Review of Vanished Roads By Melanie Medved

 Review of Vanished Roads By Melanie Medved

Buy 

I thought Thomas L. Vaultonburg's new collection of poems was going to stay with me for an afternoon, which is how long it took me to devour his latest publication, “Vanished Roads.” Instead, it's been lingering for two weeks now, in the way the first Autumn night air settles into your bones. It’s just sitting there, thick with emotional residue and meaning, while I struggle to succinctly put into words just how stellar the collection is.

Vaultonburg has been a favorite of mine for years. Following his literary career through everything from darker poetry to children's books and fiction, I've witnessed him move effortlessly between genres and forms. He has a strong ability to shapeshift as a writer, yet maintain his track record of consistent excellence in all genres. I was looking forward to his collection of haiku/short-form poetry, waiting to see if he could once again knock it out of the park. He has.

From the opening poem, which arrives not like a leaf drifting onto the page, but like a train waking you up in the night, Vaultonburg announces his poetic intention immediately— You’re going to feel something as you read these poems. The first three lines introduce a pattern he will use often throughout the book— most often staying true to the concept of traditional haiku using a central subject in nature (in this case, wind and bamboo) and adding a few perfectly chosen words to assign it an emotional impact (this time, human emotional frailty and ennui) that often jumps out at the reader with layers of meaning. He writes:

wind through bamboo

I too

Am hollow.

Then, after announcing himself and his arrival, without hesitation, he rolls up his sleeves and trudges off in old boots into the colorful territory: dawn, peonies, the evening rain, deer, wolf tracks and more. Quietly threading the beautiful natural landscapes we all encounter each day, with the fragile emotional territory of grief, regret, loneliness, and hope— one after the other, painting them together in a style that is somehow both bold and vivid and soft and gentle at the same time— Vaultonburg is like the Van Gogh of poetry.

Though his subjects are universally relatable, they are still deeply personal, as evident early on pages 8 and 9, when he writes about the passing of two family members in a way that made me ache with empathy and understanding. Those feelings accumulate with each page, and nearly every haiku hits hard. By the final page you’re sitting there with the wind knocked out of you, not by a hurricane, but by a light spring rain. The weight of his tiny gray book is difficult to shake, in the best possible ways.

A bonus is that it felt like a two-in-one book: poetry combined with Buddhist wisdom. Many writers try hard to “teach” lessons, and while Vaultonburg wasn’t even trying, he landed quite a few with ease:

bee in the window

I open it

for both of us

(page 30)

He has a subtle yet strong way of showing how our lives intersect with the natural world, and the impact each can have on the other. He saves a bee, and in doing so, he’s sparing a small piece of himself. Those everyday sadnesses of trapped bees lie in juxtaposition with hope and happiness on the pages. “Wheat fields ablaze with joy” and prairie winds that steal hats are felt just as strongly through his curated words. He writes of dharma and dragonflies opposite a page which encourages the reader to:

Ask the snow

to forgive you—

then leave no trail

Last but not least, another highlight are the illustrations by his writing partner Tré, whose tiny pen-and-ink style drawings show up at just the right time and place to add another beautiful layer to the already outstanding book. The two have proven they are a powerhouse before in their combined haiku/illustration book, “Moonscape,” and it is just as magical to see little glimpses of her art show up here in his solo volume.

In summary, this is truly some of the most recent memorable poetry I’ve experienced in years. After closing this book, I felt like I’d discovered something for the first time. My mind went back to third grade when I first read Carl Sandburg’s poem “Fog.” 40 years and thousands of poems later, it’s hard to recapture the joy that I felt in that classroom of my first favorite poem, and yet, Thomas Vaultonburg has handed me that joy again with “Vanished Roads.” His strict inventory of words, ability to capture single snapshots in time, and his ability to produce a book this wise without a single trace of pretention should be embraced and applauded by old and new fans of poetry alike.

Poems By Giorgia Stavropoulou

Giorgia Stavropoulou is a poet, writer of absurdist fiction and a former clinical psychotherapist trained in systems theory and Lacanian psychoanalysis. She was born in Athens, Greece but raised in a bilingual home in multilingual Belgium, and now lives in Southern California. Her work has appeared in City (Journal of South Asian Literature), Journey Curves Anthology 1: writers reading in Athens, Zombie-Logic, Out-of-Print magazine, Clockwise Cat and Entropy. She also holds postgraduate degrees in Anthropology, South-Asian languages and literatures and Creative Writing (Manchester Metropolitan University).

Giorgia Stavropoulou

hurricanes of fire

deep

under the sleepless

black soil

of the pacific ocean

a spur

puffing itself up

ignited

by your dead heart

beating in

arrhythmic rocks

stones

dwelling in alchemical lakes

of cobalt & amphibian 

in these dead waters

aquatic flames

of frozen fire

thinking themselves more alive

like unborn placenta

they want to form a human hand

they want reach out of the dark

in black lotus movements

ploughing through pale or

nostalgic corals

picture submarines at full speed

or fighter jets circling above gigantic tremors of salt

there are warships moving full speed ahead in the pacific 

their mission?

to inspect 

dwarf suns

being born

at 36 000 under

from a womb of archaic fire

suns

accompanied by

seventy-seven underwater 

blizzards

with turquoise-lightening sparking off in murdered water

and vibrations encapsulating the whales of regret

yes it thunders 

my friend 

deep down in the pacific ocean

isn’t your floor trembling and shaking?

hasn’t water told you

how exhausted it really is?

sea salt is plotting its next step

but don't worry

just take another sip

from your cocktail

at manhattan beach

while you still can

because

at your horizon

the polymorph perverse

hurricanes of fire began their ritual eruption

swallowing the disheveled pigeons of desire 

blurring the neat divisions

between above and below

you know

monsieur 

there’s a demon

inside you

waiting

to rearrange  

your plastic organs 

only $2.50 

india

an ant colony of shades of brown

in banaras

at the shores of the holy ganges

where corpses are crisp

and human ashes are mistaken for the heavens

an american breakfast is only $2.50

the view you get for free

bon appetite

no need to tip 

in black city’s invisible auschwitz

in black city’s

invisible auschwitz

i meet the angel of death

about to execute jazz music

my eyelashes adorned

with electroshocks

and my legs open:

clitoris erect

i sit like a real man

my corpse marching  

on whole notes

and half notes

when prison guards

mechanically

behead themselves

with samurai swords

and sound waves

attach themselves

onto my silicon skin

like termites

wriggling melodically

into my pubic hair

when my liver

escorts improvisation

to resurrect itself

when that happens

mermaids armed with condoms

and automatic rifles

will swim through the soft music

of city lights

staring at burning butchers

and all suns will

hold their breath

while the color red

sets foot again

in black buildings

and giant spiders

will menstruate on my hands

female robots

will burst out

in loud laughter

their silver teeth dancing

in bordeaux blue ecstasy

(hysteria gone overboard)

till the butchers

are finally buried

then the sirens will

piss out of joy

on their graves

and bob kaufman

will recite seven of

his jail poems

in black city’s

invisible auschwitz

Five Poems By David Spicer

David Spicer has poems in Santa Clara Review, Reed Magazine, Synaeresis, Hamilton Stone Review, Alcatraz, Gargoyle, Yellow Mama, Flatbush Review, Circle Show, The Phoenix, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. He is the author of Everybody Has a Story and five chapbooks; his latest chapbook is From the Limbs of a Pear Tree (Flutter Press).

DANCING WITH ANGER

for the Purple Bike Lady

Tell me, friend, is Australia angry?

America is. I don’t know why—it has everything:

natives’ stolen land,

enslaved black people,

brown children separated from their parents,

despised yellow people laying ties.

The lynched are angry—their ghosts haunt our history.

Tycoons are angry. I don’t know why—they’re billionaires.

Yes, I do.

Anger, do you have daddy issues?

Do you wake up red-faced every morning

because he favored your brother Jealousy

with his purple-green face?

Did he egg on your sister Fear to boss you?

Did you ever try to please him and couldn’t,

so pimples grew on your cheeks?

Do you adore your cousin Revenge, Anger?

Do you have a heart that’s made of testosterone?

Someone told me Anger is bad for my heart.

My heart isn’t angry.

My brain’s angry.

Angrier than white men losing power.

Angry as innocent inmates with jackal mentors.

Angrier than hungry farmers.

Angry as a girl trapped in a boy’s body.

Angrier than an amputated marathoner.

Angry, like caterpillars sacrificed for butterflies.

Angrier than mothers who’ve buried ten children.

Angry as the man trapped on the moon because he’s lonely.

The man in the moon had a family.

Sometimes I’m angry I don’t get laid enough. That saddens me,

more than a melting chocolate ice cream-ginger-ale float.

more than gazing at the Guernica figures contorted

and cubed in their shades of sad silver, immortal.

Why do you exist, Anger?

Are you Love’s surrogate?

I was born angry, I arrived in the doctor’s cupped hands

ass first just before he spanked it.

But that pissed me off less than my old man’s belt slapping my

butt bending over the bathtub.

Did you have anything to do with that, Anger?

It hurt worse than my mother making me kiss a cactus.

I love you, Anger.

You’ve led me into the clouds like a zeppelin.

I can breathe you, Anger, guiding me, a kite over the Burj Khalifa.

I love an angry woman, too.

Anger’s kept her heart pumping like an overheated generator.

She lives for tomorrow to kiss her like no man can.

Have you looked forward in Anger?

I love you, Anger.

You’ve helped me survive like a commando in quicksand.

He was pure then, a long-haired chanteuse with an eight-girl band,

jet-black hair flowing like Niagara Falls at midnight

with the man in the moon watching.

By the way, the man in the moon’s still angry at the sun

for stealing his light.

Poor man in the moon.

Anger, will you plant a smacker on his mouth sometime?

Will you lead me to the confessional

and help me forgive my little brother’s molester?

Guide me to holy water that tastes like grace?

Anger, I’m done dancing with you:

not another cha-cha about my mama,

no more twists of my psyche—

we’ve tangoed too many times.

You’ve possessed me long enough, my man,

King of the blues guitar I’ve played all my life.

a n t e l o p e

Over poker a hunter told a tall tale:

I knew a woman so fast she was never late

She said she wouldn’t have a wedding just elope

The next guy decided to up the ante

Well, I loved a woman so fast she’d peel

off her clothes in 15 seconds with a rose petal

I passed and rubbed my head like a teen-

age handyman who can’t find his plate

compacter much less his duct tape

The lean blonde dealer with smooth skin tone

said, Guys, I’m so fast you didn’t hear my cards pant

foreman 

Everybody on the assembly line believed in Ramon

the boss we all liked with his legendary name

King of the hours and lord of this bottle factory manor

when he recited a prayer we chanted an Amen

Ramon our burly master of the conveyor belt form

solving personnel problems far and near

We asked to work less he wanted more

we whined then relented out of fear

Sometimes we clacked bottles and he rocked out the clock from

his hellraising heart and red guitar that bolted like a wild mare 

After all Ramon was a roadie not a Ramone

q u e r u l o u s

To hear them tell it, I’m ugly, mean, and sour

as underwear soaked in pickle juice. Family lore

tells it that once I ate a long-stemmed rose

because my wife said I didn’t know what eros

meant. They all laugh at me, call me a user,

but every one of them has a stinking soul

that smells like a tarred-and-feathered louse.

Yes, I whine like a beat-up punk, I fret, but I rule,          

pouty patriarch I am, aware of my role.

I’m the King of Sore, that’s for damn sure,

and when I’m happy, they call me Loser.

j a c k k n i f e

i carry it whether i’m in a café

or in a bath house with my fiancé

i feel safe as a birthday cake not fake

like a clod named Bobby Jack

whose face was a mask of gravel-acne

he knew I knew he was a fink

then one day he kicked my dog Jane

in her big tummy with his red Nike

i said man that wasn’t nice

you’re lucky you carry that cane

I aimed Skinny at his neck

Note: The preceding anagram poems were written in the style of

Terrance Hayes.