Christopher Barnes – 5 poems

HANNAH Au pair Ragtime tinkles. Velvet curtainsMouths of Dissertation muddles. Swish. ItalianGlass slipper. Director’s cutCockatiel twitters. Fascinates. ~~~ JACKSON Cane stings Shipyard klaxon. Fixative graftsKnuckles. Mortified Bevvy, ham Knick-knack.Hour. Tucker. Squint clearOf window. ~~~ AGNES Marionette contorts Stuffing gunks Surgical over-the-kneesOn flames. Fork. Bubbles Bottlenecks veins.Perihelion rebuffs Slosh terrine. Tea-wealdSky. Mug idle. ~~~ RAB Sun-stroke […]

DARREN C. DEMAREE — 3 poems

Emily as a Blue Jay at First LightI love any empty roomEmily is perched outside.She calls& it doesn’t matterif she’s calling for mebecause that song meansthe world is still here& Emily is speakingto us, to all of us in the wayswe deserve. Obnoxious beautycreates the world every day& Emily can’t really sing,but there we are,with […]

VERN FEIN – HEY GUYS, YOUSE PROBABLY DEAD NOW

HEY GUYS, YOUSE PROBABLY DEAD NOW So I can’t be sued by none of youse, as you always said,wouldn’t care much about suing except to spit the word out like a curse.But thanks guys for what I learned about how not to live life. Ernie Bigush used to spit a lot more than he talkedwhen […]

TOM PESCATORE – 5 Years Ago

5 Years ago Remember as the sun set on James island Tired Together Fading into the coming nightAnd how after heading back to our camp An old man to show the pictures he had taken of Our silhouettes together encircled by Fiery dusk How he asked for our emailsIn effort to send the photos to […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

LAURA STAMPS – LIGHT

Light So many postcards. So much to say. “Dear Elaine,” she writes to herself. “Almost Christmas. Can you tell? It’s the reindeer. They’re everywhere. Their antlers rising from car windows. Tiny Christmas trees. Those too. On these windows. These cars. Antlers and Christmas trees sprouting from the same window sometimes. Insane, I know. And wreaths. […]

Barbara A Meier – The Let it Be Rock at Williamson River

The Let it Be Rock at Williamson River The campsite is guarded by a rim of lodgepole pine with a break through the bushes allowing a meandering path littered with sunboiled needles, and a saggy swarm of gnats, and deer flies. I escape the detritus of the campsite, strewn with cooler, coleman stove, coleman lantern, […]

GWIL JAMES THOMAS – THE MOST MAGICAL THING TO HAPPEN ALL WEEK

The Most MagicalThing To HappenAll Week. In the kitchen at work,a gargantuandaddy long legs landsin the bug zapperto an electricdrum solo of death –as we watchits poor bodyget cocoonedby sparks,before splittingand melting betweenthe live metal bars,as we’re promptly toldto get back tothe chopping, washing,baking and the realityof our white tiled room –whilst we sniff atthe […]

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