2016 Features

2016

Steven D. Schroeder,

this was not the time to start / that argument, what with the sucking / chest wound

Shenandoah Sowash,

Here the keys fit no locks / Not that I have keys

Mathias Svalina,

My Older Sister & My Younger Sister

My older sister ate all of herself in tiny bites, / until only a mouth & teeth remained

Cross-Country Skiers

Gravy flinger, / would your god get my god?

Shannon Barber,

We fat ass nymphs twerk / in frenetic acts of reclamation.

Dena Rash Guzman,

how about a little spooning honey

We’ll have no money soon & honey / I lost the old version of what was, the not his

Invocation of the Wisdom of Objects

O spoon! / Sing in me the whorled air / of your thumbprint bow

Shanna Compton,

She and the house rattle plenty.

Thirteen Forty-Seven

We squirm loose gap-toothed / with a neck mole tossing its locks / in the wind

I Explore to Write Home About It

Many light-voids make me blind at night— / I hope I will be without many snakes’ teeth.

SDA,

100 Questions for the Presidential Debates

58. What existed before time? / 59. What are wasps for?

How to love one’s neighbor in this bullhorn rain / Because the innocent children because innocence

Steve Caratzas,

THE FATHER HAD HIS OWN IDEAS REGARDING GOD

Laughter upon hearing the insolent words / The moon being timid and poorly timed

robert andrew perez,

it read more as an orgiastic cuddle-fest, really / than it did an orgy.

Black Friday Night

My jade plant start loves the logic / of streetlamps.

Jenessa VanZutphen,

An introduction

On the hottest days I saw love this way, like the crunch and pull, the thirst.

Get Insomnia, Wave Me Away: A Binary Confessional at the Chew and…

Froth on Yojimbo’s desk. / A decaf set out, let loose.

Kevin Sampsell,

My earliest memory / is stepping out of a / long white Cadillac / and landing in your mouth

joan naviyuk kane,

The Mother of All

You dreamt I walked once, / across the ice, to find you.

Habitat and Diet

Home is too far away; I could never find it now. / California wiped my nose clean.

my confessions will begin / in the book of deserts

Janelle DolRayne,

Poem for Orlando

I want to imagine / the way they were / dancing.

the solution to loneliness swallowed— / to save the city burn the city down

Kyle John Crawford,

Sound was summered and snowed. / Ankle-deeped rill stood for standing / still

Jul 06

Jonas Kyle-Sidell,

What We Were Talking About

Because the body / of time and love / is not just a carcass; / it lives –

Shannon Barber,

Almost 40 Weaponized and Unstoppable.

At almost 40 I will never be their darling. / I am the loud mouthed destroyer.

A Tsunami Can Happen At Any Time

Here the sand is black and the shoreline / covered with bright blue jellyfish

Dena Rash Guzman,

rougher than you can know

I’m quiet in the kisses I stop / only a truckload of flowers / will rouse me

Steve Caratzas,

ALL THE FUZZ BOXES IN THE WORLD COULD NOT SAVE ME

A life in boxes / Shut, sealed

words come with shaking knees swarms of bees / in fair weather our hands tethered together

BLOWING SMOKE AT THE MOON IN PORTLAND, OREGON

That long-form vim by whose / blood & glow the galaxies once got lit – / we can’t do that anymore.

Humans at Blackwater River

we are contained in the light we need / nature grows indifferent in the dark

Shadab Z. Hashmi,

Ghalib lists thirty-eight varieties of mangoes in his letters

The poet finds names of mangoes / in the folds between empires

A Message from your Mode

Please smoke only if part of you / burns uncontrollably.

what we lift / from the vine and take inside us / is not only sweet firmness / but back ache and blemish

tonight, there’s an egg on the counter, just one, sitting perfectly still

Sara Renee Marshall,

Letters for Others: JAC

It’s not clear how we walk: what into, what from. You, stranded from a mother, mothering.

After all the ways I have pictured sickness / how can I help but empty out?

You and I: Mask and Mask

You are the God-made image of God / I am a flat-faced ape with an overgrown brain

In a moment the world will release / the wreckage of one rose

I HAD GIVEN UP HOPE OF FINDING SOMEONE WHO LOVED THE WORLD AND…

To put it more delicately: I want you to fuck / the fiscal responsibility out of me.

Dec 07

Early Dark

A vein along the road poised to spill.

Jess Burnquist,

Empty Plate with Sword

Fueled first by love, then anger. / Grief collects like dreamed-about coals.

A Good Catholic Confession

We glow with American sin / and we’ve led thoughtful lives.

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