Poetry
S— Estate, After
by Sarah Cannavo in Issue Seven, November 2022
First published in Literary Hatchet, Issue 22
The dark house sits brooding, high on the hill;
heedless of time passing, of age and decay,
my love walked its halls—he’s roaming them still.
As spiders spin webs from windows to sills,
as velvet tapestries fade and fray,
the dark house sits brooding, high on the hill.
Wandering from wing to wing as he willed,
the lord of a land that’s wasting away,
my love walked its halls—he’s roaming them still.
No... Continue →
Paradiso: A Found Cyborg Poem
by Tiffany Morris in Issue Seven, November 2022
(taken from 2020s advertisements)
it’s written in the stars:
the ingeniously simple
magnetic mechanism
of the making process —
a depth of field
stitching together
trees, mythology —
cosmic archetypes
adjustable and buzzing.
the orchestra of the future
emerges through dream
in underlying ontological
ritual: digital axiological
alchemy.
life buzzes versatile:
a soul-making practice of
inner landscape where
a celebration... Continue →
One-Way, Through the Fire
by Lin Darrow in Issue Seven, November 2022
It’s the first thing they tell you in Temporal Navigation 101:
Time is water,
But it knows no gentle ebb,
Only the rage and riot of rapids.
You can’t go back, the Temporists say;
The currents are too strong.
On this, the handbooks are agreed: don’t cling to lost time.
Drift forward, travel on, but don’t fight the tide.
Don’t be the fish caught in the hooks of days past, captive in its line.
Keep all your lost loves tucked away like jewels to their boxes,
Preserved in the dark velvet of memory.
Leave regret... Continue →
My FEMA trailer
by Gary Bloom in Issue Seven, November 2022
Early in the morning
I can hear my neighbor’s TV
Reverberating through the tin foil
Walls of her FEMA trailer
And into my own
Consciousness
Lying on the paper thin mattress
In my own FEMA trailer.
We are together
In a trailer park built
On the ruins of Katrina
And no matter what
They say this
Formaldehyde
Can’t be good
But it could be worse
And I know it
So I’m happy this morning
Listening to my neighbor’s
TV (It’s Regis and Kelly)
in my FEMA... Continue →
Little Arson Grasses
by Jennifer Crow in Issue Seven, November 2022
If you love me, you will burn.
Put your cheek against mine
and feel the heat my bones
release into the world. We plant
ourselves in dry soil and gather
water from every deep and shallow
source, and our thirst grows
like the weeds between rows
of corn, and the river sinks
between the stones of its banks
and the little arson grasses
we brought from cooler climes
parch and kindle, a lightning strike
from inferno.
In and out of water
by Overcomer Ibiteye in Issue Seven, November 2022
There’s a fierce audacity about water:
the way it barges into palimpsest buildings unannounced
the way the buildings are sucked into a void
the way the water barrels our bodies into a concave
cross-referencing us with open tombs.
There are different ways to view the sea,
different ways to zigzag our images on water.
We can stand on the beach and watch the water
clone our images into an inverse equations.
Or we can dive into the water
and imitate the way the sea bends its hips to the opera
of... Continue →
Two Beaches
by Devin Miller in Issue Six, September 2022
I want to show you the beach
that has been with me since I was in utero.
Now I carry it inside me in my turn:
the rocks, the barnacles with their
fronds and sharp edges,
the shards of bathroom tile and blackboard,
the mud and grabbing kelp and broken shells,
the living sand dollars and starfish and crabs.
I too have sharp edges,
have fronds that float in the current
and reach for your ankles;
I too have living things on my shores.
I learned here how to hold all of this,
how to lean over the water like the... Continue →
Skyscraper
by Annika Barranti Klein in Issue Six, September 2022
First published in Fireside Quarterly, January 2020
I was thinking today of a
world without traffic lights
where pushing the button
on the dashboard for recirculated air
would send the carbon dioxide
we breathe out from the cabin
into a special compartment full
of plants and the compartment would
be open to let in the sun but
shielded to protect it from wind and
the plants would photosynthesize
the carbon dioxide and release
oxygen that would be piped back
into the car, which, come to... Continue →
send down the rain is no song when the belly goes to war
by the_people in Issue Six, September 2022
zephyr sings a lullaby into my body
that she may light my eyes and dulcify my tongue
don't listen to her—
the aphorism of my stomach roared in hurt
and reluctantly, i was submerged in its words:
that a lay cannot quench the lust for bread
the lyrics to sweet melodies won't enchant
food into my ears when my body perishes for lack
of a real meal.
how does the wind's music heal me?
can she cast out the scars of drought's blade on my lips?
how does the wind's music birth waters?
waters—not the tears... Continue →
Let the Water in
by Vanessa Jae in Issue Six, September 2022
The earth tears at her concrete visage
until she can breathe through the cracks.
Listen to the viscous vows of retaliation
she presses through her stuffed throats:
Let the water in,
she murmurs as she feels rain brushing against
her mask of stone, begging for reunion.
Let the water in,
she rumbles as she remembers the gardens
you pressed into matts of dead grass.
You refill her claw marks with asphalt,
sealing her mouths for another decade.
Listen to the water’s chants