Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Alyssa Trivett - Three Poems

1
Gas Station Blues


I drove by the abandoned station
with X’s for eyes on the gas pumps
and fast food chicken nugget flavored water scents
parading up and down the scarred asphalt.
Car tires whir
and patrons accidentally skip their shoulda been
toll change out the window
and let summer seep into their rusted boxcars
as people launch fireworks and bullets
at ungodly hours.


***

2
Drive Up


Coffee shop loitering regulars 
trot by the pond behind the drive-up,
the alley reeking like a 
high school cigarette bathroom 
tarnished with dry paper towel ink
and cardboard thoughts
with scribbled streak scrawl
of study hall poetry.

***

3
Heart/Head/Everything/No Bread.


My heart dilates my eyes
proceeding to pencil sharpen 
my tap-dancing fingers
as his leather coat paper airplane glides
and whirs the revolving door 
like the kickback of a chicken’s head
flying off for target practice,
or a can in No Man’s Land
shot to hell like a wandering baseball
just eyein’ your jackhole of a neighbor’s
front window
and the rubber-band drops into my system
giving me some sort of 
rollercoaster shock from electric bar syndrome
not yet invented
and tells me to give a chance

and love him.

Tuesday, July 23, 2019

Heath Brougher - Two Poems

***
1
Scum 
 
Ask scrooge,,
scrack (ash);;—
 
Tampa houses,
temporal hoses;
hrrrrip! (octo;;),,
 
folio scag..,
Cesar (fl0);;>
 
stric (t) sock;;—
stone vipers,,
ska ksa (id),,
ir 8 (I ate)d;
ribcage rubteeth,,
 
wren (WREN) wren;; to Punch
a passenger pigeon;
picka FINCH—
 
sun (a;;’)—
scream vesper;;
 
      ;ßDILLATANTE
 
ROUGHIANà;
 
cream bats
(otco) o’clock,,
 
pull pills;
spitless scrounge sock vitamin S;
(17,000 mi)les downthroat
contagious venomà
Question Screen,,
vile vitals;;
 
stich sick sticks — throat WARD;;
SKIN—;;
stung by poisontooth;
don’t say a darkword;
scrambled scotch;;
of asp after asp after ASP!!

 
 

***
2
Pontif-I-cate 
 
[LACK]
notetaking noteworthy
 
territory terrestrial
 
GUMMA
 
bloated tertiary syphilis
GODzillas everywhorl!
 
clock misticks;
--------ance flicks;;—
 
Reptilian wreckage—
,, magnanimous moth.
 
night save day
tonal
timbre
ochre  ;;
 
rubber ORE ;;—
 
OIL BATH……..
ROTISSERIE
car
cuss……….
(egg cet ERA)

(spoiled rotgut windchime children).

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Lawrence Upton - Birdsong


sleep
sleep
sleep
sleep
sleep
sleep
sleep


slumb
                                         may be
sleep


sleep
                                                          see?


come here then


yes?                                         all right
  yes?                                      all right
      yes?                               all right
            yes?                   all right


now        now now        now now


                   me me?
                      me me?
                          me me?
                               me me?
yes
                    real.
                                                         may be

Sunday, July 7, 2019

Jesse DeLong - Two Poems



***
The Greeks had it Wrong, About the Gods

What’s not in time
cannot imagine what it’s like to suffer


loss, and cannot measure the slowly eroding


cell, and as such, wouldn’t be like us—
The infinite wouldn’t be like anything


we could envision. An indescribable god, a god outside
of limits, yes, the Hebrews were wiser.


Smart enough to say
nothing, they couldn’t even name him. Look, the wind


hits the bushes and we attribute it to a predator
because there is no survival cost in false alarms.


So, too, do we give the gods agency of change.
Let them be not there—most accurate.


Accept this, though: the world is a better place
because we die.


To experience grief, loss, struggles, failures,
and to overcome them, once in a while, if we are lucky,


and to know by nature the world is zero
sum, that is not all, but part of being human:


“When we are tempted, as many of us are
at times, to wish that our own lives could go on forever,


often what we are wishing is that some version of our lives
we are now leading could continue without end.”


A version of our lives where we die.


This according to Scheffler, not my words, but copied
here, and passed on, hopefully without error—


It is its own sort of life. Watch it multiply in you.







***
5 may 2015 

And then there are days
when a woman drives down
from Mississippi to give
you a handjob
& she leaves right after. No
fuss. Ok. O
K. And then there are
days when the afternoon
showers are over
but clouds still filter
the sun. The wind’s
an unsweaty sheet. She pulls out
of the parkinglot, doesn’t
look back. Ok. O
K. You can watch the game.
And then there are days
when you don’t have
to ride the bus,
the store is across the street,
you buy a three dollar
bottle of wine, pork strips,
Tony’s marinade, & High
Life Light
for later. Ok. So she left
early. You can watch
the game. You pour a glass
of wine for yourself.
You are here now.
The glass gleams.
The wine drips
down the stem.
This is
what
it’s
like.

Tuesday, July 2, 2019

J. D. Nelson - Five Poems

1
diamond grip push-ups


were it ten
tons, this Auraria
train


I’d need the warp
to get the sun


chores for
hurt warden


wrapped around you
like a year of moths



***

2
danderklee the eventual yes


pistachios
pianos
particles
aesop


rivery styx to pick up plainly
wearing watermelon shoes


them beatles
were they on the moon too



***

3
all over everything like the word


I made it rain in the diorama earth


water ghost was like a blue sheet on the line
the red sheet was a mad plaid


a new duck!
we shall call him bethlehem


water ghost was all over the lake like fireworks



***

4
spurk live bell you’ll groan


remembering the money & to stop and get it
ok I am rich so what now let’s do everything


went back for more chip & dip


too loose on earth & the money was gone
oh well this is another fine day to know nothing



***

5
bitten by a horse fly


welcome to violent atlantis
I am a shoe


is that a flavor
sometimes


especially when it’s dark-dark
& the lightning is pink or blue