Time in a Waiting Room (Part II) / Scott Burnam
VII. Tomorrow on TikTok:
“Postmortem reveals that Yesterday deserved
- a mentor with all its Moments available
- an honest Timepiece by which to measure itself
- better clothes
VIII. Today tears a page out of a Life magazine from 2019
and scribbles these three items down as a new recipe to try.
IX. Mother Time’s wall clock shows Today it’s 11:11:11 PM
(make a wish because it’s too late to help the Self).
X. Today folds the recipe into
a crooked paper airplane and sails it
alone across the room, hard.
XI. Tomorrow looks up at precisely the correct moment
and takes the point directly in its left eye.
XII. “Don’t check out before your time to unwind even begins.” Today warns,
as it fades to almost Yesterday.
Ghost, or I Am the Pretty Thing That Haunts This House / David Estringel
Seconds freefall from
the wall clock like over-ripe fruit
rocking and rolling
bruised and rotting to
the ever-steady pace of a
ceiling fan Hummmmm—
timescatters seeking
dark corners of silent walls
and dust ball meet-cutes.
So much familiar
in that household dust, skin sloughed
away, cell by cell
a head hair here, an
eyelash there, maybe a crumb
of hope…or two or…
Can’t stop the music—
silent entropy—destroy’r
of mountains and men
All I can do is
sit and wait ’til nothing’s left—
dust-devils haunting
the corners to the
whoosh whoosh whoosh of relentless
time and reality tv
This is what it is to be a ghost.
At the marsh / Catherine Forest
Green heron in reeds
Sienna collar plumage
Hidden in plain view
I Hereby Call This Meeting to Order / Erika Seshadri
oh, lord, it’s a sickness,
this reality of doom
this nation of landmines,
pungent broad-flesh burning
in that little-handed white house
time to extract the goblins
wipe away soot smears,
muskiness, spray tan
this hot pick of tyranny
feels like hell
our bruises,
blooming in the dermis
may our fortress
never surrender
New Business:
Community Announcement #1: You can now check out a
bomb-sniffing rat from the local library.
His name is Sheer-Luck Holmes.
Community Announcement #2: Join us on June 14t
at the Milagro Center. We’ll be making the world’s largest
voodoo doll. Now accepting bulk donations of pins and needles.
Morning at The Coffee Shelf / Arthur Turfa
Like the races I used to run
for completion, not for speed, this
Saturday takes it own sweet time.
My books arranged on the table,
catching up with owner and staff
people trickle in, some stop by.
I reminisce with a high school
friend, both now somewhere we never
imagined to live. A couple
buys two books. When things slow down I
read my Atlantic. Another
Gemini buys book by that name.
The staff has graduated now,
each excited to tell me
their futures as the hours pass.
