Poetry - Year IV - Number 21 - February 2019

RED FORESTby Dmitry Blizniuk Red forest You live in me.Every morning you come to my eyesFrom inside my head. They look like French windows –Their clear cast glass extends down to your feet.You stretch yourself on...

REDUCTIONby Jonathan Dowdle RiffIn the rebound, resound,Where all thoughts go to drown,And we sleep beneath the sea,That buries us in echoes bleed;How are we to sleep or dreamBetween the stitch and the seam,Plucking grief from...

    I ALMOST KNEW THISby Frederick Pollack  I Almost Knew This 1Love is a pleasant, working seaside town.Strangely, its major industriesare neither tourism nor fishing;it lives on gentrificationper se. There’s a small dock.Most of the residents camefrom...

EMILYby Luke Francis Beirne I: Emily, February 14thThe wind started:blowing and gustingacross the ground,fresh snow coveredmost of the red. Frayed strandsof a welcome matpoked through the snowat her feet. Blinds hid most of the room.Bottles and cans...

SO BRIEFLY HEREby John Grey THESE VACATION MEMORIESTourists trudge throughthe makeshift marketplace along the dock,inspect the obligatory merchandise:chess sets, shell necklaces,coconuts carved into faces."Very cheap," says one local after another.But the visitors have little time...

LETTER TO A YOUNG POETby Korkut Onaran AFFINITIES A starfish lives in a five-hour day,an octopus in October.Words are crawling all over me!‘Cheek’ sits on my cheek. ‘T’ is Christian, ‘t’ is born again.‘K’ is my name,...

HUMAN BEINGby William Welch Untitled “I’m not Rumpelstiltskin,” I said, joking,then realized how apt it was —that malicious imp coming nightlyto anguished girls, promising to spinstraw to gold, but for a price.  Imagine if he used...

WOULD THAT...by Margo Poirier WOULD THAT.....Would that answerscould come withthe same ease as breathingWould that peacecould come withthe same ease as falling asleep.Would that lovecould come withthe same ease as peeing. CARLTON DAYS 1Living in the...

THE PEOPLE WHO VANISHby Ryan Havely  The People Who VanishYou wear the wind around youlike a favorite shawl.  I tryto hold you against meand you go to ashes.  Youleave like a storm,tie your hairwith ribbonslike...

GERANIUMSby Noel Williams A slow approach to Turner in the corner of the gallery This hull emerges dazzlingin the blue blaze of air, breaks througha pulse of sun, emptying lightthrough a lancet of bulwark and bow. That...