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, […]
Read more "Quentin Staley – Caffiend"Forgive My Mom For all the things you did for Marie and IWhen you would smoke cigarettes andHow you always slept in and never really hung out with us in the morningsAnd all the times you only hung out with us in the afternoonsI forgive youFor all the time’s Marie raised me when you were […]
Read more "FORGIVE MY MOM – RUBY MUNOZ"Within This Tree Within this tree another tree inhabits the same body: within this stone another stone rests, its many shades of grey the same, its identical surface and weight. And within my body, another body, whose history, waiting, sings: there is no other body, it sings, there is no other world. This poem was […]
Read more "JANE HIRSHFIELD – WITHIN THIS TREE"Gone with First Light I fear the dawnwhen gentle streaks of lightpoke through the trees,birds trill in a chorus of morning,deer graze the meadowin the fading mist. For at first light you will rise,sleep draining from your eyes,hair tousled, stretch to the heavens,and plop back beside me, warm,inviting, planting a first and lastkiss on my […]
Read more "PETER WITT – GONE WITH FIRST LIGHT"The Gray Tree Is Graced I shot a winter photo of the Camperdown Elm. It is in Prospect Park near the lake, beside the boathouse. It’s the one Marianne Moore saved with a poem. It was old then, and thought dead. It is twisty, short and gnarly. Its two, heavy branches, one suffering a growing […]
Read more "THE GRAY TREE IS GRACED BY Gerald Wagoner"Butterfly Guts Older Sister. Little Brother. They pass the time by picking on each other. “Do you know that once a caterpillar turns into a Butterfly, it only lives for one more day?” Brother doesn’t dare question Sister. Sister knows everything. Sister can even count to one hundred. Brother blindly believes Sister for way too […]
Read more "ANTHONY LANDICINI – 2 POEMS"Aubade A spasm of brown and tan crosses Armijo Lateral. Waves of squirming tadpoles fan like peacock feathers in a paunch of late morning light. In the low pool All-it-can-eat tadpoles. Slithering closer: a few feet long ½ those feet obscured by murky water. An effervescence in its eyes as it spits out its tongue […]
Read more "TIM STALEY – 2 POEMS"WHEN THE SHIT GETS REAL “My ol lady left me when her ol dog died, man. It’s not the first time either… They say it’s finally going to snow in Albuquerque. That’s when shit gets real” ~ WE GOT SO CLOSE It takes so much work to hit the stratosphere. LEO or “low earth orbit” […]
Read more "JOHNNY HUERTA – 3 POEMS"Old Man New Year I’m cooking on my campstove on one of my two folding chairs next to my packed car behind the Food 4 Less gonna make me some bacon and eggs, that’s right, heat some instant coffee too, and have a good old time after a decent front seat night’s sleep, fireworks notwithstanding; […]
Read more "Martin Pedersen – OLD MAN NEW YEAR"After Paz Words sifted througha pail of pebbles.My mind overrunby thoughts unleashed.Day and night splitby a seam throughwhich dusk travels.I write letters tofaded memories,to resentmentsand their knives.Words as scatteredas the voices ofmany songbirds.One page isn’t enoughbut two are too many.Words. Voices.Memories hid in darkcorners, behind bookshelves.Wait for them untilthey pull you betweenpast and present.
Read more "BRUCE GUNTHER – AFTER PAZ"
Cacti Fur 