Poetry
Bart Barlow
Brian Miller
Dale Mason
Katherine Ward
Larry Kostroff
Marty Correia
Matthew Welich
Mirth Hill
Rebecca Snow Landa
Robert Gibbons
No More Confession (For Frida Kahlo)
Bart Barlow
Angelica Turn Me Off
That mistaken night I fell asleep in your drunken arms.
Your sleepy soft embrace burned into my body’s memory.
As though my starless soul had never lived before.
That night I knew I loved you.
I scandalized your name to my friends, strangers in bars.
I wrote your name on bathroom walls and alley ways.
With black markers and neon spraypaint, I defiled.
I told anyone that would listen what a filthy slut you are.
Midnight stolen car through the storefront where you work.
I broke into matriarch’s penthouse through the skylight.
So I could sit on her plush couch in peace, looking through her glass walls.
And dream over the city of that fragmented night with you.
I climbed the city looking for your embrace or your revile.
Scoffing all the lifeless fools and empty hearts that desist me.
Shattered outside the streets and broke the windows of your family’s home.
I vandalized your name while constant whispered in my heart.
Abhorrent in your starlit eyes.
And I don’t know how to stop.
Brian Miller
My Name Is...
i lied, the night we met,
telling you my name was Roman—
the anonymity felt good
after getting out of the hospital &
i was learning to breathe again—
putting my pieces back together
after breaking
d
o
w
n—
but by the end of the night
i let you in, scribbling it
down in orange colored
pencil on torn scrap paper,
because it was all we could
find & when you read it
out loud & my name crossed your lips
i wanted to poke it back in
with my finger
because it felt
like home.
Dale Mason
Life & Concrete
Shall I speak to you of
Life and concrete?
Shall I
Speak in tongues?
Shall I
Pierce my lungs?
Would you have me loose my breath?
And as life escapes,
From little scrapes,
Would you notarise my death?
Shall I
Tape one eye,
So I just spy,
Half the wrongs
You do?
Shall I
Peel my smile,
And all the while,
Pretend I see your wit?
And after peel,
Gush forth spiel,
From the bitter split?
Shall I
Sit by and by,
As you
Try to fly,
Shall I
Note your lack of wing?
And as you leap
Into the sky,
Shall I begin to sing?
And if I sing,
Shall it be,
An aria or dirge?
And after leap,
Will I hope,
The earth and you not merge?
Shall you sit,
And read my words,
Or shall you sit,
And listen?
Shall I sit,
And look you there,
As my teardrops glisten?
Shall you ever know the truth?
Shall I ever speak it?
Is the truth a sapphire rose,
Or is the truth a trinket?
Katherine Ward
Time Punctuated
What drove this nail into the rubber of my tire?
Was it out of desire to travel
or a need to find permanence?
Was it left behind? Is it
used or new? Did it loose
itself from some unloving wood?
Did its asphalt grave
expel it like a bath soaked splinter?
Perhaps, it was driven in
by a spiteful someone,
hammer to head,
who wanted secretly
my being stranded, stuck,
time punctured.
Maybe, it was
the rubber of the tire itself that drove
towards the nail
in search of respite and release.
Larry Kostroff
Black Thoughts
Into my blackest thoughts she marches;
Innocent, unafraid, and unknowing.
Her embrace melts down the misogynist
Surfaces to a bluish-grey.
Followed shortly by cerise.
Marty Correia
The Last(ing)
In a valley of pleasure
You took it in, stuck it out, pulled it on, shot it up
Flesh red from leather and needles
A church with no roof
Rimbaud on a cross
No cloth, only loin
Puritans crushed
Prudence reviled
Drawn penises photographed
Dancing barefoot
She whirled around you
Lifted you up, she lifts you up
From the street, from the bed
Refusing your time to pass away
You were just kids along with the disease
Proud of your dust
Queer predecessors wash, rinse, repeat
Bathing in your scripture
Yet, today, nannies mind babies
and microwave Fresh Direct
where you gave head
Next to your empty deathbed
Girly boy boas are flattened under
books of criticism and theory
They don’t know the Bowery
still hears your heels clicking
Just yesterday, some bricks on Bond
said they miss your shadow
And there are still some freaks left
who would snort your ashes
Matthew Welich
Sense of Humor
I joined the “cool” freshmen round table
Containing Cobb, Zee-ack, Mr. Bor
And E-rock. I was about to take
A seat when I realized, I forgot
My Strawberry Melon.
Unbeknownst to myself, these creeps
Were planning to execute their attack when I
Returned from the Fruit Works machine.
I placed my 20ozs. on the table,
Wondered why they looked constipated,
Ready to explode at any moment.
I then began the traditional two-part
Process known as sitting.
Halfway to the point of chair trust,
Cobb kicked that fucker
A good 6 feet away.
A harmless betrayal.
Unlike my former good friend,
Whose name will be omitted
To keep his guilt secured.
I get it, he’s in love,
But is it with her, or her kids,
Or is she the greatest lay since _?
It’s beyond me, but when she finally
Punts him, I won’t be calling a fair catch.
Mirth Hill
Ryan's Hands
The graceful bird
that is your hands
flies, drunken, into a description
of the evolution of fish.
Somehow managing to remain an elegant creature of the sky.
Then,
before my eyes
it is a fish.
Bioluminescent and weightless.
Seeking out and navigating
a labyrinthine current of thought.
I witness this clandestine puppetry
as a child does a magic show.
Awed,
hypnotized,
wrapped in the beauty of the act.
They swim towards me.
Emerging from the wetness of hallucination.
Ten fleshy moon-bedded hearts.
Holding the appled orbs of my cheeks.
As your lips,
suddenly pressing mine,
become a forest
and I,
the wind entwined.
Robert Gibbons
No More Confession (For Frida Kahlo)
thought by sheer will secret self
rid your contamination of color
inviting me into your personal space
your confessional booth your painting hang
dreams dominate the corner of New York
avenue where Clare Booth Luce fell from your
easel then life takes away all roads lead
back private demons monkeys
on my back now the big braid bridges your
head to me Diego ate your ashes
your urn shakes on the mantle
Sarah Goodwin-Nguyen
Migraine (With a Line from Sylvia Plath)
These alien sutures through my vision
mean business
All day I have been floating in dots
half-myself, cleared of purpose
Best rethink plans and assess
the trigger
it’s mine alone to bear
the nails, the gun
I am too pure for you or for anyone
I am Persephone, eater of pomegranates
All that the universe plans for me
no amount of Codeine
or love can cure
February
No magnolias grow no lime nor gladiola
across the doorway snow carelessly swept
called to my window as if by a lover
I have survived slews of winters
and living arrangements
May I stay in your apartment so like
you the girth of it’s embrace not vast
nor vacant
These days you’re distant buried valuable
I know you’re someone wonderful who struggles
but this month no goldenrod clings no redbird sings
and I don’t dare think I’ll be staying long either
