SCANNING FOR MONKS
Marc Olmsted
SCANNING FOR MONKS
Ambitition - my
breaker of worlds =
disappointment's king & chief
ally of wake=up!
Sipping bad coffee
scanning for monks
there's a lot I won't
do now
for your
rottentooth
deals
-...
Any Other Street
Francine Witte
Any Other Street
would be made of asphalt, black pitch
pillowing in the August heat. But this street
is woven with bones and ash and anything else
leftover when a dream dies. It’s the kind
of street you try to av...
Die Harder Inside
Jane Ormerod
Die Harder Inside
A hand. Wheels. Silver nodding, coffee, the inward flight. Trust Los Angeles. Collect and die. The baggage of toe fist and bear co-and-op-and-corp-oration. Frosty riding. (Live to thirty then flee when...
The Wrong Day
Vincent Katz
The Wrong Day
it was so beautiful today, the most perfect of ones lighted on bricks and the last
walkings toward figures one had seen all summer and would see again
and my parents arrived last night after being dela...
Device
Steve Luttrell
Device
She can’t
take her eyes
off her phone.
Clutched in her hand,
a tether to
some unseen source.
I wonder what
she sees in that device?
glowing
like a beacon
in her hand.
She can’t
take her...
COLD DAYS IN FLORIDA
Thaddeus Rutkowski
COLD DAYS IN FLORIDA
When the temperature drops to forty degrees,
people don’t want to walk around.
It is too cold to be outside.
They stay inside and wait
until the days get warmer.
The temperature rarely drop...
Poet Story
Peter Bushyeager
Poet Story
The steel taps on
Mayakovsky’s size 13 boots
scraped the smear off his surface
when he wrote while striding
the Rockaway boardwalk
each metallic rap on the planks
a refugee thought gathered
so he cou...
Hand Job
Ron Kolm
Hand Job
It’s my first day on the job
In a plant making hand trucks.
“You’ll be rubbing acid on new
Welds to seal them,” the foreman
Tells me. “Here’s some rubber
Gloves,” he says, tossing me a pair.
...
NEW YEAR’S EVE IS THE HARDEST
Anton Yakovlev
NEW YEAR’S EVE IS THE HARDEST
By June he was done and done with politics and painting.
He couldn’t care less where he’d dropped his KGB card.
The shame at being blacklisted only sped up his breathing
two or three...
RAIN
D. James Smith
RAIN
Still vast, lung-wet, I lie there, awhile,
Trickling out of the tiny cracks in my wrists.
I waken slowly, cold as the sea and remember.
Days I drove home weeping for nothing
I could name but the bruised aft...
Dawn Patrol
Max Blagg
Dawn Patrol
Lord I am risen from that misery and I wait for you
Like the sleepless man waits for dawn
The light was up at 5.45 am and I rose to meet it
first hours of the day filled with rain
lightning over Montauk so...
MUSICAL
Norman Douglas
MUSICAL
memory is the mother of muses
(of which some
say there are three
others count nine).
and what is music
but that which comes of muses
musing deep enough our
hearts do ...
Veil
Mia Hansford
Veil
In a little while I’ll let go of your hand but for
now I’ll rest it in the flashing blue-night dark,
in the lights cross the water and along the bridge’s
quiet: leather, radio, a nervous handler opening
...
Mom Used To Say
Suzi Kaplan Olmsted
Mom Used To Say
Life is Rashomon, my father plays King Lear
Mom plays Lady MacBeth or Katherine, the shrew, depending on the moment
Brother Tony and I were both busy choosing our own roles, We weren’t always certain ...
after my younger sister’s memorial service
Kelly Cowan
after my younger sister’s memorial service
Robin’s
reclining chair
& end table
sitting near
the bay
window -
ice box
snow -
find
in the drawer
her reading
glasses,
Bic
disposable lighter
& a stack
of ph...
