Leaf Garden Press

Hiatus Status

Leaf Garden Press is on an indefinite hiatus and is not accepting submissions or publishing new books.

The intention is to keep everything we've published online for as long as humanly possible.

If something on the site no longer works, please contact Robert by email at leafgardenpress@gmail.com with the exact subject line:

LEAF GARDEN PRESS CONTENT REQUEST

I should be able to fix the problem and ensure you find the content you're seeking.

Thank you to everyone who has supported Leaf Garden Press. We may come back someday, but if we don't, I still encourage you to explore the excellent books we've had the pleasure of publishing throughout the years.

Tigers in the Tall Grass, Panthers in the Street by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Now Available

from Leaf Garden Press

Tigers in the Tall Grass, Panthers in the Street

a full-length poetry collection

Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Get it:

Download or read online as a PDF for free on

Google Drive

Buy it for $0.99 cents at the

Amazon Kindle Store

Name-your-price eBooks at
Smashwords

Buy the print edition for $9.03+s&h at

Amazon*

* Amazon print prices sometimes vary

Pro-life Poem

Office illumination

perched on the incandescent

desk lamp precipice

talked down from jumping

by the janitorial

services

there are things to live for:

industrial vacuums in the dark

Memphis barbecue

pool skimmers with lizards living

in them…

The higher learning of schools

of fish.

And do not forget the sacrifice of aging stairwells.

Anything that goes down on office buildings

is fine in my books.

Creaky with arthritis.

The stapler joining paper in bent

matrimony.

While the garbage is emptied of its daily guts

so we can start again.

Picking at the Scabbard

Jubilant

let’s celebrate

a first class page

turner

rosy Renoir asthmatics

in line for the

puffer

confetti

streamers

euphoric placards

in colour

stone driveways

long as old hatreds

and just as intractable

by the sword

for the sword

so good to finally

meet you.

The only attempts on my life

have been made by me,

but there is still

time.

Now tell me a little bit about

yourself.

RYAN QUINN FLANAGAN is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Our Poetry Archive, Setu, Literary Yard, and The Oklahoma Review. His personal website is: http://ryanquinnflanagan.yolasite.com/

Two Books by Pyotr Patrushev

Now Available

from Leaf Garden Press

in association with Peganum Books

In association with Peganum Books, Leaf Garden Press is proud to simultaneously present two books from the same author. From the late Pyotr Patrushev comes two extremely insightful volumes.

First, The Transcendent Ape, a study of evolution and the human condition.

Second, Buddha's Balalaika, a collection of his humorous satire, essays, reflection on life in Russia, and his poetry all in one place.

For those unfamiliar with Pyotr, I strongly recommend introducing yourself by watching a short documentary series about his swim from the Soviet Union to Turkey in search of his freedom.

The Man Who Swam From Russia:

And of course, pick up these books and Project Nirvana: How The War On Drugs Was Won, a novel published by Leaf Garden Press a few years back.

Learn more about Pyotr Patrushev, his work, and his life at

http://www.pyotr-patrushev.com/

Buddha's Balalaika by Pyotr Patrushev

Now Available

from Leaf Garden Press

in association with Peganum Books

Buddha's Balalaika
collected humor, essays, glimpses into life in Russia, and poetry

Pyotr Patrushev

Get it:

Download or read online as a PDF for free on

Google Drive

Buy it for $0.99 cents at the

Amazon Kindle store

Buy the print edition for $8.53+s&h at

Amazon*

* Amazon print prices sometimes vary

“This collection of writings shows what a brilliant mind Pyotr Patrushev has – quirky, original and deep thinking. I am honored to have had him as my translator and delighted to read here more of his written legacy. This collection offers us a sample of the tremendous breadth of interests that he held. His stories demonstrate his great humanity, his humor, his warm heart and his unique world view. I commend them to you with the friendly warning that you will see the world a little differently after reading them.”

- Helena Cornelius,

Conflict Resolution Network

“Pyotr Patrushev, writer and translator, a man who made a dramatic escape by swimming across part of the Black sea when he was 20, a man who broadcast from the BBC and in Europe critically of the Soviet Union, a man once on a wanted list of the KGB, a man who sees himself as a peace maker and bridge builder between East and West. Pyotr's life-long search for meaning has taken him deeply into classical literature and into challenging, often painful self-analyses. His exploration led him from Christian Bible thorough the Transpersonal psychology schools of West coast USA to Daoism and the I Ching. When initiated by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1968 he was asked whether he wanted peace or knowledge. He replied: "both please"....Pyotr was invited to interpret for high-level conferences between, for example Soviet and American scientists and leaders in alternative medicine and spirituality…We hear a man holding a mirror at the events of his life to see what may be reflected there of the inner journey. Because of his insight I think you may find Pyotr Patrushev a most illuminating story teller as he lets us have a glimpse into his search of meaning.”

- Caroline Jones AO,

Australian radio and television journalist

PYOTR PATRUSHEV worked for the BBC in London and as a science writer in Munich and San Francisco. He published numerous articles in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian and worked for the Australian radio and television.

He is the author of 4 books: Project Nirvana, Sentenced to Death, a memoir about his escape from Russia to Turkey (published in Russia in 2005), The Transcendent Ape, and Buddha's Balalaika (collected writings 1964-2014). Find more about the life and work of Pyotr on the web at http://pyotr-patrushev.com/

The Transcendent Ape by Pyotr Patrushev

Now Available

from Leaf Garden Press

in association with Peganum Books

The Transcendent Ape
An evolutionary journey through religion, mysticism, cults, and other human foibles

Pyotr Patrushev

Get it:

Download or read online as a PDF for free on

Google Drive

Buy it for $0.99 cents at the

Amazon Kindle store

Buy the print edition for $7.93+s&h at

Amazon*

* Amazon print prices sometimes vary

"I describe the human predicament in the bigger framework of evolutionary history: that of a mammal and a primate who was subjected to extraordinary selective pressures that led to his survival in the current form, with the potential for genocide and ecocide, as well as for the highest artistic and intellectual achievement."

- Pyotr Patrushev

"This is a Big History of humanity’s inner predicament under the microscope, shining a sharp, personal, often humorous and sympathetic light on the foibles and follies of religion, mysticism and cults as well as on several millennia of constructive ratiocination about the human condition. Were Darwin alive, he could not have suppressed a gentle chuckle."

- Professor Peter King,

University of Sydney

"Pyotr Patrushev, writer and translator, a man who made a dramatic escape [across part of the Black sea] from Siberia when he was 20, a man who broadcast from the BBC and in Europe critically of the Soviet Union, a man once on a wanted list of the KGB, a man who sees himself as a peace maker and bridge builder between East and West. Pyotr's life-long search for meaning has taken him deeply into classical literature and into challenging, often painful self-analyses. His exploration led him from Christian Bible thorough the Transpersonal psychology schools of West coast USA to Daoism and the I Ching. When initiated by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1968 he was asked whether he wanted peace or knowledge. He replied: "both please". And long after leaving the Transcendental Meditation he still cherishes those seemingly contradictory hopes...Pyotr was invited to interpret for high-level conferences between, for example Soviet and American scientists and leaders in alternative medicine and spirituality…We hear a man holding a mirror at the events of his life to see what may be reflected there of the inner journey. Because of his insight I think you may find Pyotr Patrushev a most illuminating story teller as he lets us have a glimpse into his search of meaning."

- Caroline Jones,

Australian radio and television journalist

Restless Vanishings by John Michael Flynn

Now Available

Restless Vanishings

poems by

John Michael Flynn

Get it:

Download or read online as a PDF for free on

Google Drive

Name-your-price eBooks (most formats) at

Smashwords

Buy it for $0.99 cents at the

Amazon Kindle store

Buy the print edition for $6.20+s&h at

the CreateSpace eStore*

Buy the print edition for $6.20+s&h at

Amazon**

* Sales from the CreateSpace eStore bring slightly more funds to LGP, which helps with operation costs.

** Amazon print prices sometimes vary, often in the buyer's favor.

Wheels And Blades

As I wheel her about hoping for trust
her occasional smile
becomes conversion enough
to compassion bolder than religion.
When I greet her parents,
their faces flexing through the strain
of compromise and exigency,
I hear no claim from them of anything final,
no answer beyond unconditional care,
having long ago accepted their daughter’s tantrums,
vastness of loss, memories of her fall,
the bleak poems she scrawls by candle light.

When alone again she shares a rare confession.
Messengers in the stars
preach love will not conquer ignorance.
She admits to not always believing those stars.
Later, we watch on television
silken limbs of ice skaters spinning.
How she laughs until in tears
when my left shoe sticks to gum on the floor.
I expect her to say that now I know how she feels.
There is no such remark, only long silence.
She asks, at last, if I will roll her to bed.
She wants to dream of cutting a figure eight.

Mister Westall’s Good Knife

In his pocket, in his hand
trust a man
who fears a blade
he adores.
A man who fathers
the neighborhood
when others cannot.
With the largest hands
you’ve ever seen
and a laugh that scares you
more than the basement
stairs at night.
Radiant, sanguine
smiling man who fills
the puny galaxies
of your boyhood ambition.

We returned
from a fishing trip
in Gloucester
with a trash barrel
full of haddock and cod.
I climbed into his truck
tried to pull it out.
His sea-filled eyes gleamed.
He lifted that barrel
as if it was empty.
Let me drag it with him
to a backyard table.
Let me help. Me
of all people
cleaning fish, dodging
flies in the sun

worthy of his good knife.

JOHN MICHAEL FLYNN taught for one year, 2015, as an English Language Fellow for the U.S. State Department at the Far Eastern State University in Khabarovsk, Russia. His poetry collections include Keepers Meet Questing Eyes, and Moments Between Cities. In 1998 he earned the Erika Mumford Prize from the New England Poetry Club. A resident of Virginia, find him on the web at www.basilrosa.com.

Ironclad Beta For The Coming PPV by CEE

Now Available

Ironclad Beta For The Coming PPV

poems by

CEE

FULL COLOR EDITION:

Buy the print edition for $9.35+s&h at

the CreateSpace eStore*

Buy the print edition for $9.35+s&h at

Amazon**

BLACK AND WHITE EDITION:

Buy the print edition for $5.38+s&h at

the CreateSpace eStore*

Buy the print edition for $5.38+s&h at

Amazon**

* Sales from the CreateSpace eStore bring slightly more funds to LGP, which helps with operation costs.

** Amazon print prices sometimes vary, often in the buyer's favor.

Ironclad Beta for the Coming PPV was initially published as an eBook with a now defunct publisher.
Due to rights conflicts, LGP cannot release any eBook editions and there are no free or name your price options available. Sorry.

American ingenuity, provides a ROYGBIV, the entire bell-space of probability. End result? Utter stasis. Beating hearts, yearning souls, anxious fight fans, angry citizens, don’t like that at all.

CEE’s latest, Ironclad Beta For The Coming PPV, gives us The Battle Royale of our first Civil War, Monitor vs. Merrimac, iconography from a twain nation, as test run. Mock-up. First take and first rehearsal. What happens when differing equals, unbridled, meet.

The dark and terrible visage of Today’s Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean, portends horrors, but beyond her eyes, 29 representations of vintage postcards—most, The Battle of Hampton Roads, once heralded as “the historical event most often depicted.” These and others, each set against the punching verse of CEE, provide perspective to the Pay-Per-View of our gathering storm. Visual antiquity, giving each in turn a thousand words, before the poet, counterpointing, provides his. Utilizing the most famous stalemate in American history, our object lesson, is “equality”--its elasticity, its puzzle and riddle. Dealt with, via post-Gilded Age imagery and post-80’s cynicism. Heraldry, deeply personal, thrown as carnival barker’s opinion…and as future choice.

Unwinnable slaughter, no matter demo, proto, Crash Test Armies, beckons, Three-Card Monte. Ironclad Beta For The Coming PPV, is a chalk talk of our Past, demonstrating the best-case scenario for the Cold War of Two Americas: an inept, drunken bar fight between 1862 Battlebots. Colorful, existential, beautiful, snarky, Edwardian and Milleresque. High drama. A tribute to Fight Night. A cautionary tale. Jeer and dare. Poet Knows Best.

In the final throwdown, at the last bell, what stays disaster, is but personal, human restraint. As ever, the poet holds little hope for Man, but presents his analysis, his suggestions, in Ironclad Beta For The Coming PPV, a Special Feature (with Easter eggs!), for our very last Main Event.

“Hey, CEE…are you part of the solution, or part of the problem?”

“I’m part of the problem…but, at least I’ll tell you what The Solution, is.”
—CEE, from “The Language of Imagination”, 2011, Luver.com

Civil war window (Godzilla, 3/8/1862)

The Merrimac blew the mightiest men o’ war
To tatters, at Hampton Roads
A few hours later,
The Cabinet Room is in flip-out mode
It’s Armageddon, End of Day, End of the World
It’s War of the Worlds, and the Confederates
Own a Martian fighting machine
That could make the Union disappear
In a lot of lights
Richard Burton narrating
As “Forever Autumn” blats sadly,
The Merrimac rearing up all Toho,
“REEEE-eeAHHII-EeeaaAAH…!!”
Top American sober politicos, all ready go peepee
Disgusting, annoying
Me no get
But, then again,
When I got up on 9/11 and played my messages,
I snorted, erased them, and went back to sleep

‘1’, is the most violent number that you ever are

When comparison gives way to contrast,
Screw what you’ve been fed
That’s when the grapeshot
That’s when Norman Vincent Peale, takes a piss break
And Star Wars and Star Trek fans
Are WWE, faces
“Tastes great!, Less filling!”, an elbow joke to teach
Potatoes or stuffing, an area where a person’s
Very existence is threatened
That’s the Unfriend, nonfriend, in social tickle of faces,
“Who ARE You?!” Other asks Other as anOther
“Asks” being PC for “throwing down, Harley dude”
Diversity, has an Emotional Seating Capacity of
One (1)
Two (2)
gods, is intolerable
anOther, from motherboards, is an “opponent”
If It isn’t,
Why isn’t It You?

CEE is an unstable element, which cannot exist outside the laboratory. CEE is human memoir, in the form of manifestos. CEE is a sociopath, who wishes you could love. CEE is a figment of what you don't know you don't know. He used to be a dream of the dolphin, but the dolphin decided it didn’t like him.