Poems by Joshua Martin

STUDDED HOLE IN THE WALL

twisted ciphers undulate
chopped potato deer hooves

released ponder shirt tail
wonderful asparagus rifle
stunted wet miscreant
homeless unto lozenges

throat clenches photographs
wafting haystack crashing
timed beauty altar
crab witness guarantee
lumber fleeing camaraderie
relish microphone theatricality
slogging forward avenue spittle

chortled loyal partygoers
punch drunk dribbling

laudable paradox pier
not yet hot raw & seldom
wrinkled nose proverb
candlewax infinity cross

waterspout lookalike vinegar
train pulls into burnt landscape

already superimposed skillset
aimless bombastic magician
slamming mallet childhood
a canyon risen between greed

fallen paragraph bubble crown
oceanside mistletoe wraith

misery loves happenstance


AQUAMARINE SUBLIMINAL ILLUSTRATIONS 

dust the thorough magnetic trousers
busying blossom champagne crusts
stunned like kangaroos
left in wooded bookbinding hut

clarity of a mountain mangled
over Soviet montage flippers
wearied insatiable ticking
release pole-vaulted fingernails
unsteadily mopping galactic avocados

wimpy a whispering carousel
the lawn ornament coughing
to reward mischief sneaking
resourceful yet backlogged

blue then shorn
must have figured handpicking
sorting hot air balloon snot
once soaked in microwave brunch
regretfully administering moles

achievement hands bask
dripping panorama
wandering yippee lunch wraths
stone-faced until chapped
fusing lips into clouds

Poems by Stephen Bett

INFRA LASTING

If it’s infrathin it’s gotta be well short
of “infrasimilar”

As gurl to grrl…

Same diff, or not really?
(an A’muricanISM)

Go teach your grandmother
to suck electric prunes (dear)
(masquerading in the fridge?)

This crew at sea —
[We’re] not ready to face the light
[We] had too much to dream
Last night

Think dream, sailor
If thinkin’ could be dreamin’
(more than a thin diff)
wch aint for real, that
boat sailed

Well, I told you once an’ I told you twice…

InfraTHIN’s “the very lastness of things
… [a] frail and final minimum before
reality disappears”

(Bang, homesteader)

This could be the last time…
Oh, no Oh, no-o-o

So darlin’, save the last dance
… us mincing ones

It’ll put your duplicitous reel
on edge


Notes: The Electric Prunes, “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)”; Rolling Stones, “The Last Time”; The Drifters, “Save the Last Dance for Me”; Re: “the very lastness”— see Paul Matisse footnote to “Inhabiting the Sound Gaps”; Re: “the real” as duplicitous—see Robin Blaser’s essay on Spicer, “The Practise of Outside”; David Dowker introduces us to his (?) term “infrasimilar” in his poem “The Information Paradox” (Dissonance Engine)


M LETTERED READY FOR USE

Last night
Thinkin bout las’ night…

It was reel it back in

It was She-e-e-e-e-e-ry, Sherry bay-yay-bEE

It was mincing up airy-fairy & fiery
— Oh no, oh no, you’re gonna b-u-u-rn! —
right down to the lastest glittery ember

It was rolling round the roses Rosie
mein frau dug infraRED out of sight

It was won’t you come out tonight
pyre higher & higher on a magiK
red-hot-wire carpet flier

It was Sher-err-erry airheads flambée
bloodstains track the hall of miЯRors
(It were nowhere Rreal womyn’d done gone)

It was Sailor Grrl cresting adrift
our on·lie the lone·lie muse, feisty
M lettered ready for USE

Notes: The Traveling Wilburys, “Last Night”; Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons; Arthur Brown, “Burn”

Poems by Stacy Black

BY CHANCE OR NATURE’S CHANGING COURSE UNTRIMM’D

You ride an ordinary wave of pain.
You live. Others
are annihilated

by aliens, by love, by the government.
You read your fortune in an alley
in a dried splatter of gunk:

You’ll be going away on a long trip!
You pack your life into a cardboard box
going soft at the corners,

tape it all up and take it into the attic
where there are no days or nights.
You live. You marry

the first mannequin you meet.
Your life together lasts a long time, waiting
for the mail to come.


OBLIVION

Experts predict California to burn again this year
because California is beautiful that is its destiny
or so I’m told
by everybody, the movies and ancient scrolls

I have spent my life unearthing from beneath your sleeping form
like an angel beached on the shores of this world.
I live in a city with a medium-high amount of murder
and violent crime,

far away from the sea.
You can talk about love if you want.
Or New York, I guess.


POSTERITY

You were there, slipping
through time and space
and wiping the white dust

of antiquity from your phone
as Rome burned and doctors
began bleeding George Washington.

You tried telling him about
his great white obelisk,
and how there’d come a time

when no one in America
would carry cash. Later,
Rimbaud flipped you the bird.

Poems by Jeffrey Side

THE SAMENESS OF DAYS

You hold the peasants at bay.
You have your work cut out.

You should make enough, as
the winter is coming.

Your slivery tongue will get me down.
Same as it was yesterday.

I have diligently numbered the days
since I came west.

It was the only thing left to do,
while heading upriver.

Captain of my soul, now I know.
Good measuring has informed us.

The plains of the world were
where the gold of happiness was.


THERE WAS A FEELING OF SYMPATHY BETWEEN US

Winter again
drunk
to shed

ramble makes
deeds
sail well wash

action dies matted
of a
fist lens paint

swear foam
bursts the
goat

midnight dog
backs
up shaking years
radiation source
fingers
defence city loners

death crosses
mark network
down

trench statues
commingling with the
dead

hotel gate presidents
reserve shells
and trench statues


YOU KNOW ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE

Her coat spreads
power around
elegance of
compromise.

Second ridge
ghosters
take the city
and are grateful.

The no seen cars
speed town
borders vanish
fast control.

The weather
was the
first accident.


THERE ARE THOSE WHO REBEL AGAINST THE LIGHT

I’m alone and it’s spring.
If only you’d let me lie on you.

You’ve no dispensations or compensations.
You must let yourself go, that’s the only rule.

Who’s that woman over there?
I haven’t seen her before.
She’s up from the coast with her aunt.
She’s here for her health.

I found her in the morning when she was at her best.
I found it hard to walk away.
The hardness stayed with me all day.

I’ve got people on the streets.
You’re not wanted anymore.

There are reasons for me to suspect I’m mortal.
Raise me from the stranger’s grave.

Poem by Adam Fieled

EQUATIONS #26

Audrey, as a tangent to N, took the idea, not of broadcasting gossip but of sharing and disseminating literature, as a fait accompli move to establish romance, drama, suspense, and rich entanglement in her life. Prisoner of a rich background, and with a preacher for a father, she latched onto me as a purveyor of sweets for her, from my books to my looks to a sense of deference she wanted me to sometimes have as a way of demonstrating respect for her roots. The one determinative moment— we stood, with a crowd of poets, outside a bar in Andersonville, Chicago, as a night of festivities ended, and I was either going to pick her up somehow or not— ended in, for me, a practical response of denial. Her apartment was in an obscure neighborhood in Chicago, I was staying in the distant ‘burb Palatine, and was due in Rockford the next afternoon. For Audrey, as she was later candid about, I was resisting something compelling in the universe which required that we spend the night together. She was heartbroken, with her Indiana-bred sense of being cornfed (blonde, voluptuous, clear complexion), and with the conviction she had that anything she wanted could always be hers. Rich equations suffer greatly from senses of entitlement, emanating from the rich, and dousing all that they touch with a glaze of non-recognition, of obliviousness. This was Audrey’s contradiction— give her a text, available to be read at her leisure, incapable of vocalizing need or difference of any kind, and she could rise to the occasion brilliantly. Texts had a way of ejaculating into her brain and heart tissue, in a lovemaking routine (with the right text at the right time) extremely pleasurable for her. As I stood with her outside Moody’s Pub, a flesh and blood entity— needy, morose, possibly surprising or disobedient the wrong way— turned her interest tempered with diffidence. This decided the night for us. Had we been ensconced together for several days, as I had been with Wendy, things might have been different. But when two possible lovers are too transient to each other, the magic spells don’t work, incantations fall flat, and it is learned again that for equations to take on flesh in the world, there is no substitute for real, raw time.

Poem by JoyAnne O’Donnell

SPRING RETURNS

Spring awakens the spring sky of hope
A new year of greater joy
Flowers start to carry a journey to hope
For better days
Lilacs I saw just popped out in my
Mothers beautiful garden
I enjoy them
Especially the scent
Makes me feel better
The color I love
Reminds me of love
When flowers help you
Sometimes when you’re sick
They come make your day
Feel warm in a way
I thank them on the phone
Grace comes when you pray
For a good day.

Poems by Jeffrey Side

I NEED YOUR HYGIENE

You believe what
you will. He
got no one
else to lie.
He had plans

I never knew,
while listening to
my sacrifice. The
dust has you
tight, and you

don’t question it
when it commands
you in the
night. I’m waiting
for some of

your time, and
losing what I
can’t find. You
took me over
your walls but

only had your
breathing to sell.
After Milton, he
became more treacherous,
and needed you

for reasons you
didn’t need him.
Now he’s got
a chicken farm
in Puerto Rico,

where he blows
a horn all
day. You have
your hygiene which
you carry well.


ROMAN SKY

Do you remember that walk?
That walk you called separation?
That walk you called independence?
That walk you called “being stronger”?

Did you really believe any of it?

Did you declare how you were
free and how
you had no machine to
control your day?

Did you try to prove
a point
while weeping into
your hands
in the desert?

And did you find someone to
make the sky like
Rome for you?

CUTTING UP THAT CROP

Nobody knows
what a nice
day it
is except me.

I came back
to see you
while
you were away.

You have
spoken well,
if that’s what you feel.

We’ll make no
more arrangements.
We carry on regardless,
anyway.

I didn’t learn
my lesson,
and you
didn’t learn the truth


SOMETIMES THINGS ARE HARD TO PUT DOWN

Be careful where you chew,
as they’re looking
for someone else
who never lets it sleep.

Turning gears and sticks,
she doesn’t know which
way to go.

Now I measure all my
leather, making sure it fits.

When I get the envelopes,
I’ll look out for the slits.

She is on the lawn,
looking up at the birds.

She can never be here,
if you are always there.

I measure her up with
my head,
and I give her rifle,
and I give her bait.

Poems by Pete McNabb

THE CHOIR

Beyond the lip of day and deeper than
The womb of night –
There is a world
Perforated by innumerable and tiny lights.

He touched the babe of new religion back to life,

Growing like its store of time-lapse videos.
For Thou is Active
Or Thou is in Active, but Thou
Is never absent,
Unlike forever before.

Unanswerable prayer
Too easily met with plurality,

The choir responds with new apocrypha,
And no true section can be found to hold
A pitch or range that will be understood
By anyone who is Actively listening.


FORTUNE TELLER

In my allotment, in my time, my friend
I was inborn

With chance to tell
The meaning of your life.

But as a magpie, I couldn’t
Resist the glittering boughs

Of other, secretless, trees.
I could not stay to say.

And still, I knew.
Better yet, I forgot.

Bereft of all your hope, I made you
A feral mare to run through fields.

And you grudge me for
What is mine to know?

I still accept the chance
To lose.

You should’ve seen the treasure
In the trees to which I flew.

why was the secret of your life
entrusted to no other

the answer is unquestionable


SOLSTICE

The wick not burnt but cut
At both ends in Minneapolis,
Where day-sky and night-sky
Communicate color instead of sun –
Black, white, black –
Like a bride stalked
By Maidenhood, Widowhood:
A comedy
Beginning and ending in one line.

Poems by Dana Ravyn

I MOVED HERE SO AUDRE LORDE
WOULD BE MY NEIGHBOR

I built my home
in a taciturn chestnut tree
so close to the end of earth
that its mahogany eyeballs
sometimes roll over
the edge, toppling to extinction.

It is held up by stanchions
that get their strength
from the grace of weakness,
like the pneumatized bones
of chickadee wings.

At dawn, I wake to green
sounds that erase dreams.
I watch chestnuts plummet
to their death, their spiny
anger skin splits, revealing
glimmering spheres of adulation.


SUPPLICATION

when i burned your photo
it was not in effigy.
there was no more room
for your image
in my heart,
occupied now with
navigating white-knuckle
rapids of rivers
flowing backward.
Only the ashes fit.
they float
like orphan eyelashes
into retreating crevices
of memory.
as i held the glossy
corner to the flame,
a supplication to time:
erode this anguish
as slowly, as deliberately
as egyptian granite.
deep, to reveal
veins of gold.


CROWS

call me back from reverie,
entreaties echoing from
dangling drops of rain
to reach me.

if I awaken, I can dream
of black barbs of feathers,
follow each to a bony quill,
then deeper yet,

into inky thews. Entwined in
sinew, my heart canters as
wings thrash into cawing
freedom of oblivion.


WHAT REMAINS

The ocean returned
to claim the sleeping
in plain day,

foretold to me
in dreams of
prescient dragon flies.

Bargello veins pulsed
in cellophane wings,
droning in and out of

shafts of light,
framed by private
nebulas of dust.

There are still remnants
of magic free from
weighted words,

and cell towers poke
from a new sea, a landing place
for blue dragon flies.

Poems by Norman Jope

MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN THE MOON

after Paul Bowles

‘Where the music leads, I follow‘
although it does not lead. It circles and swirls
until this evening is elsewhere.
I descend stone steps at the call to prayer
beneath a sapphire sky.
Seeking adventure and auspicious fate,
I court the whore in her tent, who pretends
that she’s a princess and a constellation.
There are murmurings from the other tents
but, even now, I know where my wallet is
and my name remains on my passport.
What value resides in experience
when, in time, the mind goes blank,
its novas and starships vanished from view?
‘Amass it nonetheless’ say the sages,
‘because you’re helping God to be’.
I add to the archive with this woman,
showing her my wallet as I leave...
then kicking at her friends as I scale the stile
on my way to a rumpled, unmade bed.


AT THIS MOMENT, TO THE NORTH

I bow to the black beast in my skull,
the blank beast that is aftermath,
a death that erases then erases itself.

At the Pole, there is tangible dark.
I think myself north to deep-iced waters
and flickering sky-wide lights.

Death stalks me in its silver fur.
Plunging into its eternal night
I leave language behind, red marks in snow.

Here, the lights wheel slowly.
I stare at trapped Polaris,
at the distance that it carries,

snowdrop-white.
I think myself to a nakedness
that is harder to sustain than death itself.


THE CAPITULATION OF THE LOCUSTS

There are miniscule gaps in the air
where the insects used to be,
prefiguring larger voids.
We await our own extinction -
the future is veiled
and horizons frown.

I rest my head in a recess
of a polished rock
and describe these tribulations,
the slave of a voice
that speaks of earth swept clean,
of penal fire and judgement.

Nothing will remain
but the signs of that judgement
in primary colours -
the panoply of earthly things
decanted into void,
a failed experiment.

Nothing remains for now
but to shop myself to death -
the future is over
and all legacies in vain,
my art mere noise
amongst the other noises.

The silence of the insects
that do not exist
is what is heard now
in the sterile fields.
Apocalypse
need not be grand.

A TIGHTROPE LAID ON THE GROUND

These days, I walk a tightrope

laid on the ground from breath to breath.

Sometimes, my heart seems to shake with the effort

of proceeding from moment to moment,

from day to day, from year to year,

from life to whatever comes next.

I see myself falling to the ground,

the tightrope to one side or the other,

thrown from myself in a moment -

a solid shadow cast on linoleum

beside the photocopier, startling

the smartphone-cradling students

into turning away from Instagram

to read the last rites from an app

they’ve installed on the chance that, someday,

they’ll witness the demise

of an old man like me.

Born in the year 2000,

they know neither Reagan nor Thatcher

or a world without Putin.

It’s their turn now and I must pass on the torch,

however charred or lukewarm.

So may their endings be as calm

as I heave from breath to breath

on the newly polished floor,

finally seeing my face

as the face of a stranger

after all this time.

Poems by Lewis LaCook

ENAMEL

In anger her fingernails gnaw the arms of her children
red grins that fish for jokes with hooks
and she spills out of herself an inverse of her shadow
The party tapers, pacing from corner to corner with the sun

What is he learning from the plastic mesh of a summer lawn chair
floating in fumes of suburban pavement
that keeps from him the slow light from a season of closed doors
Keep him with dried-out palms and mercurochrome rage

The party with the red smile
flickers and the air inverts
In this corner her voice bubbles, flailing us with steam

In this corner the suburbs rot and you fall out of your chair
This is how you learn about grace
This is how you learn to bleed


SUMMER CORN

The cat watches her from above with eyes that never stop thinking
about how another man locked her children out of the house
sifting rocks from clean fill, milk from sour candles and incense
Another man tied with thistle, the beating heart of an ear of corn

Have you heard yet your father's blown embers
with a hand across her face, first thought she had
of the city, looking in from where porch light
fails us, never asking us to feel any way about it

Mirrors teach her to hide well inside the frames of her mother's
another man on her children snarling like he beat dogs
He tossed young rabbits into the pen to give them the taste

Is there something in her mouth we can look forward to beyond
the spilled candle's milk her husband soured on his back, heart
stopped and the length of cold dawning in his empty blue eyes

Poems by Goro Takano

DOLL PLAY

This is a poem about the dolls neglected still now
in a tranquil corner of your old hometown house

You were a little child when your parents bought
them for you --- the first time you discovered two

headless naked ones in those fashion-model-like
men and women dolls, you didn’t feel discomfort

On that sunny day, you placed on a kitchen table
all the dolls, as usual, to play with them all alone

A long article in a newspaper left on a living-room
sofa was telling a new story about heavy casualties

in a distant foreign country’s civil war --- first, you
put all the fashion-model ones in an exact ring and

then set the two headless ones at the ring’s center
You weren’t aware of a fire rising from behind you

One of the headless dolls started punching the torso
of the other one bitterly, giving a loud cry: “I’ve lost

the most valuable person in my life because of you!
You didn’t help us enough, though you are a doctor!

If you hadn’t neglected the efforts of resuscitation!
I cannot live without --- ah, I’ll never pardon you!”

The rageful doll didn’t stop using violence at all on
its counterpart who repeated: “Your loved one died

before being carried over to my place --- too late for
revival!” --- “Resuscitation of the dead is a must for

this community,” the furious doll quickly responded,
“All doctors who can’t do it are the root of all evils!”

All the other dolls surrounding the two headless ones
and watching quietly their unsightly act were saying

to themselves in unison: “Constant observation and
self-restraint in intervention are our duties as well as

self-mockery of such shameful conduct” --- rubbing
your tired eyes, you lay by the dolls and fell asleep

On that cloudy day, you woke up and took a whim to
dust off all those old dolls after longtime negligence

your grown-up eyes watched each of their stiff poses
on the table with nostalgia --- more foreign countries

were suffering from tragic civil wars, while the fire
burning right behind you almost reached the ceiling

In the circle of the fashion models, yet again, one of
the two headless was beating the other who moaned:

“Why do my internal organs have to be used to save
this thug? --- only because this devil is my closest kin?

Why does my good heart have to be transplanted into
the numbered life of this wretch? --- my life has been

nothing but a mess due to this criminal --- I wish my
heart were rather grafted into a good stranger’s body”

Gasping with exhaustion, the beater halted the offense
and said: “Making the ultimate sacrifice for your kin is

your utmost duty in this community, didn’t you know?
You achieve no benefit without carrying out your duty!

Give me your inside, NOW!” --- all the fashion models
were already tired gazing at this row and speaking with

one another in whispers about plagues: “Infection from
the uncivilized to the civilized is terrifying for sure, but

infection vice versa is even more dreadful, rumor says”
While the violence continued in the ring, you got older

Now age wrinkles spread all over your deathbed face
It is raining today --- a radio informs at your bedside:

“Civil wars are everywhere around the globe, except
in this beautiful country --- only here on earth you can

enjoy peace” --- your childhood dolls assemble for you
after a long separation from one another --- one of them

speaks up: “The special ritual we are going to perform
from now is called ‘body-tossing’ --- it was introduced

here from an unknown distant country a long time ago
We celebrate through this rite our old members’ path of

virtue to longevity!” --- the withered bodies of the two
headless dolls are tossed by the other ones into the air

Holding each other’s hand even in the air, the two seem
to take delight in the entire ceremony, while, right under

them, one tosser after another cease tossing --- “Human
mind having no fear is the most horrible thing on earth,”

one of them mumbles --- the two fall onto the hard floor
and their limbs come apart when your eyes finally open

to notice the big fire reflected on a mirror set before you
What if the similar blaze is bursting here and there in this

country? --- civil war? --- you don’t have to be afraid yet
Can you find me? --- I’m still here --- behind the glowing

mirror --- lower the flame, wait for another few minutes,
and an excellent cuisine will be ready --- it will be tender

enough even for your surviving teeth to chew well, so no
worries --- once you finish this meal, I will give a good

clean to your whole body --- lastly, I must tell you this:
If you have one more chance to go back to your old home

you should search for the heads of the two headless dolls
They must be still somewhere --- and, as a matter of fact,

one of them is your head
and the other one is mine

Poems by Susan Laura Sullivan

4 VIEWS OF MOUNTAIN WITH CASTLE ON TOP 

there it is in night
I walk the path
may as well have
eyes closed I find if
I look down I see
shoes black and
am less likely to fall
into holes over stones

there

it is in morning only just
stretching limbs yawning green morning
fresh birds call people over eighty and me
climb the sun barely a colour
the old people say
good morning to me
and wonder why

I am

there

in day time sky blue grey people
from families tour groups cities
on other islands crane necks to
look at the stone wall castle that
lives on the mountain then crane
to look at me

there

in evening joggers and I
exhaust pant our way up the
side pass me easily twice
over twice the
speed at the top they are
stretching their legs breathing
stomach hard sit ups not seeing
the sun as it sets down

there.

FOR THE CIVILIANS

(OPERATION PROTECTIVE EDGE)

too scared to leave my computer night by night
thinking one keystroke might
somehow prolong a life a gasp a grasp knowing
I had to watch because you asked
not to be forgotten knowing
I could hear you, but the tap of nails hardly
honed or sharp enough to prise wax from the ears
of leaders and media, rat-tail lips twitching,
mottled and streaked, sated and sleek,
they will never stand tall yet
it is you who is
stooped

my words cannot compete
explosions rip you from your skin,
the white flag from your hand, send your scarf
high above you not quite fluttering
like the papers that ordered you
from your house.

my words cannot compete
bullets swoop, magpies greedy for
the glint of jackets as you gather
the dead, the seared, the wounded, the ones
not vacuumed into burnt beyond-known. you are
                  soon to join them
on the roads, in the schools, in their houses
your children have nowhere to run, knowing
this I watch knowing that once it is
black and messages no longer come
I will know nothing except the piles of rubble
vacant of people or buried beneath, a soldier atop.
once it is black, where do they go?
once it is black, where do you go?

misconfigured half-beating hearts
amputated
a woman gives birth and maybe
there was joy in her voice as her child
was born
because a heartbeat is a heartbeat
a life a life
right?
but who will hear once all goes dark
the murmur of his heart
once all goes dark
what chances are there for
the murmur
of this heart?

FOR GRYFFYN, JULY 25, 2014 – JULY 31, 2014

AND HIS PARENTS 

the english language lost
the day I lost my son
its pregnant pauses
impregnated odours
making all not alive alive
except for my son

some would sell their first born
others swaddle in leaves and wicker
and cast them afloat amongst the rushes
to save their lives, integrity.

did I sell my first to have my first?
a bargain of cancelled reciprocity
or were the reeds not taut
enough?

we cradled his head and feet
and yet the water seeped
into the humidicrib
and dragged him down

Poems by Jeffrey Side

ON THIS FATEFUL DAY AND BARREN LAND

And on this fateful day
I sought some hours,
and escaped
among
certain friendly trees.

I saw a rose upon the land,
half buried in the sand,
and held it
all day,
in the breeze.

And I made some plans
for the Golden Lanka,
and wrote a note
to a woman
and thanked her.

And in some fallen moment,
and some unknown kind
of way, I managed
to pass by
this troubled day.


SNOW RANGES AND FAIR WOODS

Angers and failures:
my lads are not for reconciliation.

I alone drink accurately
on the uncertainty.

I drink for the occasion,
similarly impressed, to brakes, skies,
and ghosts.

Snow ranges and fair woods
have their stint.

Printed feasts of richness.
Thrushes that quote but do not sing.

Racing to the beginning where the
reed’s breath sums up heaven.

And yet the reed speaks of simplicity
while full motion reconciles earthly years.

Dread lurks in the forest.
Candle boys shine the rough men.
Safe are the spheres that are dried
like the shells

The old ships cry fleetingly
under the moonshine.


PLASTER PIECE

The sky-blue plaster piece
you chose because I touched it,
you will always keep.
You like to spend the days with me.

The Sunday I first took you
on plastic with red button lens
you turned out well.
The air was cold, but it was shining.

And the round crowned church
held you in its circle
and calmed you at my side.

You take photos in the light.


SOMETIMES IT CAN TAKE A YEAR TO BE TRUE

It was inconceivable
that the horizon
could be ablated
by the paving
stones of anxiety
foisted upon the
gravelled stairway and
ceramic triangles that
we passed against.

Charlotte was a woman
of strange complexion whose
ambiance was that of
a cat trapped in
a fire escape of
its own projected delusion.

I knew her
well that spring
and June and
on that Friday
morn in blessed
dawn she was
the best thing
that ever happened
to her and
I cannot recall
my problems at
that state other
than to say
we had a
great time there.

The autumn leaves fell
by the gate and
slipped through the mist.
Time has no meaning
to fruit. Nothing bothers
them so it seems.

I found a
woman too I
heard her say
stop dreaming you
lush we are
not in May
so have a
drink on me
if you believe
in nothing he
wrote can be
heard but fleeced.
If I could just
go back to that
autumn week and all
the tables and chairs
that shone so brightly
for her glorious madness
and upbeat tortured serenity.

Poem by Les Wicks

A BARREL OF HOOTS 

This time again, afterwards, naked together
you point something out
& we laugh.
Struggling bones
a few fractures of regret
but now all that is forgotten.

A simple thing, the spasms of the lungs
air expelled like mortars
against battlements of ordinary.
This guffaw feeds & expels in equal measure —
one of the few unquestioned gifts, moments enlivened.

Siblings, out in the trees — chimps, bonobos —
all share this beneficence beyond intelligence.
A simple tickle can part branches,
smother a grudge.
For dolphins it’s pulses, followed by a whistle —
the sea is a great show.

By a generous heater, aged Labrador Rex
watches “his” human toddler pick up a ball
then fall spectacularly.
A pant, his play-face swivels as
the sleeping tail awakens.

Even rats, mining our humanity
the buffets of trash
they too chirp when the scurry is done
& nest-noise is dampened.

We can’t save the world, laughter might.
It’s too scattered to hear or annotate
this rogue wave roams the globe.
Nothing dies when it visits,
best futures drink it in.

Poems by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal

GATHER VOICES

Let us gather voices,
find delight in their sound.
There is a world in every
pitch with labyrinths and
blackholes where silence
is a symphony. There are
cities of water that are
mere mirages. Let us bring
these voices to our doorway.
Frame them on the walls like
family photographs. Let
their richness glow, their
tenderness overflow, and
resonate with kindness.


TIME DOES NOT EXIST

Time does not exist
when you walk out the secret door.
The wind rushes you
and removes the eyes from your face.
Ashes cover you.
It is an unending amount of ashes.

Time does not exist
as you stand on the threshold of
the secret room for
a second. You do not think of leaving.
Returning to the place
behind the secret door, your twin waits
for you with eyes intact.


WHITE EYED SUN

When I look up at the sky
and it is full of clouds
that slowly part to reveal
the white eye of the sun,
I wonder if there are other
eyes, other suns, that are
too engulfed by clouds
that will never shine.

This afternoon I took a
snapshot of that white
eyed sun to study it later.
I looked at the retina of
that white eyed sun and
found a pool of tears
forming. Was its heat too
much that it formed those
tears of light and fire?

Poems by Mark Goodwin

yesterday Alphabet bit

into my old bone

non-song

today Alphabet’s throat feels

my flesh-shape slide

down

tomorrow this phantom

of antler-shapes

this ghost of ants’

ways over snow

this cross-

criss twig lord this

god will

begin

to digest

my human me

an

ing

tugged

a word out

from

mud

spat on

it to

clear

its

surface of

dirt then

heard

how a

word may

clink

ever

so very

gently as

light

hits

  it

Poems by Keith Nunes

THE BLACK-AND-WHITING OF THE RED-NECKING

I was thinking good things
when I turned bad,
When I went off and
left the coastal yaw for the
icky-thump inner-tubing of this
spit & spat conurbation, the
roasting lamb gracefully steps aside for the
colour-coded deposits of vegan chewings,
The newfound efficacy of mine bowels! 
Not a small improvement, but what
penetration of this ruling-code, I’ll never
laugh again without a wary sideways glance,
The skin-piercing stare of the selfie-righteous
falling over backwards for a clear-screen-shot of the
blunt & blameworthy
Barbarians inside the gate


I ONCE KNEW

When you’ve finished saving the
money you earned being the man
you never wanted to be
email me,
We can shine for a day or so,
Bring the Citroen, not the dog,
Bring the Gauloises, not the pipe,
I’ll present as Lauren Bacall,
Wear the Borsalino,

I’ll atone for the summer and
splatter lemon on black, the
Valery V neck with sequins,
Be late, be cool,
Be the man
I once knew


HOTEL

In a dreary room on La Rue de la Morte,
On the winter’s most miserable night,
Victor Hugo kills off his protagonist
&
So many sheets tossed out from the seedy
One Great Star Hotel because they’ve
Been shredded and tied into nooses
&
Aspiring actor Marion Morrison takes
A room on the third floor of The Grand,
When he moves out he’s John Wayne
&
Tabloid media throng to the notorious
Chelsea Hotel when a sign is displayed,
‘Rock stars BYO ambulance’
&
A Belarusian brute and his model wife in
London ranting that the bath ‘it’s too small and
we have no fucking sea view!’


A PERFECT 10

Zukofsky hanged himself
In a hangar 2k long,
On a silent night
On a Christmas Day,
The rope of inferior quality snapped,
He’s a heavy dude

Zukofsky dropped onto the unforgiving concrete floor,
This time his arthritic knees
Stood up to the challenge and
He landed like a gymnast dismounting
The uneven bars, scoring a perfect 10,
An impish expression on his chubby face,

He was never one to seek notoriety but
Photographs surfaced and he began wearing polar necks,
Fielding book offers, co-writing essays, talking
To Coppola and Spielberg, all the while
Seeking out
Reliable rope

Poems by Timothy Pilgrim

A FORM OF REMORSE 

It feels much like a noose, anyway —
sleep, troubled, the Earth’s lithe back
turned, Peneloped, to me. Unraveled,
nature long ground down, us, all quite okay

with waste, ruin, decay. I drift to sleep,
from elfin scaffold see what will be —
tiny house, windows closed,
no water for micro-lawn, trifling vines,

mini-garden, grape tomatoes,
baby peas. Dwarf shadows fall
from Bonsai trees. It’s now a given,
rusted Lexus, thawed tundra, empty dam.

Rotted mansion, guesthouse,
yacht. Cruise ship north, watch
glaciers calve, melt to zip,
nada — no reprieve, any chance

for petite demise, gone. Only hope,
a rope too long, last words,
the entire Odyssey, in Greek.
I’ll speak them hanging, upside-down.


LATTE LIFE

Gnats, a churning cloud, swirl past
my drive-thru pane. They dance,
whirl, flit en mass, puree still air
in growing damp. I fake-smile
at ordering pricks, stir, mix,
liquify. Sun fades to gray,
wipes the entire swirl away.
I clock out, flip off night,
blunge myself a crap latte.
In the end, I slog home alone —
blackness pours in again.


CHOOSING SECOND PERSON

If you could re-live life,
it would look like this —

lurk shadowed outside,
peer in, study yourself.

Wish for no more snow,
a bit of warmth, enough time

to wonder if you could stand
being in there with you.

Poems by Joshua Martin

DOWNCAST CRITERIA FOR A CRICKET MUTTERING

The cowering pulse out runs the hare
fields swimming Kentucky carbon-dated odes
a pool of seminars regurgitating secular air
leads and puzzles and impulsive cucumber foliage
yet blotched inscrutable crepuscular suspicions
born of roaring capital limp continents
mourn the land the tracks the jubilant disarray
meagre like buzzards crawling in echoed paradigm
pure massage beating looking-glass stubbled bone
all straining exiles hurling private looping toads
shrouded hearse plucked a wig
square a burning century of cinematography
pressed cooked knee length confessions
masked yawn shivered drop of rot
naked swift privilege shifting scrutiny
staring at carnal ruins splayed before a wax grove
chipped like primal shells scatological and narrow
astound where ceilings offer empty jaws
crooked public toilets disappearing
within melancholic collapsible courthouse
insecticide possessing downstairs groaning
only splits rising and steel-rimmed in recall
as each session of grouping ponders buried cities
pleasant befuddled hills reduce mediations
grandfather following afflictions
messing timid gorge stretched thinner than paint
sainted vagaries leaning over lantern months
grandmother wearing chandelier smokescreen
between us and the vital paralysis wanders splinters
tamed vibrant unless spun from one-way ticket
pirating closer than expected victims of research
spine closing shelf that winking sermons obsess.


SMELL COMES STIFF

We heel
stitched comets
fueling roach shoes
chewing belly
aching backwards
pedal to milestones
oozing pebbles
like chemical
shrinking mazes
cockatiel mocking
tobacco wanderers
patterned wallpaper
carpeted pranks
we steal
mountain lisps
covered memo
blood thirsty
leg tattoo
shrinking layered
caked on killings
of seagull doggone
old rhyme schisms
occupy humanoid
sunset portal
we peel
plasma asylum
jump backwards
electrical hazard
paying daddy-o
momentum feeding
head full of stinking
lords of attributes
abandoned bile
we deal
mermaid pyramids