyce calls
revered and livid.
A4 …….
This is for you, it can give you
the support you deserve—
a nearing pink tender swerve
that gathers diagonally like roots
hit loose from the sides
above you—a key snapped
in the door waits for projects.
E1 …….
Open Air Museum, cold-fought
candlewicks—a choked-out eulogy,
a mare in front of an ivy wall;
old England’s neighborhood scripture.
I place an origami swan beside the fence
hoping it feeds her dreams.
Terpsichore Recounts
First, there’s
1. Time
2. Space
3. Weight
and 4. Flow
then 5. one quiet forward
6. the response of ten till house
7. the needle by your soles
8. the rotating stage
I call it
9. Movement theory
10. How people sometimes forget how to use words
11. The reliance on the bend of the legs to keep you down
how 12. I could show you those moments
13. The ones/fours
14. I can turn them over for you like tall chapters
15. I can leave the doors open
16. I can even help count you in
Picturing a Belljar
Reach inside and pluck away
the vocal folds of the young translator;
she is the choral shaker and versed silencer,
perched to ask whether anyone else might be
here with her, others whose eyes can read the
language of inability like fingertips that point to
a girl who hangs from a tree. Tell me about doves,
little one. The word always taut in your hands. Only
in passing have you learned to verbalize it, thinking
backward for its root, the shape—before it dissipates
through to the roads below; how it filters onto the
outstretched tongue of a girl who was told everything
must happen for a reason.
James A.H. White is an emerging writer completing his MFA in Creative Writing, Poetry at Florida Atlantic University. James is a winner of the 2014 AWP Intro Journals Project award in Poetry, and 2016 Pushcart Prize nominee. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Colorado Review, Gertrude, JMWW, and DIAGRAM, among others.
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