Kiss of Kind
Carl Watson
Virtue and Fear
Stare at each other in the mirror,
They feed upon & tease each other
Until neither one remembers what it used to be.
That mirror’s name is Vanity,
It can make a body live in harmony ...
Last Supper in an Airport
Ronald B. Richardson
Dawdle. Doodle. What to do?
Spill an alphabet, spill a stew.
Fire the cauldron, eat the bread,
soon those waiting will be dead.
Down the supper, drink the curse;
no matter how dull, death is worse.
--Ron Richar...
Landscape with a Bear in It Somewhere
Rebecca Weiner Tompkins
The limber late light
travels across the ridge
where the bear climbed.
Even with my head thrown back
I still can’t take in the tops
of the tall pointed trees
up there. A friend’s death
is flickering in and out
of...
For an Infant in the Throes of a Fatal Condition
Robert C. Hardin
Cirrhosis isn’t half as bad
As maladies you might have had.
A failing liver strains the muscles
But liberates the red corpuscles.
When voided kidneys soak one’s dollies,
Relief, like spasms, comes in volleys.
Rope-...
Erasure, The Lotus Eaters, Ulysses*
Larissa Shmailo
BY LORRIES ALONG SIR JOHN ROGERSON’S QUAY
past Nichols’ the undertaker’s. Eleven, daresay.
Sent his right hand with slow grace over his hair:
Where was the chap I saw in that picture somewhere?
Ah, in the dead s...
Some of My Friends
Max Blagg
“Some of my friends don’t know who they belong to.”
Dipsomanic daytrippers kicking it
in small motels on desert mornings
dancing a june bug sonata
percussive staccato legato
flowing smooth and certain as a rive...
Swallow the Evidence
Wanda Phipps
Inspired by The Limits of Control, a film by Jim Jarmusch
my mind hops back
to the century trees
of Cabo de Gata
a woman in platinum wig
white cowboy hat
white trench coat
and cowboy boots
covered in leopard’s ...
the perfect child
steve dalachinsky
i am a descendant of those that have survived for centuries
& my mother wanted me to be the perfect child
i am still amazed that people know how to make doors
their ingenuity baffles me
way beyond that of a beaver & its...
Other Body Parts Are Worthy of Attention
Hal Sirowitz
“My problem is I’m both attracted and repelled by the male organ.”
—Diane Keaton, Manhattan
I hope you don’t quote me
as saying I like your sexual organ,
she said. There are better things
I...
