Calling all writers and poets! We are currently reading submissions for Midsummer Madness 2023. There is no theme, so if you have any quality poems, short stories or anything in between, send your work along to us at heavenlyflowerpublishing@gmail.com
You can read our full submission guidelines at https://bindweedmagazine.com/submission-guidelines
We respond to all submissions within 4 weeks with a current rate of 57% acceptances and 43% rejections, for those curious folks.
Thank you for all your poetry and fiction sent for consideration in the Midsummer Madness 2022 anthology. We are now closed for submissions as we read through the final submissions and begin to format the anthology for publication. We won’t reopen for new work until after the anthology is published on 21st June 2022 – please check back after 1st July 2022 for updates on our reading period for the Winter Wonderland anthology 2022. Any work submitted after 29th April 2022 will not be read.
For writers and poets who are still awaiting a decision about work, you’ll hear back from us within the next week.
Cover reveal, details for pre-order and any other updates for the anthology will appear on the Bindweed homepage shortly. Stay tuned!
LEG-SPEAK FROM THE GRAVE IN BUCKSPORT
What they don’t understand,
those tourists and gossips of lore—
if I were to persist—
I’d do it better than that
and despite what they say
I wouldn’t bother
my time with you,
Jonathan Buck, hero.
Also, if I haunted you,
wouldn’t I haunt the souls
that stood and watched too?
It doesn’t seem worth the effort.
But if it were me,
if I had made some sorry
etch of my leg appear
on your unfaltering grave,
would your bones wheeze
and winnow? Would some
ancient flesh collect
tears from your eyes?
Or would your hollowed-out
lungs leach air in century-long
gasps as I laugh from the day
of my final sentence?
AFTER THE MISCARRIAGE
An invisible rope
casts a net
over the sparrow,
who, recently maimed,
learns to fly again.
The net—memory—
lands, tangles, then
frees the bird,
who, in and out
of the struggle,
attempts habitual
motions, never
knowing what
kind of moment
will follow—
daggered
fragments,
joy or sorrow.
WAKING
Stay there a moment,
eyes closed, warm
under soft layers.
Maybe turn to the left,
curl up like a C, hot breath
through cold, dry sniffles.
The humidifier can
only do so much. As
you lie there softly,
breaths deepen. You
roll to the right, hunger
rumbles. You dream
of oatmeal with honey,
blueberries, coconut milk
too. Maybe a coffee and
some orange juice. But
you’re warm and soft.
You stay there longer.
Your face finds shelter
amidst a nest of pillows:
cheek meets sheets in a cuddle.
Nowhere needed but this
warm puddle of blankets,
you stay—you need it too.
Eventually, you walk
to the window, roll
open the snow and sky.
They’re waiting there too:
stretched out, lying still—
waking in their time too.
CTD Robinson writes poetry, fiction, nonfiction and picture books. She obtained her MFA in creative writing from Lesley University in June, 2018, and anticipates earning her MA at the Bread Loaf School of English (Middlebury College) in August, 2023. Recent and forthcoming publications include poetry at Spillwords Press, Soul-Lit, Braided Way and Blue Lake Review, as well as nonfiction at Solstice Literary Magazine and Kripalu.org. https://twitter.com/CTDRobinson
The Beat
WBZ reached out with the beat from Boston
in ’64 and struck my libido like a tuning fork.
I hid the transistor radio under my pillow
and wondered what the lucky kids back east
had done to deserve the beat while nothing
moved in my part of America for days on end
except copies of the Bible and corn weevils.
We had no beat unless WBZ bounced off a
chance cloud, leaving me to imagine kids in Boston
necking to the music from subversive bands
while we in the heartland were trapped in
the amber of crooning Elvis. On those dreadful
nights when the reception failed, my fingers
frantically coaxed the radio dial. All I wanted
was to swing and thrust and howl to the songs
I knew were out there exploding the night like
a train wreck and the shackles on me rattled
as I danced to the static all by myself
there in the Ohio dark.
Gardening Lessons
The wheelbarrow tire is still flat, a
long-standing excuse I lean upon, for
I was not born with dirt under my nails.
I am therefore not inclined to bury pinches
of carrot seeds just to spend hours on
my knees trying to distinguish between
weed and vegetable. Still, when fending off
the chaos of a morning, I envy those who find
peace in the garden. My father claimed
this blessing, planting and tending his crops,
with our reluctant help, after a long day
making steel. I know he was aware of the
farmer’s markets groaning under the
burden of fresh produce only a few miles
from Monica Avenue. I do not doubt his
passion for gardening was true, but I have
long suspected there was also a lesson
for us in our labors, passed down one
generation to the next in case the end of
the world should fall on our days and we
would starve if we didn’t know how to
hill potatoes in the blistering summer sun.
If this was the case, the lesson didn’t take
and I will surely starve.
The Stoic
Grandpa Lester was stoic as Mount Rushmore /
only after his death when I was ten did I learn
that as a teen he ran away from the family and
joined the circus / this would have been back
on the Ohio farm around 1916 / plows / outhouses /
handsewns / prayer meetings on Wednesday /
dumb nights and coal smoke / buggy wheel tracks
in frozen mud / I never asked him about his youth
for I assumed he had been born seventy years old
and all those signs of a lifetime’s labor back on the
farm / a hundred acres and a milking herd / had been
done by elves / and now I long to know how a
taciturn farmer transformed himself into a circus boy /
did he bathe elephants / hawk circus peanuts /
was his ponderous nose covered in face paint / did he
hang with the human cannonball and the trapeze lady /
so rude of him to take such stories to the grave / although
I share some of the fault / I’ve never been curious enough
about anyone but myself / and I’ve lacked the courage
to run away from any expectations / so as I age my face
too is showing less and less emotion / for fear, I suppose,
that people will understand just how Grandpa shames me now.
Tom Barlow is an Ohio author of poetry, short stories and novels. His work has appeared in journals including PlainSongs, Ekphrastic Review, Voicemail Poetry, Hobart, Tenemos, Redivider, Aji, The New York Quarterly, The Remington Review, Aurora Review, and many more. See more at tombarlowauthor.com.
Tom Barlow
http://www.tombarlowauthor.com
amazon.com/author/tombarlow
Twitter-TomBarlow
IN SICKNESS
Pain never goes away.
It settles down
on the darkest places
where it can fester
and get uglier.
In a year’s time,
it wriggles back
into the flesh and bones,
refreshed, empowered.
Your lungs have
barely recovered
and now, once again,
soft sleep currents
must give way to harsh
rapids of waking
at dark hours.
People say,
don’t be discouraged.
After a while,
they get discouraged
saying it.
BOATING IN THE SWAMP
As darkness oozes into swamp,
their similarities busy with mosquitoes.
I’ve misjudged the time.
Solid earth is farther than the stars.
With every insect bite,
my arms feel like human sacrifice.
Hands sweated to oar,
I row through reed
and mangrove,
floating islands,
from isolated backwater
toward the distant light.
The sludge below
assures the feel
of suspended animation.
I’m moving
but not enough to shake
the drip of heat,
snakes cozying up to boat,
the grunt of frog and alligator.
Home is my destination.
These waters define home differently.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Penumbra, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. Latest books, “Leaves On Pages” and “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Lana Turner and International Poetry Review.
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