Antonius Block is back, vexed,
wishing only for more war,
more murder. It makes more sense.
One cannot gut the wind
much as one might want to.
Category: Poetry
To Forget & Not Forget in a Bathtub by Danae Younge
It has been seventy-three years
& she must swallow night, now, like her caplets,
when daylight is a dearth inside her peeling stomach.
The days are nameless & dirtied, those
that secrete from her skin come nightfall —
that she feels dust her creases mauve
& defuse through turbid water —
her throat takes them back through steam
pasting moon crescents to the tiles.
Certain Stories by John C. Krieg
Certain stories are supposed to have certain endings. The die is cast. The storyline is set in stone. To not follow the plotline could almost be viewed as a sin, and to go off script oftentimes invites disaster. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow, and sometimes the flow can cause you to drown.
The day after Luke died, there was a puppy roaming in the driveway, maybe eight weeks old, but probably closer to six and just on the edge of being appropriately weaned. She was cute, as all puppies are, but there was a sadness about her. She had obviously been dumped upon us by someone who just didn’t want to be bothered anymore. Judging by how skinny she was, they most likely didn’t spend any money on dog food. I could envision her masters ripping apart the litter, separating the young and innocent from their mother as soon as possible, and putting their concerns behind them as they dumped their problems on to someone else.
Cliffs of Moher, 2014 by Caroline Murphy
do you remember when we kissed the Irish coast
with shaking lips, pointed to the waves
crashing against the rocks and imagined
how good we’d look trying to swim
alongside them?
your eyes were the same color
as the sea. I couldn’t tell
which was deeper.
The Map of Itself by Edward Lee
The heart never stops loving,
it simply contracts
in splintered pain
when a sadness
taints the air
running though its chambers.
Labour or love, grief and minimum wage by M McCorquodale
I fall into these folds of labour
contorted
posed
puppeteering
for love,
grief
or minimum wage
Through the back door by Soonest Nathaniel
They will let you out through a dark corner,
after putting you in spaces you do not inhabit,
spaces you would never occupy.
They will let you out Mansir;
into a virtual space far from home.
A Tiny Ode to Chubbiness by EL Kamaal
—for AM Mariam
Your thick thighs. Your full waist.
Your bright eyes. Your round face.—
That you walk around the streets,
Unashamed of the penetrating eyes,
Unafraid of words that hit hard as punch
To Go Wading by Louise Mather
Colossus vessels gazing without oars
over green-lit stencilled exiles
further from the sun
the cliff’s furrow
crowns birthing rockpools
nests of salt prisms
willow tendrils and hammered jade florets
struck with kindling and dew