Third Wednesday

Winter 2008

FRIENDS OF THIRD WEDNESDAY Annie HorvathDr. Donald FrenchMrs. Amy GrayDr. Donald FrenchRobert Spencer AndersonBorders Books, Ann Arbor

Third Wednesday is a literary arts magazine published by Gravity Presses (lest we all float away) Inc., offered in the traditions of several Michigan artists, writers, publishers, and editors. Although we manage the publication from Michigan, we welcome submissions (and certainly subscriptions) from all over the world. Financial assistance is gratefully appreciated at: Third Wednesday, 174 Greenside Up, Ypsilanti, MI, 48197.

Check us out on the Internet: thirdwednesday.org

Submit via email to: subscriptions@thirdwednesday.org

EDITORS

Laurence W. Thomas, EditorPaul Kingston, AssistantSophie Grillet, Art EditorGeorge Dila, Associate, FictionJanann Dawkins, Associate, PoetryTodd Maddock, AssociateCarl Fanning, AssociateJoe Ferrari, Publisher

Third Wednesday -- Winter, 2008 -- is a publication of Gravity Presses (lest we all float away). Volume 1, Issue 2.

Winter 2008

Editorial Note Issue No. 2 of Third Wednesday comes wrapped in the tissue of experience gained from editing the first issue last fall. The hardest les-son is learning to reject submissions. They come from people who expect to be published: friends and strangers, beginners and those with impres-sive publishing backgrounds. A kind of immortality lies in publishing their works, a form of death in their rejection. Selecting works for these pages requires balancing sub-jectivity with the objectivity needed to publish material with appeal for as broad a readership as possible. It takes the tiniest weight to tip the balance one way or the other: an ill-chosen im-age vs. evidence of the artist’s aptitude. This balance includes also the ideas conveyed and the way they are expressed. Some great thoughts come in the craziest packages, too often hidden beyond detection. That is the editors’ challenge. At Third Wednesday, six editors offer their joint and individual ex-pertise to find the best of what comes their way. Their basic criteria dif-fer little from what prompted the submissions: thoughts well expressed in new ways, beauty of language and imagery, works whose impact will remain with our readers. Good poetry, like fine wine or great music, brings sensory, lasting pleasures, often unexpected, always satisfying.

CONTENTS

How Can A Pretty Thing Lie?: Heather MacPherson ....................................................................1

Others Who Survived The Flood: Steve Klepetar ...........................................................................2

Weeping Willow, 1918: Sarah Kennedy-Vaillant ..............................................................................3

A White Amnesia: Laura LeHew ............................................................................................................4

Image: Cries In The Forest: Phil Gruis ..............................................................................................5

Cries In The Forest: Phil Gruis ............................................................................................................5

North Country Thaw: Jon Ballard .......................................................................................................7

Admiration: Rena Sherwood ..................................................................................................................7

Edges Of The Water: Charlotte Otten ...............................................................................................8

Requiem of a Daffodil: M. L. Cordle ...................................................................................................9

Late September: Marc Harshman .........................................................................................................10

Cottonwood Seeds: Caroline Maun ......................................................................................................11

Trail Gone Cold: Brent Fisk ..................................................................................................................11

Problems With Poisson: Janean Williams ..........................................................................................13

Couples Skate: Victoria Elizabeth.........................................................................................................14

Martini Diving: Cheri L. R. Taylor .....................................................................................................15

tonight i turned on the tv: John Yamrus ............................................................................................16

Fear: David Mayombwe ..........................................................................................................................17

Image: Conquering The Pod Planet: Judith Jacobs ..........................................................................18

Saying Farewell and The Absence of Spaces: Mike Lane ..............................................................19

This Is Just To Say, I Am A Villain: Sarah Schwartz ......................................................................21

I’m Watching The Woman Across The Street: Justin Harris .......................................................22

Image: Textbooks: Justin Harris ..........................................................................................................23

Closing the Door: Gina M. Tabasso ....................................................................................................24

Bowling In The Bumper Lane: Corey Ginsberg ...............................................................................25

Image: Crackerjack: Judith Jacobs ........................................................................................................27

Transposed: Gary J. Erwin ....................................................................................................................28

Image: Another Thing: Judith Jacobs ..................................................................................................32

In The Middle Of Summer, I Reluctantly

Learn To Use The Bidet: Susan J. Case ..........................................................................................33

The Runaway: K. D. Elizabeth ..............................................................................................................35

Plasticize Me: Philip Dacey ...................................................................................................................36

A Walk In A Fictional Wood: Cindy Childress .................................................................................37

Image: Orchids: Laurence W. Thomas ................................................................................................38

Drinking Behind The Bowling Alley, Canal Zone, ‘74: Mark Jackley .........................................39

Folded Wings: Lauren Hudgins ...........................................................................................................40

Image: Portland As God’s Country: Lauren Hudgins .....................................................................41

The Candidate: Alan Elyshevitz ...........................................................................................................42

Image: I’m Sorry: Justin Harris ............................................................................................................43

Haruka’s Sestina: Jason Lee Brown ......................................................................................................44

Absent Fundamentals: Carol Firth ......................................................................................................46

Image: Hair Nail: Lauren Hudgins .......................................................................................................46

Love Or A Used Toothpick: Maurice Oliver .....................................................................................47

Cassandra: Janann Dawkins ...................................................................................................................48

Call Of Nature: John R. Greenwood ..................................................................................................48

Image: Conquering The Fish Planet: Judith Jacobs .........................................................................50

Kerosene: Janie Hofmann ......................................................................................................................51

Baby Baby; Hip, New Subway Stylings: Alex Cigale .......................................................................52

THE COUNTRY OF GHOSTS: Michael Salcman ........................................................................54

The Light Areas Are Waning: Linda King ........................................................................................55

Image: Bilal, Tricentenial Park: Carolyn Ferrari ..............................................................................56

Cover, Neptune Zephyr: Jim Fuess - Berkeley Heights, New Jersey www.jimfuessart.com

Third Wednesday Logo: Sophie Grillet

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A White Amnesia

I have always loved the gloom the melancholy carcass of a mountain leaves falling onto glass and under the weight of leaves a thousand skeletons of snow nailed to the river wall under a dark sky. As the bodies accumulate into the fictive dream specters in shade— blame them for what has happened I have already bartered away my shadow— to paint the insides of the void; it’s not that I have disembarked from the silhouette at the crossroads as vapor navigates the waters of death I alone travel in mud and rain.

lAuRA lEHEw

9

Requiem of a Daffodil

And when I dieBury me in a red dress

I could never wear redAnd I should like to

It is so that the Daffodils sing in the morningAnd weep at night

Can you hear them love?Can you hear them?

You never were the type To go traipsing through the dew much

But it was you that I saw in dreamscapeAnd loved at dawn

The evening is now upon usCan you feel my peace?

Please bury me in a red dressI am to weep at night

M.l. CORdlE

19

Saying Farewelland The Absence of Spaces

1.

I rummage through her flesh,trace bony ridges with careful fingers.Light seeps through her--gray cat vanishing.

A winter cancer has wrapped its summer vinesaround her throat. I think of having her put down--though she climbs my pant leg for the comfort of warm lap, still purrs,still races through rooms chasing ghostsof chipmunks she’s sniped for eighteen years. I wrap my hand around the tiny cage of her heart,caress thin bones through tented skin. Perhapsone night completely weightless she will fly away.

2.

I swallow hard,help hold you downupon a small red quilt.

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Plasticize Me

My sweetie flinched to hear me say I’d give my body to a med school, teaching tool for cutting open, even welcome how they’d saw my skull apart, expose my brain. Forced to admit the flame or burial was small improvement, she--just having seen Bodyworlds--offered plasticizing as a compromise, and I was quick to agree, delighting at the possibilities of poses for my stripped-to-basics self and looking forward to the chance to stay in frozen action past my exit line. Should I be runner, arms pumping, legs bent? Or the opposite: reader, sprawled in a chair? I could be spread-legged and beating my chest in the bedroom, Tarzan, mouthing a silent whoop. Maybe a lawn ornament, on one leg, pink flamingo updated. The foyer’s coat- and hatrack, fingers splayed invitingly? Or, a dish in bony hands, the usual servant at the sink. But then I realized only one pose would do: me in some corner of the house hunched over a piece of paper, caught in mid-scribble, mid-scratch, a real, unplasticized pen my link to the world, just like now, this flesh surrounding me all misdirection, coverup, a little Buddhist dew.

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THE COUNTRY OF GHOSTS After sixty years I came back to the country of ghosts; in sixty years I will still be a ghost. In Poland we were poor and superstitious like the Poles, in Germany arrogant and meticulous. But in Prague and Bratislava our ghosts were set free to play Mozart, read Freud, be Kafka— even Einstein. Then the buildings and streets were set free of us, even the Old New Synagogue is free. Every alley and restaurant was scrubbed clean of us, of the stink and the beauty of us. But there’s plenty of room for one more of us free in the country of ghosts.

MiCHAEl SAlCMAN

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CAROlyN FERRARi

Heather MacPherson - Worcester, Massachusetts.......................................................1Steve Klepetar - Saint Cloud, Minnesota ........................................................................2Sarah Kennedy-Vaillant - Ann Arbor, Michigan ..........................................................3Laura LeHew - Eugene, Oregon .......................................................................................4Phil Gruis - Sandpoint, Idaho ...........................................................................................5Jon Ballard - Oxford, Michigan .........................................................................................7Rena Sherwood - Clifton Heights, Pennsylvania ..........................................................7Charlotte Otten - Grand Rapids, Michigan ...................................................................8M. L. Cordle - Rosedale, Virginia .....................................................................................9Marc Harshman - Wheeling, West Virginia .................................................................10Caroline Maun - Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan ...........................................................11Brent Fisk - Bowling Green, Kentucky ..........................................................................11Janean Williams - Copper Hill, Virginia .........................................................................13Victoria Elizabeth - San Diego, California .....................................................................14Cheri L. R. Taylor - Canton, Michigan ...........................................................................15John Yamrus - Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania ................................................................16David Mayombwe - Kampala, Uganda ............................................................................17Judith Jacobs - Ann Arbor, Michigan ..............................................................................18, 27, 32, 50Mike Lane - Delafield, Wisconsin ....................................................................................19Sarah Schwartz - South Orange, New Jersey ................................................................21Justin Harris - Waterford, Michigan ...............................................................................22, 23, 43Gina M. Tabasso - Brunswick, Ohio ................................................................................24Corey Ginsberg - North Miami, Florida ........................................................................25Gary J. Erwin - Oxford, Michigan ...................................................................................28Susan J. Case - New York, New York...............................................................................33K. D. Elizabeth - Location Pending ..................................................................................35Philip Dacey - New York, New York ...............................................................................36Cindy Childress - Lafayette, Louisiana ............................................................................37Laurence W. Thomas - Ypsilanti, Michigan ..................................................................38Mark Jackley - Sterling, Virginia .....................................................................................39Lauren Hudgins - Sakura, Japan .......................................................................................40, 41, 46 Alan Elyshevitz - East Norton, Pennsylvania ...............................................................42Jason Lee Brown - Carbondale, Illinois ...........................................................................44Carol Firth - Sacramento, California ...............................................................................46Maurice Oliver - Portland, Oregon ..................................................................................47Janann Dawkins - Ann Arbor, Michigan ........................................................................48John R. Greenwood - Naperville, Illinois ......................................................................48Janie Hofmann -Vancouver, BC, Canada ........................................................................51Alex Cigale - New York, New York .................................................................................52Michael Salcman - Baltimore, Maryland ........................................................................54Linda King - Vancouver, BC, Canada...............................................................................55Carolyn Ferrari - Detroit, Michigan ................................................................................56

Poets and Artists