Poetry - Year V - Number 33 - February 2020

  SIDEKICKby Rikki Santer   Sidekick                             you are monocleyou are lap danceryou are cheeky sailor boyyou are lamb chopped sock            chocolate spell            sideways glance from hellyou are ghost terrorist            shy ingenue            personality in 60 secondsyou are knuckle headed           ...

PERHAPS YOU UNDERSTANDby George Eklund  Perhaps You Understand I’ve done what I could do.If you want to mutilate me, then you will.I cannot row very far or fastIn my boat of green light.But I am beginning...

THE CLASSICAL DEBTby Susan Ayres  THE CLASSICAL DEBT             we will never repay the debt we owe Greece.—Stephen Fry, Elgin Marbles Debate             1. Greek waiters talk not             to me, but my son. Hotel                         staff tells me it’s...

TEARS OF SPADES IN AMERICAN BLUESby Mettamodernist   Julia Dream,Dream of a key,A key to unlock all your doors I am your abyss, your good fix, your sanity, your hell.Who can thrive when no love abides,Who can...

APOLLINAIRE by Timothy Robbins  Apollinaire This morning I read Apollinaire’s “Zone”and thought him silly. Meaningbeing a vagabond, his being a vagabond,it’s no surprise he wanderedalong silly’s crooked paths starting witha Proto-Indo-European root for‘happy,’ which he certainly wasin Stavelot, dancing...

DAYTIME TVby Ian Ganassi DAYTIME TV I used to wonderAbout Captain Kangaroo’s uniform;We knew Mr. Greenjeans had green jeans. You never know it’s a uniformTill you try it on. An army of one.They pay it no mind, which...

WHAT WILL BEby Daniel Senser  Watching My Roommate Sleep For Tom The old man snores like the windAnd the rumbling of rock-fall.What dream seduced himInto the deep chamberWhere the dark rose of oblivionGrows? All his life, he...

OUTDOOR SHOWERby Katherine Carlman  Hollow Things  Like the shell of a chocolate hare, upon the slightest pressure from an eager child’s hand causes it to give way to nothing but its own void and trees toppled by...

GLITTERING ROMANCE AND OPTIMISMby Benjamin Biesek  Glittering Romance and Optimism “After I had combed / the confetti from my hair” Ralph Sneeden Today I wept no tears.Today is a forest fire.Sure I’m atavistic, avaricePlated in a vegan fare...

FILE NUMBER 20by Ken W. Simpson  Homo Sapiens Cloven creaturesdeodorised archetypesrevived as beaststo satisfy heredity’sneed for greedstinking of sanctitybefore the resurrection.  Amazing Grace Dead sea soulsand a blackSatanic Massfor Christiansaccusedof genkocideto propitiateevil spiritsand  beseechforgivenesswith the sacrificeof an infant. The...