December Contributors
Cynthia Atkins, Lydia Rae Bush, Mitch Christensen, Jesse Darnay, Angel T. Dionne, R.M. Engelhardt, Jones Erwin, James Henlon, John Jeffire, Ingrid Marie Jensen, Patrick Johnston, Justin Karcher, Craig Kirchner, Thomas McDade, Catfish McDaris, Frederick Pollack, Nick Power, henry 7. reneau, jr., Ron Riekki, Mykyta Ryzhykh, William Taylor, Jr., Rodrigo Toscano, James Fleet Underwood, Grady VanWright, Philip Venzke, Emma Wells, Von Wise
Poetry
December Highlights
uranian blue
by Michael Borth
“A change is coming now. A change is here. / Uranian blue in the ice of the outer solar ring.”
a wall of noise at vassar, ’89
by Damon Hubbs
“We eat psychocandy and gaze at our shoes / long before you disappear to study British Romanticism”
three poems
by Jason Melvin
“truth is / those trees / are at war / each reaching up / as the / one beside / throws shade / the entire forest / fighting / for every fraction / of light”
with shaven head and heart-shaped daggers for eyes
by Sara Atwater
“Locks fall, feather light. Years shorn / from your shoulders, now contracted. ”
inspired by the 1986 film “chopping mall”
by Alexis Rhodes
“the kill-bots came for us / programmed to take out thieves /they glitched their code / while we fucked in the furniture store.”
kevin bacon as memento mori
by John Sara
“I’m on my deathbed and the doctor / whips out a skull; some cheap Halloween prop / he thrifted from Goodwill, making a garbled / whooooooo before it runs out of batteries.”
winterbeach
by L. Ward Abel
“The astronauts spoke of / a change once they’d seen / themselves from out of range…”
something needs hiding
by Thomas McDade
“There are ten ships left in the Ghost Fleet but not visible from the shore.”
two poems
by Danielle McMahon
“Within moon-white houses, / The people sat like the dead, ill-lit by television light, still, undrawn against the night, / touching expressionless faces )but never really touching them…”
final thoughts of january on an april journey
by Jake Sheff
“The pace of May should be glacial, happiness / Should swell with priestly persistence only then… / Let total depravity’s two ha’pennies / Be tzedakah till the days no longer lengthen.”
excerpts from orbiculus, volume XI, the grammaton series
by Irene Koronas
“this daughter of fingal penseroso / with her gathicomus in a fierie / alphbook (1084-85) / has her byronic purse / shrovetide the shew / with athanatisness…”
two poems
Excerpt from the upcoming poetry collection Sloughing the Shroud from Anxiety Press by Julian Thumm
“…belladonna, oleander, & foxglove— / impart their death’s-head narcotic / under the sensual intellect / & play of decomposition.”
four poems
by Mike Ferguson
“i hear the ALL-ABOARD…i hear thescreech&THESCREECH…i hear the percussive chug&chug&chug&chug…i hear the hornwoo-ooh-woos…... i think it just passed by.”
the jade burial suit
by Michael Borth
“To resurrect into the jade burial suit / In breechclout and worrystone / I become the mudra of Shiva / Or the keeper of the numbers / Written on paper in for-sale cars…”
fire works?
by Dario Cvencek
“explosions are / as real as / apple pie.”
five poems
by Scott C. Holstad
“01000111 01000101 01001110 01000101 01010100 01001001 01000011 00100000 01000011 01001111 01000100 01000101…”
five poems
by Elana Wolff
“The sun shone angrily that day, / white-hot the next / and next. / Then xanthous as a bruise / when it turns from purple.”
sonya soundbiter
by Zev Levinson
“she sinks to her knees without / word / all this music become unsung and Sonya by Babylon so stung”
solar power recalibrates my philosophies
by Kati Flores
“Sun salutations against the pavement./ Worshipping noon’s glorious sun. / High like a basking lizard./ Drunk on summertime fuel.”
i want a word with the manager
by Tom Cintula
“Memo to Alex Rossi: Don't leave your baked goods unattended! / Otherwise the Edible Fairy will take them away.”