PESSOAS by Arthur Powers
Seánce with Fernando Pessoa
1.
I, I, I, I… or should I say “we”we know the Anglo-Saxon mindthat desperately seeks and seeks to findthe Truth behind ambiguity.
Do we not know the black/white of your thoughts?Did we...
CHICAGO by Elsa Pair
Bloodletting
Bloodletting,but for the rage.
If I cut open my chestsurely all that will come out is the
rage, spilling down my frontlike vomit or molten lava.
If I hold it in any longerthe fever will kill me,
and...
DOLLHOUSE by Linda Phillips
Dollhouse
I saved the dollhousefor you and you knew ityou knewcoming in the back doorbabies played cheapwe bought it off the streetrich folks' castaway
that's why we saved itnot for cheapbut for babiesyour childrenmore than onewith...
GASLIGHTING by Amy Gautschi
GASLIGHTINGNothing can be found hereThere is no space to growThe walls are moving closerI don’t know where to goUp is to the leftExcept when it’s to the rightOutside the sun is shiningBut in here...
VESPERS UPDATE by Don Thompson
Vespers Update
In this season, the sun setslike an afterthought, its lightalready non-luminous.
The hills mostly murkwith some leftover mauvethat’s gone flat.
But Venus burns a holein the West, intenseand more adamant than ever.**
January 31st
1.The sun through...
AT FAULT by Cheryl Heineman
BirdingThey are raven-like, dark-wingedmoving toward a tangled nest
or like crows circlingseeking their own kindagainst a fog-ivory sky, the outline
is interleaved with comingsand goingsbirds-eye criesflybysof brush-wingsodors from mudhush-hushswigsoffrenzied redbut now, as I stop and sit,...
THREE DAYS by Peggy Hammond
Three Days
An oak we plantedleans precariouslyinto areas not its own.
An expert arrives,advises removal.Clinical, he ticks off the steps.Limbs shorn, trunkcut into sections, hauled down,and if I desire, the stump taken,leaving a depressionwhich time will...
BOBOLINKO IN A FOREST by Kenneth Pobo
WANDAWOOWOO AND MATH
Numbers feel like a desertI’ve never visited. I’m probably missingsome gorgeous night-blooming cacti.I doubt I’ll ever venture there. I havemovies, books, and music. In high schoolI entered a dark room called algebra.When...
TENEMENT BASH by John Grey
TENEMENT BASHAnother partyon another tenement third floor.He gets there late.There's people speaking Spanish.There's some speaking English.It's a neighborhood bashand it's that kind of neighborhood.The food's mostly Mexican,tacos, burritos,and the beer's Coronathough someone lugged alongsome...