Poetry - Year III - Number 16 - September 2018

JANUARYby Laura Foley    JanuaryA blizzard of cyclone-cold windwhips snow in Elysian driftsaround Stygian pines,builds fantastical walls around the house,turns familiar woods otherworldly,provides a world of reasons to stay inside,as the finches at the feedergrow more...

COMFORT IN A THEORYby Mark Taksa Comfort in a Theory The watering can I hold over a daisyis dry. Waiting for my neighbor to appearin her window, I pose. The pocket of my shirthides the ripped...

     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...

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...

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...

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....

NEWTON'S LAWBy Lenny Lewis  He'd been raped in Tripoliso he said. Hosted a parasite.Given it to her without asking.She sported a livid scarwhere the worm had turned. Soho before it was fashionable.Before AIDS. Long beforeevery properly...

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...

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...

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...