Poetry - Year V - Number 28 - September 2019

FRANCIS SEAL OF LOVEBy Vittoria ColonnaTranslated by Ted Witham    Jesus presses wax to the living flesh  Blazes wounds, seals in love, Lover's heat. Marks on Francis a true image, so fresh   with love, Francis celebrates: replete.   When he gripped you and gave to you his fire,  and virtue itself, all of you was made whole.  Now among us as his bride inspire Time and place to prepare the soul.  Poverty,...

COULD A LOVER LOVE MY MUSEby Jan Little Could a Lover Love My Muse? My muse mocks my left-brained worldWith its trudging logical  meetingDaily objectives on chalkboards.At moments between classes, she sneaks out,Makes humorous analogies I...

SURVIVAL BALLADby Michael Atkinson  Investigations “All detectives are in love, and all detectivestories have beds.”– Guillermo Calderon,screenplay for Neruda All detective stories are clocks, swallowingsecrets and measuring the worries of sunrisedown the alleys streaming east.All detective stories lie,...

MY GRANDMOTHER’S BRIEF INVENTORY OF UNNATURAL DISASTERS IN SINGAPOREBy Cyril Wong 1 Of course, I remember my husbandas a young man – sleeked-back hair,his taller frame, a voice like a wall –  that first date, holding...

HIBLERby Matt Stevenson The Dead Men Somewhere in Michigan there’s a few hundredmen buried in the woods. Some with theirheads shot off; others have just lost limbs. A feware burned, their bodies so unrecognizably melted. There’s an...

WITHOUT YOUby Ann Christine Tabaka Without You A thousand years agoit came to be, or so itseems. It spit my heartin two, or so it felt. Emotions drift upona waft of smoke, burningmy eyes once more.Past’s subtle...

WORDby Patrick T. Reardon Make In summer, the father grilled hot dogswith his white t-shirt off, skin burning. In fall, he tolled novenas. After snow melt,the whitened bones of a gnawed bird,chaos of feathers. Can you taste the beckoning? In...

  THE BRIDEby Wally Swist    Salutations: after Antonio Porchia            for Richard Shaw 1.The fields are buttercuppedand edged with ragged robin. We've entered the realmof the subtle variegations of the colors of summer. 2.Wishing you well on a mid-June evening,one on...

DETACHEDby Laura Dunn I.Phase, just a phase. Not to worry,You’re only insane.Dirty hippy, smoking herb,We don’t want to share your word.Just too liberal, just too free,Don’t you wish you were like ---Me me or me?You...

LIFE, INTERRUPTEDby Roseanne Morales Life, Interrupted A growing sensation never there,a dream you woke up from, wonderingdid it even happen, in another life,perhaps another death never recorded?This be is not to be, no questionasked or answered,...