Angela LaVere – 3 POEMS

Chameleon* I’m a Chameleon, Changing my colors to match my surroundings, I’ll make you feel comfortable. * Trauma like armor, I’ll blend in, so you don’t hurt me. * I can tell your mood in your footsteps, the set of your jaw, the tiniest tells; a twitch at the corner of your eye screams danger. […]

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PATRICK MEEDS – 5 POEMS

How Small Can the Smallest Star Be? I hear the thank you notehas gone out of style.That’s just bad mannersif you ask me. A sign ofpoor parenting. Remind meagain, what’s the small fork for?What’s the proper salutationfor a collection letter?Are dowries still a thing?I thought I saw a hummingbirdbut it turned out to be a […]

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Daniel SCHULZ – Memento Mori

Memento Mori I was in Duesseldorf recently, watching dreams burn out on the sidewalk. I love this city. The way the rich sit in their restaurants like animals locked in a zoo. Money isn’t character. I know that because I have none. I love the view. The way the sun sets over the promenade makes […]

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Quentin Staley – Caffiend

Caffiend Oh, when the bridle wirepulls her comb and her teethbegin their play, their tin-canmorning melodies aremocking me, so gay. “Oh,” is what I say.How is it these sirensstrike 6, and 7, and 4?No day is as before,a roller-coaster melody,looping back-and-forth. My body aches with gravity.My blood: mercury soup—poisoned, heavy metals;cold and acid blue. “Hey, […]

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Steve Deutsch – O Canada

O Canada From his first two weeks in Kindergarten, Eugene was told he wasn’t college material and should work with his hands. I’d like to tell you he had a gift, aside from perseverance, but he didn’t. At 16 he bought a beat-up VW Beetle, more rust than steel, and called her Canada. He’d sing […]

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Joseph Somoza – NEW YEAR’S POEM

New Year’s Poem Hardly any movement but the windshaking banana-shaped brown seedpodson the locust trees. So many seeds,so little space to burrow in, so few birdsarriving for the year’s last birdseed,though tomorrow, the year starts over,just like magic. People will pretend to be re-born,new resolutions, a new pageto turn, wanting so muchto try again, to […]

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John RC Potter – Cold Ashes

Cold Ashes You thought you left me behind languishing in the dust… then the air began to clear; so, I rose above the unsettled place where you once occupied a little space. The smell of smoke still lingers long after a fire has gone out… cold ashes bearing mute testimony; the truth will live longer […]

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