Rule this place. / Luisa Berne
We have scrambled up the body
of the mountain through the deep
woods where only shards
of sunshine pernitrate
to the rocky cliffside.
The gray rocks are luminous skin
in the sunlight.
Wind whips my hair trying
to steal my hat as
if it is a naughty child.
Our murmurs of conversation
have ceased just for an instant,
just long enough to give
to breath in the vastness
of this place.
The inlet’s silver water ripples
far below us lapping
at the toes of the mountains.
The Mountains feel too large for the sky,
as if they are about to rip
the seams out of a coat that is too small.
As if to remind us that the mountains,
not us, rule this place
the jagged peaks are crowned
with fresh fallen snow.
I know a photo will not do it justice
But I take one just the same.
As The Sushi Conveyor Belt Spins, / Scott Burnam
I’m as scattered as scrabble tiles at the top of the game
all chaos no order and the apocryphal antidote to
my condition is back ordered on Amazon.
So on to Mega Mart to the healing section to line my
pockets with things I usually have to barter for:
sanity, whiskey, the ease of a morning when you know the day is going to be alright.
At the end of a book, a rope, my patience with the slog
through the rainforest of life. I’m bit too many times
and sick for sure in ways that commuters are too busy to observe.
What remains at sundown along with
the onset of all the shadows we call ‘night’ is who
they’ll get to carry my casket and whether or not
they add the letter ‘h’ to my last name on the death certificate.
If they do, it’s like getting out of the electric chair if it
doesn’t kill you the first time: a do-over, with new damage,
your hair on fire, and something else I didn’t get a chance to
write before the pen ran out of ink.
Shadowhead (Yellow), 2017 / David Estringel
–after Richard Hambleton (1952-2017)
soul projection
mindscramble ejection
scorched
‘cross the slick
of a jaundice sky
creeping
seeping
screaming
weeping,
polyester emanations
fingertip eja cu lati on s—
drip angst and
glamor
of dime bag
street philosophy.
dark come-hither
make-me-whither
sweet oblivion
blind-eye sta res
seeking
tweeking
eeking
needing
the candy-sweet-
sizzle
all-too-soon-fizzle
of
a wetburn
poppy kiss
artworld fumbles
sidewalk
stumbles
Hey, buddy,
how ‘bout
a masterpiece
for a ham-on-rye?
flailing
wailing
failing
railing
‘gainst the world
opportunists
and the acrid stink of
lifesick
from his
still
jaundiced sky.
no regrets / Catherine Forest
Boy with snowy egrets
A mural that elevates
Even urban blues
—to remain ours / Erika Seshadri
we are salt-washed, voices
rasping. we have wailed
discordant for our wombs
as earth shifts
to a minor key, fissures split
into canyons
we wake paralyzed along the bottom
this thievery,
nocturnal
be/cause
god can only survive
by
betraying
the goddess
