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

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.

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

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

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.”

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—

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.