Paleontology By Meggie Royer

Paleontology

Imagine my husband resurrected as a mammoth,
his tusks fierce with the milk of marrow,
how the floorboards bow beneath him.
And I, like Saint Catherine of Siena,
trying to make up for all he has given us.
Each day I lessen.
Moon hanged over the field in a quiet panic,
one night my hipbones rise,
the next my shoulder blades.
Everything about me salt.
Catherine starved to death on communion wafers.
One day there will only be bones
for him to feed on,
myself
the new extinct.

By Meggie Royer 

Biography:

Meggie Royer
 is a writer and photographer from the Midwest who is currently majoring in Psychology at Macalester College. Her poems have previously appeared in Words Dance MagazineThe Harpoon ReviewMelancholy Hyperbole, and more. She has won national medals for her poetry and a writing portfolio in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and was the Macalester Honorable Mention recipient of the 2015 Academy of American Poets Student Poetry Prize.

sorry about the drunk texts but I By Lydia Wang

sorry about the drunk texts but I

i.
remember the first time you asked me out for coffee and i
pretended i did not get your message because i was too busy
coughing up ghosts and swallowing needles. i wear red lipstick
and walk down eighth street with music inside me so loud it
burns. i once wrote a poem about how everybody wants to visit
the haunted house but no one wants to live there, nobody wants
to kiss the girl who tastes like halloween.

ii.
used other people as mouthwash because yours
was the last mouth i touched and yeah you are rain
but you are the most beautiful kind of rain i think
and maybe it is because i am a mess with red lips but
i would rather have a thunderstorm than fluorescent light
and it is too bad you are emotionally unavailable
because the medicine doesn’t taste nearly as good
as the disease.

iii.
hate how boring other people are talking
about engineering school and their favorite
kind of cheap beer and someone slides his
hand under my dress, “we should go to the
coatroom,” tells me i’m pretty even with
the lights on and the haunted thing inside of me
chokes on the word no and god i do not want him
but girls like me are unlit cigarettes and
a light is a light and
he is here and you never are.

By Lydia Wang

Biography:

Lydia Wang is a writer, feminist, and caffeine enthusiast. Originally from Boston, she now lives in New York, where she studies creative writing and topics in social and cultural analysis at NYU. In her free time, she likes to spend too much money at the bookstore, rant about feminism, and fall in love with strangers on public transportation. Visit her online at poemsbylydia.tumblr.com.

Post-Racial By Scherezade Siobhan

Post-Racial

After Sandra Cisneros

You bring out the long haul of exile in me
blackballed bellows of sand nigger, spic, paki”
left to envelop the embargo;
the denomination of defile

in me

The double barrel of blaspheme claw-marking
these cross-hairs penciled between my brows
mouth shut like polished leather on
a gideon’s bible
The spittle of scripture now fermenting
its bile in me

Slaver. Oppressor. Other.

The barbed wire of electrocuted nights in me
These iron-fisted, shattered jaw fights in me
& know, – know I am not just a silhouette or
a statistic or scarehead — No!

This skull filled with tequila and tears in me
That jaguar’s clan; a toothed vernacular of
antiquity now inches slow spears, in me

knees skinned in prostrations to the firing
squad;— the hunted child of fear, in me

This mute cleansing, high-bred, blue-rimmed

Brother, you bring out the cutthroat
communist in me

The wheelbarrow tottering into a draught in me
The hammer rusted to the sun-bled of these wars
covertly fought in me

You bring out teenaged girls gang-raped by a police state
their torn vaginas, slit wrists in me

You bring out the tortured death of a pacifist in me

This is me. This is

You.

The same. Always. The same.

By Scherezade Siobhan

Biography:

Scherezade Siobhan is an Indo-Roma Spanish psychologist and writer. Her work has been published and/or is forthcoming in tnYPress, Black and Blue Writing, Bluestem, The Nervous Breakdown, Cordite Poetry Review, Words Dance, Electric Cereal, Winter Tangerine Review and others. Her first poetry collection “Bone Tongue” was released by Thought Catalog in 2015. She can be found at www.viperslang.tumblr.com/

Washed By Rain By Marie Anzalone

 Washed By Rain 

el sol llora para nosotros esta tarde

[the sun weeps for us this afternoon]

and all the laundresses in the land could haul these muddied shirts

     up to the washing place, and scrub them on the rocks until their knuckles bleed

         yet still not remove those stains we put on them today.

a blouse, just the width of a man’s spread fingers, palm flat, as if to strike a blow,

     the blow we do not dare turn on the ones holding rifles

                  to our machete wielding forms and figures.

Figures, then, silhouetted in flames, and another blouse, split up the front, in slices

         newly embroidered with a fresh application of fine scarlet along the jagged seam,

                       its owner’s unborn prize taken as a token of our passing.

Dios nos perdona manana, por lo que hicimos hoy

[God forgive us tomorrow for what we did today]

I wrap these images and sounds and places now in silence so deep

         three generations will not make me speak, ever, of the burning chapel smell

                   because the mind slips sideways when a man beholds the crookedness.

I learned today a knife carves arms like cornstalks, splits abdominals like a gourd skin

     into this, the land of maize and trees, were we led by los locuras-

        as men asked to do murderers’s deeds, for our state long after it abandoned us-

and I keep a remnant of a charred anciano’s shirt, solely for remembrance

       that you never know what you can do until demanded by a uniformed soldado

            holding a torch to your home and a knife to her throat.

Their work here is done, and the ashes settle into the afternoon sky

          soon the seasonal evening rains will wash the hallowed ground clean

               because when survival is tantamount, you no longer care that your side is right.

solo cuida lo que permita que exista un otro dia.

[you only care for what lets you exist another day]

I will ask my wife to take these pants to the laundry stone to fade the stains-

    and pray they never think that we support the guerilla here, but will tell my children

            about the place I know they can run to, just in case.

There is now a field of loose dirt in what used to be the neighbor’s town

          and there are probably none who will ever think to look there, again-

               for any trace of the living.

By Marie Anzalone

 

Biography:

Marie Anzalone currently splits her time between residences in New England and upstate NY in the United States and Guatemala in Central America. Originally from Appalachian Pennsylvania, she spent her early years studying ecology and nature first-hand in the woods around her home. She is an artist, scientist, writer, economics master’s degree candidate, avid outdoorswoman and start-up director of an international development non-profit organization. She has been published in human rights journals, scientific journals, and poetry anthologies. She writes fiction and non-fiction in both English and Spanish. She attempts in her writing to bridge the gap between real world influence and the individual’s inner journey to find spirit and meaning. Anzalone released two collections of poetry in 2014. Her debut collection is called A Pilgrimage in Epistles:: Poems as Letters and Observations. Her sophomore offering is titled Peregrinating North-South Compass Points: Poems in English and Spanish.

The Hands By Caitlyn Siehl

The Hands

Not so much the hands as what
one does with them.

Maya uses hers to braid her hair,
a soft ache in her arms by the time
she has finished.

Not so much the hands as what
fruit one peels.
Clementines. Grapefruit.
Pomegranate.
Hands to lips. Not so much
the hands as the feeding.

Maya kisses her mother with that
mouth,
leaves a trail of citrus behind her.

Not so much the hands as the
hunger.

Two open palms. Eager teeth.
A birthday cake and a boy’s eyes
on her blue dress.

The hands and the feasting.
She sits at a table and knows
what love looks like when it
has just eaten.
Fruit dripping from the
tongue like
spit from a rabid dog.

By Caitlyn Siehl

Biography:

Caitlyn Siehl is a poet from New Jersey. Currently finishing her senior year of college, she is going on to receive her Master’s degree in Communication at Rutgers University. She has published one book of poetry entitled What We Buried and has co-edited two poetry collections entitled Literary Sexts Volume 1 and Literary Sexts Volume II, all through Words Dance Publishing. She enjoys spicy Jalapeno chips and being surrounded by dogs at all times.

Submit Your Poetry

There are only 14 days remaining in the submission period for our May Issue. If you are interested in having your poetry evaluated for publication, browse our submission guidelines, and send us your best writing. We cannot wait to read your poetry!

The purpose of our review is to track the progression of modern social issues in real time. We believe the creation of socially conscious art builds communities, and allows us to reconcile the errors of our world.

Peace be with you always,

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Submissions Update

The Rising Phoenix Review is officially open for poetry submissions! Read our submission guidelines and submit your best writing. We cannot wait to read your poetry!

The purpose of our review is to track the progression of modern social issues in real time. We believe the creation of socially conscious art builds communities, and allows us to reconcile the errors of our world.

Our editors are extremely excited about the response surrounding the RPR! We have already accepted 20 poems for our May Issue, and we are eager to read more.

Peace be with you always,

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We are Officially Open for Submissions

In honor of National Poetry Month 2015, Rising Phoenix Poetry Press has launched The Rising Phoenix Review. The purpose of our review is to track the progression of modern social issues in real time. We believe the creation of socially conscious art builds communities, and allows us to reconcile the errors of our world.

Our review is officially open for submissions! If you believe your poetry is is compatible with our publication philosophy, take a look at our submission guidelines, and send us your work!

The submission period for our first issue will be April 1, 2015-April 30th, 2015. The publication lineup for our first issue with be announced during the first week of May.

We hope The Rising Phoenix Review will become a valued home for your work! Our staff can not wait to welcome you to the nest.

Sincerely,

-The RPR Editors

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