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.

To Save, Ctrl + S.

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. 

NEW! Poem by John Fenlon Hogan

John Fenlon Hogan

NOTES OF A PILGRIM


In a country where the earth
is flattened under the big sky’s heel,
15 miles from the interstate—
the closest town a town in which 
the children are below average
and no one turns out to vote,
no one upholds the Sabbath—
—a yellow dot on a map— 
                                   In this place 
which is adjacent to the middle
of nowhere, by which it means
to be no place at all, there is a phone 
booth where you can go to graffiti, 
bury past sins and ex-lovers,
or marvel at the inane. 
                                     But if 
you were drawn there as I was
drawn there, necessarily and by some 
powerful blank, as though searching 
for answers or a new way
of unwelling, then go to the store 
and buy sunscreen, bottled water, 
flashlights. Stuff your haystacks
in a backpack or cram them in your boots 
as if rocks, and carry them
like intentions. 
                       When your GPS 
no longer has a signal or runs
out of battery or otherwise goes
kaput, you can stop panicking—
the Mojave Phone Booth
will manifest itself to you
because you have been cleansed
by ambivalence, and by your own sense 
of proportion. You’ll notice that the glass 
has been shattered by some vagrant
or a person much like the person
you once were, or will come to be,
and The Book has been ripped from its cord 
not as an act of thievery 
but because you are not beyond 
such temptation. As it rings 
—and its ringing for you—
you think about power tools
or stuffed animals
or the family you abandoned
to get here. But the hand has a will 
on this occasion and has already 
grasped the receiver, lifted it— 
there’s no need to bring it
to the ear, no need to do anything, 
really, an all too steady voice
which is your own voice, strange, 
repeating like a glitch in the system: 
Not yet... Not yet... Not yet... 
Whereas the system has no glitch. 

RIP Malinda Markham

from Verse, Volume 18, Numbers 2 & 3

Malinda Markham

ANATOMY OF RESEMBLANCE

On beds in different rooms,

or distant, the woman shifts the angle of her foot. In the light,

her hair moves from red

to the dresser’s dull wood, a signature begun

from the moment her stocking

slips just enough to remind us she is there.

When the phone rings, only language is wrong.

If my jaw were not angled like that,

she and I could be almost

the same. This is the virtue of paint:

The scene controlled by turning the choulders

faintly to the left.

Can you hear the birds? I can’t say their name

in any language. That sound you hear

is not a door closing: No one

has entered the room. I repeat. There is no platform

for disbelief, no memory, even,

of the right word now,

but it begins in the manner of signal,

as in traffic or truth.

Farther to the left is the bookshelf, a mirror cut

by an electric cord.

If you can tell me how many steps it takes

to words I cannot mean, then.

And then.

NEW! Poem by Peter Shippy

Peter Shippy

MY RAGGED COMPANY

As the cellist played a gigue, Bach, 
at Virgil’s, a cantina on Salem Street

known for their garlic martinis, 
I overheard a man say to a woman: 

we’ll be flying to London to see Queen 
at Wembley, without Freddie Mercury, 

once again. And that’s how I knew 
how I knew it was spring, how I knew

it was time to wax my barque, my balls, 
wipe the dew off my cheval mirror

to reckon who’s the prettiest of all, 
and beckon the huntsman’s long knife.

NEW! Poem by Gary Fincke

Gary Fincke

THE SLEEP DIET


Like Beauty, she pricks herself,
Taking sedatives in the vein.
Whole days disappear. Always,
She rises to the mirror,
Remembering the distance
The drab adjectives travel.

The next meal is water, 
Lettuce and celery 
And the memory of bread.
She stills the teeth that need 
To tear through meat; she holds
Her sugar-loving tongue.

A week of elapsed time 
Is a size, a smaller
Circling of the waist and thighs.
A month, her husband says,
Promising his kiss
When she is perfect. So long
He hasn’t touched her he will
Excite her like a stranger.

During the fourth week
She dreams the brilliant alarm
Of his body, how she wakes
When he enters her,
How, afterward, he slips
Chocolate between her lips.

She is in love with sleep,
The way it lessens her.
Lying down is time travel,
Retreating until she
Retrieves her childish shape,
Her princess body.

NEW! Poem by Brendan Lorber

Brendan Lorber

INNER NO PARKING

for Lee Holloway

The moment is as it seems except 
for those in it — look at the empty 
space and then the hydrant that 
keeps it tantalizing in perpetuity

The bruised thumbnail creeps out 
from the smash it single moment in 
the door of James Spader’s Mercedes 
to the unknowable future like a loft 
where others will live someday
but who and when nobody knows

I say it with flowers and mirrors — 
contingencies that make the room 
without being the room itself

Same old me with new hair or 
teacher in the room where one 
waits for me to take place

Once the truth of the moment
is discovered the moment is past 
We know how last summer 
turned out and also that 
knowing means summer’s over

What little innocence we have 
predicated on failure to notice 
our own corruption The 
redemptive inability that rests 
in the dirtiness of our hands

Once yoga is perceived as 
money laundering it ceases to 
be either fraud or Bikram 
White carpets or spankings 
we are not allowed without
a long gaze that the sidelong 
glance knocks to the ground

The neither here nor there
that was always all around
The medium relies on unrealizable 
refreshments to order the moment 
The moment orders rusty nails 
with extra tetanus in case
it gets joined by another

You’ll know me by the empty 
booth I’ve left Betrayal begins 
by definition with a vow and exists 
as the precursor for otherwise
unattainable truth Into necessity

I nailed my thumb and saw
for once that I existed over time 
The you know unknown
I’d been trying not to embody
was right there about to 
emerge from the sun that
allowed it to live but only invisibly 

NEW! Poem by Amish Trivedi

Amish Trivedi

BODY MAP SYMPOSIUM

If we have a plan, it’s 

unbecoming: we could

do nothing and let things 

happen to us, but that

just isn’t how we roll. Places 

we fly over have cities

and culture and cracked 

sidewalks too. Lines

that form the right side 

of your face want to

take me away. Each inch 

is covered in

creases and I think
the room wants to sleep

with you. My relationship 

to my body

has changed and we’re

here to discuss exchanging

faces and making arbitrary 

lines and separating

families with borders. This is 

my story of the generations

and how they collapsed 

and came back stronger

than ever. My version 

carries with it a stigma

and an American flag 

traced on your

body from the legs
to your collarbones. I

know tattoos which create 

the most pain, and I

want you to become 

them: a graft of old

skin, inked, and 

replaced; remnants

of a letter 

never sent; and

covered marks 

exposed. Where our

organs begin is a 

story to be told

in flightless language, 

grounded and

menstruated. They 

expect us to come

running when lights 

burn brightly or

ends of words turn 

in meaningless

symbols and repercussions 

of other faults. We push

to know how, but 

only when connected

in series does darkness 

get purged and then

an open fear is held. With 

teeth marks drawing blood,

only lust can penetrate 

doubt. I know places

that force your head back 

and words that

make you sing, but 

unfortunately, wind

has come in and 

gotten us lost. I’ve got

the whole thing down 

to numbers, but a chart

would be helpful. Figures 

one through nine

could lead us into 

the right species but

my orientation is spread
and bursting. I can meet you

where you tell me, but I 

don’t know the way there

by divine causality. Dismemberment 

is not the side-effect

of any drug I am
aware of, though a response

to an externality
it may be. I have learned

to think in one hundred 

word bursts and

keep myself to one 

thousand and eight words

per day to keep from 

repeating sounds and phrases

I know. I don’t know if 

you’re a boy or a girl, or

sometimes nothing
at all, but any pointing

could be helpful. As long 

as I can hear you

to know where you are, I 

am happy, though

I’d prefer to see 

or taste. I know I

should have kissed you 

but did you have to

tell me that when you 

were putting your

break up speech 

together? Every day

has grown from that spot 

in my lungs and I

cannot suture new 

feelings together or

tell them which way to spread 

because I’m just as nowhere

to be found. Wanting 

to believe each thrust

will be the last, we 

speak only in words

which cannot be seen. I’ll 

leave you part of my nails

in my will, though I 

plan to use them

to scratch my way 

out. I will crawl

in to find where you 

go, but I know I

can come back whenever 

I want. As your

breath is caught
in my mouth, another

desire washes back 

over my central

arteries: to feel 

unwanted and

forgotten primes 

my blood for

exaltation. My next 

performance will be

“The Abstract,” a 

novel in seventeen

words, but on 

nine hundred and

fourteen pages. I want to 

pull my legs up

to my heart and 

burn them

all at once. We could
require immediate infiltration

if our arms were to 

end up behind us

in a fire or a 

mélange of different

noises. If lies go 

too deep, we can

consume them and 

make them a part

of our lineage. I have 

a lingering desire

to be placed on a 

somewhere-bound

bullet but to force it 

back into stasis is a

trouble worth waking 

up to. I cannot complete

my own words 

without seeing

which you want to 

use first, a decision

taken too hard to 

remain uncaring

about. I don’t 

want to steal your

lips, just lease them 

for my revolution, as

private as it 

might be. When

I press my flesh to yours, 

I hear tiny music escaping

and ceasing to form 

notes, much less a

sonic argument. These are 

supplemental words to a

love poem that was written 

in a bloody bathtub over-

looking language as a 

device: how could I

be the last to know? For those 

who look to the sky

hoping for a better figment 

of this imagined prophylaxis,

I want to hand you my 

non-vital organs in the

hopes you’ll find some new 

destruction for them. As my

anemia leads me, so does my 

bile. I want to discover

a reverberation to sink into and 

become part of its silicate. I

refuse to accept that this is

the last memorized passage that will 

make its way into our canon, but

only rejected vowel sounds 

will please our ears, wherever

we might find them.

NEW! Three poems by Brendan Lorber

Brendan Lorber

Three Poems

SIMPLE THINGS

Lip syncing just 
reminds me of all 
the other organs 
(which is) Why 
am I unable to
do simple things 
like own an aut— 


H IN BOSTON

Erectile teleology & other ways
of getting ahead of yourself
in a city so new you’re compelled 
to call it Boston Hot redaction 
in the summer A false friend
to make room in a real shirt 
What we do for love vs. what
it does to us before we even 
know it's there It happens 
before first sight but one can’t 
own up to what’s one’s already 
been pwned by To be had
by secrets The heart of a 
zombie in a song in a dream 


EMPIRE CHIMERA

The ER doc at the bar 
said anything less than 
a machete’s not worth 
coming into work for 
but you’ll know your 
cough is consumption 
if after you fall asleep 
on the Amtrack along 
the Hudson you wake 
up on a boat outside 
Livorno and Shelley 
says you don’t look
so good ye who tested 
the chariot of her 
dark wintry bed 

NEW! Poem by Devin Gmyrek

Devin Gmyrek

FORSYTH

Moving at incredible speeds
across a body of water
the wind seems to guide you
though you’re actually passing air
and without consciously raising your hand 
you meet someone you love in a high
five and that touch is stepped there 
like an orange stain on a white shirt

The outskirts of town troll
by on what can only be sound
and vision condensed into that reverie 
the future longs for

I take a tour about the country
and hardly anybody notices me 
though there they know everyone 
buying beer and cigarettes at the store

One thing substituted for another
and I’m drying off from a swim
at sunset till the engine hops off again 

NEW! Poem by J. Hope Stein

J. Hope Stein

INVENTION OF LIGHT BULBS

Sometimes I can hear Husband turn his pages 
faster than mine & I
become irritated—
& throw a book across the room—
an ember
in husband’s eye that rounds his balls.

“Come here, sensitive, we are 
both turning
because the mind is turning...”

Save it for the factory, husband! 
Only animal pantomime
& balloons, please.

Husband moves like an inchworm 
across the carpet.
Does his best monkey.
Motions as if to offer a string connected 
to something in sky
& I take it.


We act as two animals holding invisible balloons.