Poetry - Year III - Number 16 - September 2018

THIS IS MY EVENINGby Diarmuid ó Maolalai Israel and Palestine. I had put the goldfishin a small tank by the windowand had named them(some joke)Israel and Palestine.they didn't know the joke.they lived togetheras good a life...

IT’S THAT KIND OF DARKby Kate LaDew  it’s that kind of dark exactly like in those silent films, when the man tenderly puts his arm around the woman’s back, under her knees,lifts her white and black...

HAPPINESSby Andres Mesa   HappinessNo one wants to talk about happiness.One would expect,Since there’s so little of it to go around,People would clamor to hearof the twenty peopleIn the heartlandwho found their true lovestoday.Some solitary academicfinally...

     SYNTHESISby Tucker Lux   SYNTHESISIt can happen anywhereall at once.Memories bringtrees to applausecooling, brushing skinenvelopinvade.Summer’s first whisperbrings allwayward ghosts homefrom haunting the scentI trail.Medicine for a fractured heart,split so many waysMidwestern airprairie sweet.If I have known...

NEGLECTby Katherine Carlman     My goodness ... the ache of it     Little breaths, shallow thingsLike those tiny puddlesWe used to avoid after a quick rain.There’s not enough oxygen.The air has gotten thin(Or my lungs have gotten thick)My...

RENAMED by Tom Laichas  At the Edge of Air When the newborn inhales the Breath, flesh and clay still comingle.Between earth and this new animal, there’s no hard edge. The infant wonders where skin ends, where world begins....

ROAD TRIPby Sarah Sherwood A Wild Place I come from a place quite untouched by fame,Where waters flow, quiet and pure.In this place, there’s no conquest to claim.The people are safe and secure. I come from a...

     IDENTITYby Jan Wiezorek   IdentityWho knows that he’sa young male,though all muscleand inbred so muchas to make problemsmanaging identity.He hears tree frogsclick open the legs   of a wetland.No one hearsthe swan unfolding her neckagainst bills sucking...

STEEL PROPHETby Jonathan DeCoteau  Steel Prophet The split-second cleaving of foliage—gauntFrom the haunches of marauding night—peeks through, with lead-tongued pantingAnd black crescent eyes:It is a baby deer made manifest before meAs I set my steel sites...

NEW TESTAMENTby George Held  New Testament And the land shall open like a giant vaginaallowing the re-birth channel to swallowall the detritus of our sick civilization –the fossil fuel-guzzling auto-mobiles,the stone mansions and cardboard shacks,fences and...