Word Picture

by Kevin R. Carr

A man walks

 and stops

A man sees

 old shoes

 on pavement

A man strides

 early evening

 toward distant

 shadow trees

A man steps

 on grass

 gazing from

 deep places

 in thought

A man enters

 leafy shade

 staring inward

 and wonders

 what missing

 things are

A night stretches

 ever deep

 draws emotion

 from wells

 dead calm

 oil smooth

 iron cold

A man touches

 gnarled wood

 sagging branches

 humid soft

 waving heavy

 sodden weight

A man wades

 grasping weeds

 tangled feet

 slow advance

 intense quiet

A man sits

 watching weary

 halting movement

 feeling still

A man looks

 out under

 gray gloom

A man rises

 and walks

 KRC(1996)

Note to Self

by Jefferson Hansen

when a wish
can fall to dust
and a cry spindles
up into the grey

my answer
needs to be —

I am here, now

Two Drawings

by Walter Savage

Jazz

At First Glance

 Jazz was done entirely with Sharpie colored pens and At First Glance, pen and Sharpies. 

__________________________________

W. Jack Savage is a retired broadcaster and artist who now writes and draws full time. He is the author of six books and uses his art to design the covers of each (wjacksavage.com.) Jack is a St. Paul native and graduate of Brown Institute, Mankato State University and received a Master's Degree in Telecommunications and Film at California State University Los Angeles, where he taught film studies for six years. He and his wife Kathy (from Edina) live in Monrovia, California.

from "Espials"

9

by Felino Soriano

your capItalized logic

seers scented entropy

into paradigms of internal

signatures, the others’ and

their theories impose overweight

constructs immutable in

comparative concerts—the

tones—all very interpretive

interesting intimate as

the images of hands on

sounds, grasping communication

in the warming of interrogating

rhythms

___________________________

Felino Antonio Soriano’s work finds its foundation in created coöccurrences, predicated on his strong connection to various idioms of jazz music.  His poetry appears in varied publications with recent poetry collections including Of these voices (whitesky ebooks, 2013) Pathos|particular invocation (Fowlpox Press, 2013), Extolment in the praising exhalation of jazz (Kind of a Hurricane Press, 2013), and the collaborative volume with poet, Heller Levinson and visual artist, Linda Lynch, Hinge Trio (La Alameda Press, 2012).  He lives in California with his wife and family and is the director of supported living and independent living programs providing supports to adults with developmental disabilities. Links to his published and forthcoming poems, books, interviews, images, etc. can be found at www.felinoasoriano.info.

The Altered Scale Blog Will Cease Publication on 12/31

The Altered Scale Blog will cease publication on December 31, 2013. It has served its purpose in terms of getting AlteredScale.com off the ground.

AlteredScale.com will continue as an annual. The next publication date is September, 2014. Submissions are open until the end of May, 2014.

on top of ol' amoeba

by Jefferson Hansen

 

DeadBait & LiveMeat

by Dan Ryan

Desolate solitude

on the far side of something terrible.

Apparitions of poverty creep in.

Doubt creeps in.

Que es la vida – what is life?

La vida es dolorosa – life is pain (Noble Truth #1)

To make matters worse

     The dog ate my homework and the pig ate my pizza

I suffer from ortographobia

     Yet pursue inner peace through impulse purchasing

                                                             I fear all

good deeds lead to heaven which doesn’t

exist I’m worried about that Where

will I go when everything turns

black and I can’t lo       cate

my manifest destin     y

The church promi

ses a free gps pre

-programmed to

god               but

I don’t attend Do

I tempt fate Wh

at should I do

when you

consider

every

ones

fate

is

to

be

com

e a co

rpse ac

cording to

Kobo Daishi

                      ?  

Concept Score #32

Concept Score #32

poem by Jake Marmer

piano improvisation based on poem by Alon Nechushtan

the line of thought

red

    clown-like

slips  if only

to embrace its diplopia

both hands

playing windshield, what

you, earnestly, discussed as ground

rules, arrangements, anonymity

                  chopped evenly with serrated

breath,

then

                  looking for ideas

you’re tracing

the backwash

like an oceanographer

___________________________

Jake Marmer is a poet and performer. His poetry-music-improv record Hermeneutic Stomp (Blue Thread Records) was released in 2013, and first poetry collection, Jazz Talmud, was published by Sheep Meadow Press in 2012. Currently a doctoral candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center, he frequently contributes to the Forward and Tablet Magazine, and has recently co-hosted North America’s first Jewish Poetry retreat at the KlezKanada Festival. For more information, see http://jakemarmer.wordpress.com.

Alon Nechushtan is a NJ-based pianist whose album ‘Words Beyond’ (Buckyball Records) won the Independent music awards Best Jazz Album of the Year in 2012.

The Empty Bell

by Howie Good

No spring this evening

It is indeed autumn that returns

Face diluted in water

The lights are all out

Nothing stays anymore

Not a footprint

Nothing but blue spots in the corner of a sheet

The color which night decomposes

Rise up carcass and walk

Source: Index of first lines in Pierre Reverdy, Selected Poems (1969)

Kawa-uso

by Holly Day

the otter in the

water chirps soft

in time to the movements of  its

body as it holds tight with its nails

to the rocks to keep

from being swept away by the rain.

it has made its home in

the dark corner of

the river, here, where the rocks hide

long gray crayfish

tails curled beneath their bodies as if

to hide

the parts that taste best.

_____________________________

Holly Day is a housewife and mother of two living in Minneapolis, Minnesota who teaches needlepoint classes for the Minneapolis school district and writing classes at The Loft  Literary Center. Her poetry has recently appeared in Hawai’i Pacific Review, Slant, and The Tampa Review, and she is the 2011 recipient of the Sam Ragan Poetry Prize fromBarton College. Her most recent published books are "Walking Twin Cities" and "Notenlesen für Dummies Das Pocketbuch."