skater boy sighs so loudly I can hear it // kyra jee
from clear across the street. as for me, i am getting
used to calling myself insane
TWO POEMS // Z.T. CORLEY
Can we meet somewhere outside of the erotic and the pornographic,
in a homeland of the mind, at a ramshackle gas station in South Carolina
one in vermilion // lindsay mcleod
I've modified the memories and
dismantled the wants who once
beckoned with heavy eyelids and
loosened the vowels in my mouth.
JELLYFISH // PJ CARMICHAEL
Watching the waves crash onto the
sandy shore. A broken beach umbrella blown
over by the breeze.
ARS EROTICA OR (A CUP ON A STRING) // MILES SIMON
He makes me little scarves for my ankles
they flap at the wind like hermes’ boots
One day I asked him never to touch me again
colophon // will cordeiro
I perch in a swayback chair
out on my porch, beaming
at the smear of stars above.
WHAT PRISON CHANGES // ACE BOGGESS
When I went in, women I knew were cat people;
at my release, each of them owned a dog.
a ballad for my best friend // Hayden Armos
deranged, I asked if you would come
with me into the pink abyss.
you said, it doesn’t matter what color the abyss is.
instead, let's say the abyss was a tunnel.
Pretend // Tricia Knoll
Let’s play spaceship in this generously decorated refrigerator box which pretends to guard against heat, meteors, and news flashes about dead friends.
Homespun // Molly Quinn
“They’ve done it again, those bastards,”
I grumble to him of the greed growing in our small town,
choking out the loveliness that used to flourish here.
The Shoemaker Finch That Does Not Exist // Les Bares
The serrated edge of a leaf on a beech tree
saws holes in the breeze, spins whirlpools
of air from its pointed tip.
It seems to be trying to tell me something
as it goes about its business being a leaf.
The Sundered Seams // Michael McIrvin
The man, considering without cease
how his world will soon be split to atoms, takes
the hand of his boy, who just asked if God
is in this gold-lit meadow among seedheads
heavy and swaying
Wrapped in a Banana Leaf // J. Rodriguez
wrapped in a banana leaf, // i float in the sea. // i smell like earth. // i am still green. // and when the soldiers come to get me, dressed // in their sunday killing best, // i will raise my arms // up towards the sun // and i will put up no fight.
Trespassing // David B. Prather
The first time I saw a jack-in-the-pulpit,
it was an accident,
or is that by accident? Trees scattered
shadows, and
a freshwater spring wept from the side
of a hill. Or was that me?
A Plain Old Man // William Doreski
Being a plain old man stuck
in a savage village, I take the wind
as personally as a bar brawl.
Trees consider touching their toes.
Self Portrait as the Last Kumquat // Annie Diamond
We cool our feet in the oldest pool in Santa Ana,
built 1929. I am 29, inelegant save for swimming.
Remembering how to breathe among wisteria
and lilies, Easter. Is the Eiffel Tower the most
famous thing in the world?
Strauss’s Last Songs // Sandra Kolankiewicz
Later, I sought solitude, sure being
alone was not the same as loneliness,
till I started to recall and, in the
remembering, understood the broken
glass, the hand moving faster than I could
see.
Be There or Be Square // Frederick Pollack
Clark in his book on Modernism
goes on and on about the green
half of the canvas above David’s dead
Marat. To which one intuitively adds
Malevich’s Black Square.
Horoscope / Affirmation / Promise /Prayer // Haylee Shull
May will break your heart, but not for the reason you expect.
You will know hunger. You can interpret this however you choose.
On the other side of your grief is (I’m so sorry to tell you) more grief. What I’m saying is, you will hear the wind through the leaves and it will sound like rain.
old daze // Thomas Zimmerman
Venetian blinds moonlit your belly sliced
like bread // before though kisses traded rassling
in the weedy lot behind the Beef Days
Ferris wheel