Poetry - Year V - Number 32 - January 2020

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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....

Liberty Atoms 6 Cormorant beak-walked an eight yard string,Rebuking tide.Pratfalling crock – sauce duxelles.Maisie hassled tufts-       Lost wit’s fingers.Sunset on a rubberstamp:“Everything seemed inevitable”.   Liberty Atoms 7Shellac discRumpled under needle, jilting an overture’s tingle.Parakeet erupted, groggy.Maisie...

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...

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...

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...