Poetry

“Relativity: A Lithograph by M.C. Escher,” “Chores” and “Another Kind Man”

Virginia Watts

In life, I bugged my brother relentlessly
about Escher’s impossible staircases,
his floors and doors, his figures with no faces.

It looks like a prison.
It’s not.

“Panhandle my marble heart,” “The Crankcase” and “lost dogs in foggy nites”

Christopher Bruneaux

Panhandle my marble heart

Put my lips,
in a lonesome tomb
spread gossip of me on the shorelines of ecstasy
as I fall down the ladders
of your purgatory.

“Anatomy of a Honeycomb,” “Basket of Needles” and “Cabin on Detox Island”

Monica Viera

Post-mortem,
After having lived a life
In and out of mental hospitals
For what could only have been simplified…
Of attacks acute sweetness or withdrawal thereof
An autopsy was performed on me,
And a honeycomb for a heart

“Street Landscaping,” “Hoodie in the Wind” and “City Birds”

Brian Kerr

On concrete, brick and asphalt, filth sits atop. It doesn’t sift into the ground. It runs into the sewers but first it spends days, weeks, months lingering in puddles that don’t evaporate. Too much building shade and east coast oceanside atmospheric overcast

“Someone Else’s Stars,” “Hockey Night in Emmett County” and “Graceland”

Andre F. Peltier

The sun is our center
bringing light and life.
Painted on the walls
of Lascaux caves,
the sun illuminates
the bulls
and the Magdalenian
artists.

“Pangea,” “Blind” and “Self Portrait: Highjacked”

A. Hayes

in the beginning
there were no delineations markers or boundaries shaping his from
hers
quotation marks he said she said
rivers mapping theirs from ours

“Magicians and Fortune Tellers,” “No Home-Maker Here” and “The One That Got Away”

H. C. Phillips

pluck a single card from a shuffled deck
and there’s a one-in-fifty-two chance
that you now hold the two of hearts.

all our potential futures that we think exist somewhere
in maybe or one day

“Promotion Review in the Afterlife,” “My Thieves Are Lonely” and “Odd Boy”

Bryn Gribben

“We’ve been thinking,” the angels say
 (they work for Krishna now—God knows
he’s got too much to do, what with all
that attention the rich demand these days)
“and we’re going to send you back as a cat.”

“Listening to ‘The Lark Ascending’,” “Last Hours” and “In Starlight”  

Christopher Johnson

I listen to
swells
and
falls of the lark
in Williams’ grand tribute to
Albion

“I Push Back the Images and Climb into Bed” and “What Stays”

Allison Bliss

The blanket tucks my head away from the world.
My eyelids shut.
My knees fold into my stomach, and then
the plane you boarded to Orlando
crashes in Georgia before you can make your way to me.

“Conspiracies,” “Return to Kansas” and “I See Now”

Martha Kane

The random caws of crows
I hear as I unload the dishwasher.
I look out to see three birds gathered
round the war memorial
and the flag.

“hate | thirst,” “Sahara’s siren” and “release | remain”

Erik Poitras

for those that are tempted to drink from the fountain of hate
beware of that bittersweet nectar
even as it feels like honey running down your chin
you will realize its acidic burning nature
as it bores a trail into your soul

“Derwent,” “Sunday” and “November”

Emily Marchment

The Derwent’s not in any rush. Green surf
Of trees, the rocky crests of peaks now still
Enough to watch their sister wind downhill
And salve exploited wounds of quarried earth.

“There Are No Words,” “Que Será – Mother’s Stare” and “Peace”

Russell Willis

“There are no words…” with tragedy
Or times absurd or ends unknown
Is tragic in its own accord
For words may be all that we own

“Saturn,” “One” and “Cemetery Walled”

Justin-Paul Starlin

As another moonlight saunters
on inlets,
let’s agree Saturn can set:
the moons will use its rings as a table,
and as euphoric as their blurry mind
can be like
MDMA intoxication.

“Dinner Prep,” “Mythos” and “Ignorance”

Dannielle Pendzich

Away from myself, always, the blade angles
to save – dulls itself to keep, the hands wanting
to preserve even as the soul soils. I crave the bone
the meat the only thing hunger simmers under,
simmers for, for loneliness the gnaw (the echo
died, do you even beat) of never being touched.

“Angel Fire, New Mexico, August 2020,” “Passing Down Recipes” and “Tenderness”

Christa Lubatkin

we landed here
a reprieve
from Arizona heat
from reminders
of a house needing
paint and spackle
and a yard drowning in sun

“Reading Octavio Paz”

Claudia Putnam

Midnight
between
Mexico City and the highlands
the night
spun
into deep velvet
air so dense I couldn’t understand
how we could pass

“Castle Recursion” and “Castle Omnipresence”

Shyla Shehan

On Tuesday
I wake early and fix breakfast
turn over the hourglass on the table
Out the door as chauffeur by 7:30
Personal trainer and nutritionist at 8:30
Errand maid at 9:30
Data Engineer from 10:30 to 3
I want to quit my job

“A Kiss on the Lips,” “The Wolf on the Fold” and “Make Eve the Apple”

Jack D. Harvey

A kiss on the lips,
my lover,
is all I wanted,
when the lights
got low and
time got short;

“Heron,” “Liberty” and “Odyssey”

Patrick T. Reardon

Great blue heron, white in high green,
folds on self, forward falls toward water,
clear space, wingspan wind-catch, rise in flight.

I am semi-trailer truck in someone else’s tender canoe
— steep banks through suburbs, six crows
from one bank to the other frenzy a hawk

“Break Time,” “When Dying Deer Appear” and “Crawlspace”

Robert Eugene Rubino

Maybe you’ve lost
your patience
with your country
with a loved one
with yourself.

“Fur Coats,” “Gargoyles” and “Chamomile & Jokes about Good Band Names”

A. Smith

Commutes are the distances between
events. Some days I’m stuck with these
Black Mountain hipsters, pissing off
their North End balconies even on
a Tuesday.

“November Cloak,” “Between Being and Doing” and “Toilet Talk”

Karen Carter

Auntie Jane’s blanket,
attic stored, air cloved,
with her knitted cable yarn
she hums a morning tune.