NEW! Two poems by Andrew Michael Roberts

Andrew Michael Roberts

TWO POEMS


geometry of innocence

god is dreaming.

a colony of moths

unfurls in the mind,

a fortress of trees

gowned in smoke

through which you fall

sideways, like a leaf.

at the lakeshore,

walk softly.

water sleeps.

light buzzes in

the crustaceans' brains.

the mountains

with their eyes of ice

strike out at the thunder-vaults.

egrets, egrets if they succeed:

unfolding to take the place of the sky.

all shall be showered

in otherworldly poise.

here is a throne

while you wait

made of driftwood and bone,

and your ignorance crown

for which the world wars.

-met′əbol′ik

i have enchanted a housefly
with one piano note.

dirty little captain
of the men of death,

he's caught in a frequency,
blinking his thousand
unthinkable eyes.

near-dawn. an icicle slips
from its jaw along the roofline.

now behold the gaping smile of doom.

who am i but to judge?
i drink like a king,

i have a liver going to hell,
my cells at war with me.

you stalwart mutineers.
can you arrest time? no.

the rung note dissipates.
morning hesitates,

but comes.
morning like a broken bell,

a candle in the birdcage
where the blind bird was.

NEW! Poem by Doug Ramspeck

Doug Ramspeck

NOTES FOR THE MORNING ORBIT

and always the problem of prayer—

wind brushing over the hair on our arms,

the sunlight we hoard on our skin

that moment when

we invent a certain 

methodical throbbing to our hearts

a rhapsody of waking    a half-scissor 

of a leg kicking for the floor

the spirit breaking and entering

the daily orbit of regret spinning us

toward some cartoon apocalypse

the hours like a sleight of hand

NEW! Poem by Michelle Valois

Michelle Valois

LIVES OF THE DEAD

At 16, Confucius was a corn inspector. His job required neither wisdom nor self-scrutiny, only a keen eye for rot and the ability to hold large numbers in his head. Albert Einstein, also good with numbers, could not speak fluently until he was eleven years old. Emperor Louis Napoleon could speak five languages and was praised for his ability to keep silent in all of them. I know only two languages and can’t seem to keep my mouth shut in either, except for that month when I couldn’t speak at all, but we won’t talk about that today. Today we will talk about Thomas Edison, who was afraid of the dark. 

NEW! Poem by Kyle McCord

Kyle McCord

If you’re reading this,
I forgive you for eating me first.
Then Hector, our Mayan tour guide,
who doubtlessly ascended
the tree of wisdom
next to the fern of unwise disrobing
in public venues. 
Then at least four members
of the archeology club
while those scrappy kids
obediently translated
the sarcophagus’s inscription:
Please visit the gift shop
on your way out, vile desecrators.
I toot my rustic horn in approval. 
If you’re reading this,
beware Bachelor #1
whose love of long walks on sandy beaches
doesn’t survive the second date. 
Then the children come out of cryo
like greyhounds bounding
onto an orbital platform.
Bachelor #2,
the fleshless beast of nightmares,
shares your affection
for early Will Smith cinema
and couch surfing at polar research stations. 
When the wind rushes over his billboard empire
he secretes a sort of melancholy.
Rest assured, the SWAT teams
have him surrounded.
As for my effects,
buried beneath our makeshift mackerel factory,
you’ll find an alarmingly detailed biography
of Boris Kasparov
and a pictorial history of our years
as star-gazing antlers.
Scatter my leftovers
on the snow-drifted sea
where we birthed our young
and each day raised them
to be the most well-preserved ziggurats
ever to grace the stage. 

NEW! Poem by Terrell Terry

Terrell Terry

BURNISHED TRACE

Wherever is where we began:

tulips opened to the T without

introduction. Already in here.

It is a privilege, past the spot

of cramping bellies. Ones that

take you, living locked inside

walls. Speakers in other rooms,

through speakers through tunes.

Three thoughts that were said

amidst the muffle. Title taken,

so who cares what you name it?

Weren’t you told to be careful

about wild wishes that might go

the wrong way on permanently

permeated park benches. Touch

a wire of world store electro-

cutions, while jagged Mondays

just happen to recycle maladies.

We perspire, thinking nothing

of the waste. We’ll need water, 

not its stabbing fact. I too sense

the tide when wondering what

has happened to those woods.

NEW! Poem by Jacob Schepers

Jacob Schepers

HOW TO TALK OF YESTERDAY

Bring back the chilblains

though it costs you the wasps.

Compare the stings of both.

Toss out the digital clocks;

pinch droplets of bathwater

scintillating still into a saucer:

follow their trail till the baby

peels off the milk carton

back into your arms.

Forget the number four. Same goes

for all like-lettered words. Practice

that accent. You know which one.

Rescind the former laurels old loves

tied around your temples too tight

without brushing your nape enough.

Call your mother. Stay indoors.

Keep up that recovered tongue;

tune a piano, but sell your own, 

the one you never played 

unless prompted. Clean the eavestrough

and call your mother. Tell her

again what you meant to say

that time before you choked

on a fishbone.

NEW! Poem by Doug Ramspeck

Doug Ramspeck                                                                                   

CROW EYE

the hours stiffen and grow heavier

then a sugar maple 

shatters the window of a nursery

we are complicit in this

the entrails of clouds     patterns

of grief     calyx of decaying flowers 

crows watching with blank eyes 

here is the language 

of vessel and messenger

ancient and unyielding 

the catfish writhing on the riverbank where 

our fathers return 

to press down an unrelenting

boot until eyes are dead moons

NEW! Poem by Micah Bateman

Micah Bateman

IF EVERYWHERE THE SOUND OF RAIN BREAKING

Pentameter rain, maddening.

To make a guest of madness

In a house made to shelter,

A hearth by which to be made

Dry. A fire calls

And smoke relays.

Imperious wind, these leaves left

Trembling, all this 

Detritus of wedding

Sky to breath, roving clouds

Of pests destroying

Miles of cornscape. Imperious sky,

Summer called, wants his

Letterman’s jacket back. My mother

Sinks a blackened pan

Into a dishwater bath,

Gulf still slick with oil, rainbow swirls,

Several rains over several nights.

My father strings a deer up

By her neck, lets it drain,

The ground fed by more 

Than morning, one finding

Oneself in heaps of things

One can’t be made

Aware of but one tries.

Sloshing down a walk,

Yellow galoshes, a girl

In a rubber coat,

Paisley dress peeking out

With each arm’s stride,

Something on an eave

Sliding frictionless,

Hypotenuse, gutterward.

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NEW! Poem by Kristin Bock

Kristin Bock

I WISH I COULD WRITE A POEM ABOUT POLE-VAULTING ROBOTS


I turn my head to the window and a piece of foil lilting across the onion-field. If I were a pole-vaulting robot, I wouldn’t be thinking about windows or snowstorms or shiny, cold bellies. I wouldn’t fixate on my giant-heavy head or these yellow, watery eyes. No, if I were a pole-vaulting robot I’d run so fast my legs would become invisible. I’d be concerned with pageantry, white kites and waving. They jump for the fame, you know, and they believe this is a terrible sin. But hard as they try, pole-vaulting robots cannot turn away from their adoring fans. Without them, they would be mere cans crying into themselves.