Poetry - Year V - Number 32 - January 2020

SLEEPY WHALEby Terry BrinkmanSonnet CCLXVIIBristles shining wirily in weak lightLady Chapel Jack Priest PeacockMotley affairs of a moss covered rolling rockLast swig of the Challis at twilightLoom of the Moon-lightPat of her destruction FlintlockThe...

TABLE FOR ONEby Alan Berger   I’m lonely  ButI’m well bredWell read Well fed                                                                                              My favorite position in bedIs laying aloneBeing off the phoneI’m lonelyBut stay out of my zoneI’m lonelyButI don’t like peopleThey accelerate my evilI’m lonelyBut I’ve...

THE FROGSby Bruce Morton Holocaust Memorial, Berlin It is a stretch to transform sorrow, ash, guilt—loss.But the stelae are concrete, not abstract starsFallen in firmament, a hard grid that is buriedLike piles for a pier where...

NORTHERN ISLETby Danielle Hanson Northern Islet All the saints here are made of stone,eternal life mocked by their crumbling.I pick up the stones and swallow them in my gullet—even the bread is made of stones.It’s only...

LOOKING UP AT THE SKYby John McKernan   LOOKING UP AT THE SKYI always stop what I am doing at two o’clock in the afternoon and wait ten minutes for Death. I do this every day....

THIS IS THE LIGHTby Scott Waters Leaving the Cove City lights flicker like candlesburning the hem of 5 a.m. I finish my bowl of cereallace up my shoesand wrap my hand aroundthe door knob like a fly fisherman...

THE CHAIN IN THE SKYby Uko Tyrawn Okon Flowers are spreading a virusThat is what the experts call itIt makes people walk on a chainThat is one hundred feet in the skyWho put the chain...

ARMS OUTSTRETCHEDby John Tustin ARMS OUTSTRETCHED Me withArms outstretchedAs if on the crossBut really waitingFor you to comeAnd be envelopedAnd protected andEncumbered by me. I have been waiting for you. I have been waiting for youFor so very...

OBSESSIONSby R. Bremner Too many obsessions for one life to carrywill cause a back to droop eventuallyGood karma like good coffee is often hard to findwhen soaked in the relative liquor of the mindLet it...

MEMBRANEby Alfred Fournier Membrane The cat had been missing for days. Mom was home, behind French doors.Her hospital absence stretched,     a membrane under each precise day:Teenaged sister who drove us to schoolthe chores we never failed to domeals...