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Thursday, June 27, 2019

jim leftwich & steve dalachinsky - capsized whahaha tomes

familiar routes expect vocational
     castles folded into the cream
             of beehives ruined by
         cherished identities
            dents in the cheekbones
                behavior patterns
                     crime/wave goddardian
                        apertures rem/roots
                 creek beds demented presidents
             caviar from bees
         the patter of terns
     guardian dodo cravings
the square root of "perturb"
      rooting for the home team to lose
                   academy lopsides
             top hats in a sea of red dresses
                     redressed as lost her eyes in
             capsized democracies
         tame boots & looser tomes
     the red badge of the sea cat
last seen near easter island
         horizons shattered familias
             become unrecognized tortoise
    chambers under the lash of whahwhahahahas
the beak of the camel is a cognizant
     porpoise flash-clambering among our
          familiars chattering the horizontal aphorisms
               of the mad hatter in unedited routines.

february 2019

Thursday, June 20, 2019

Christopher Barnes - Putting You Through Now, Caller

“Putting You Through Now, Caller.” (21)

“Squizzed at me, all pulled out.
A reality-crunch measure?
The earreach of a farewell gasp is roses in May.
Take it uncomplaining, headwaters will.”

“Okes, rabies-dancer,
Your cheque’s in the postbag.”


 ***
“Putting You Through Now, Caller.” (22)

“Dog-eared his tab, jiggled it into my shirt pocket.
Even the horizon cracked.
Mullarkey was woozy, beefy as a nun.
Intemperate kickback for one go.
I snooped enough?”

“Mistrust is gravity, honey.
A profitable chore boy’s defunct.”


 ***
“Putting You Through Now, Caller.” (23)

“Frankness ink-slung onto roadhouse paper.
I got churned by the tidings.
Skin-flickers also unveil in white.
Duplicate explanation? – the plaything’s oofy.
Bob for an invitation.”

“Knew she was in Blind Alley.
Who’s got the revolver?”

 ****
“Putting You Through Now, Caller.” (24)

“Sly-looking at the mere, Eileen was.
Valium owned her lullaby.
You’re a trigger-quick practitioner.
Hunched the Dodge was swiped –
Too gleamy for Big Al.”

“Don’t chop-chop elsewhere.
Witnesses might spare us.”


 ***

“Putting You Through Now, Caller.” (25)

“Repper’s mush corrugated with petulance.
Thought he was at end lengths.
Such a foozle.
Switchblade hasn’t been dug up.
Jimson weed reels in barley
But this isn’t a gala day.
Known him eons?”

“Shouldn’t be nudging anything.
Best be meek…outside.”

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Adam Fieled - Two Poems


Adam Fieled is a poet based in Philadelphia. His latest book, “Trish: A Romance,” was released by Funtime Press in 2019. 


***

A Match

The loft-like flat with the cavernous
    roof was in South Philly, well-heated
but polluted, dusted,  with detritus,
     she was what Los Angeles was in spite
of these things, sunken wastelands, sheeted

lightning making the stage all but emptiness.
    As he fell into her, he fell into resistance,
petulance, snobbishness, yet also wetness—
    she could do it, out of sublime forgetfulness,
big-titted, posing for spies, cameras her witness.

Los Angeles then lay in his arms like luggage.
    What was in her were carnival masks, face-paint—
greasy, lumpy, churned from blood gone sluggish.
     She was his palm-tree baggage, dumb, doggish.
He felt himself bitter, ransacked, naked, wasted.

Their child sails brackish seas somewhere, twisted.
    Los Angeles just died, still convulsive, of disease
not acknowledged, or processed, number unlisted.
     L.A. & her were queen for a day, then got fisted.
He moves on in Philly, no sprain in his knees.




*** 
Days of Old

In days of old, my friends, they took
   the music, made it a girl, sang
   her songs, caressed her, thanked
her for her own caresses, & the books—

Then the music retreated for a while,
    no caresses, no books, turds,
    brown, thick gibberish words
in lieu of nature’s own heavenly smile—

Well, the music is a girl again, coy,
     silk-gowned, ready for us,
     ready to be a vessel, trust
our impulses both to pain & joy—

& only coy at the outset, hot-blooded,
    skilled, plugged in like a TV,
    electron passages there, ready,
to cast light into the world, over-flooded—

& this “days of old” music you’re hearing,
    deliberate, measured, necessitated
    by eternities of white-noised, jaded
jumps off bridges, is nothing to be fearing—

so let the music be a girl forever, or a boy,
    it doesn’t matter; someone young,
    spry about ecstasy, drugs, love & fun,
& poets need not be scummy, or dummies, or coy—

Tuesday, June 11, 2019

A.J. Huffman - Three Poems

Justification

after Forms, Hatchets  by Magyari, John the Younger

One stroke
      obliterates two things
creates a third.

Can we call it harmony?

We shade it gold, give it value
cherish it,
label it
worthy
 but hone its edges
to cut its own throat,

drip

red

life.

Can that equation ever equal anything
as soft as pink?

Sky and birds fly,
land
on houses built of sand.  Temporary tragedies.

Axes obliterate forests
erect
permanent shelter for humans that offer
occasional cages
for wayward wings.
This we call reprieve.


***

Sweeter than the Desert’s First Rainfall

The snake slithered into her.  I assumed
I would sleep until the next morning—
didn’t work out that way.  It was not yet warm
outside, but ridiculously hot inside.
Perhaps the effect was from the stress of a new place.
For the first time, unbreathing skin revolted.  
In the feverish concentration, human ovens transform
into something bulged, and accused
me with their stares:  Someone burns the world.

It was the same nightmare [about the skeleton shroud].

***

Stuck Stuttering [In Silence]

The peacock feathers on my finger
nails look
    all glitter-glowy.  Moons
alighted, they spark.  The pen
spears the page.  Are they the prophesied third
eyes of legend?  Or the collective channel
through which the muse now chants?  My wonder
leads to worry.  Twitching,
I pick at their petals.  Peeling, they pit,
split, crack.  They are/I am ruined
by the minutia of such
a misguided thought.