Deep in the forest in a flannel nightdress, a little girl lingers without much on her chest, shame in her heart, much to confess. Here she is safe, completely at rest. Gone the behemoths of yesteryear. Her cheek on chenille, her brain bereft of all fear inside this night sans starlight except a meek constellation of which faithfully appears from a bedside nightlight replacing a moon which made her weep more nights than swoon. Tonight she looks no father than this light of her room which is not a metaphor — means to write. No beseeching big teeth inside these woods — it ends with her pen like make believe should.
Bury bereavement in cellar below with buttercup onesie, Château Pétrus Merlot — a godless sacrament you know is mortal sin. Silicon reproduced to simulate skin so your spouse can begin, maternal virgin, again. Sleep walk through mutual grief she countermands, rationing love, plastic in pale hands. Keep cries deep in your throat until she’s asleep. A baby monitor projects its first weep — graveled, full grown. The hell two have reaped, one remembers alone. Insatiable thirst nursed by propped-up bottles inside brownstone, She suckles a doll while you drink alone.
In this desolate place I can almost hear
the sacred buzzing of bees, glimpse
an endless canopy of emerald leaves
pulsing against a clear cobalt sky. Continue reading “Ghosts by Lucy Whitehead”→
gone
the minister for war
gone the guns,
the minister for rain and rivers
in conference
with minister for forest and
minister for music and poetry, Continue reading “2 Poems by David Hallett”→
The world seems so scary but really it’s
scratching our eyes out in order to start
a new current. Electricity will replace
every color. Pupils will either expand
or explode. Replacement therapy is outdated.
It is time to get rid of everyone. Continue reading “The New World Doll Dresser by Juliet Cook & j/j hastain”→
I see, I said, when I saw, but if I am to believe, be it in science or in faith, then what I said, I saw, I did not see. There was something else entirely, and it was there, right there, for me to see, but I only see what I saw, and what I saw was not there. Continue reading “2 Prose Poems by John Peter Apruzzese”→
Joseph Ellison Brockway is a poet, translator, and Spanish professor. He likes to juxtapose words and signs to disrupt the language on the page and to disturb the reader’s thoughts. Many of his poems also experiment with ideas and images that explore the human psyche and existence. Joseph’s poetry has recently been published in L’Éphémère Review, Moonchild Magazine, SurVision Magazine, and Surreal Poetics. He can be found roaming the socialmediaverse at @JosephEBrockway.
I was told (who told me? what voice?) to imagine a porthole, to focus across the blue. Wait
for the glare of clarity to abate, subdue it. Acknowledge the blue, it said, like breathing used to be. It will be cold, like the first snow, as you ease yourself across. There is the sea. Concentrate. I become my focus, which is her. She watches the sky (I remember the sky). I don’t
see her, it is not sight, yet she’s there on the terrace watching the clouds, seeing vertebrae. The voice says, It’s like blowing. I remember breathing, taking in a deep breath. The thought, or what sounds like a thought, makes me smile. (A smile is just a metaphor now.)Focus. I’m entranced with the mirror image. I need the sea
for practice. She’s searching for letters – an L – but clouds
are untamable, they stand on end, wisps trailing away into a spider’s thread that I follow (again,
a metaphor) in wonder (now I know wonder)
and she is no longer on the terrace, no longer
looking, though her ache crimsons the scent of pine and honeysuckle. I translate touch, sound,
sight, want, pain. She is trying to translate, but knows
only blue, sea. Sees only vertebrae, thinks I don’t hear.
I resist dissipation. I dally, imagining our two mists
mingling (what sex used to be?), though I’m becoming wisp already. Her every thought like a blood-red
light flashing in the empty blue.Listen.
Kymm Coveney was born in Boston and has lived in Spain since the 1982 World Cup. Some poems are in Under the Radar, Prole, and The Interpreter’s House. Several flash pieces reside at 101Fiction. Online translations include a poem at Surreal Poetics and a short story at Palabras Errantes.
inside each memory egg a gold inlay of an incident
how the brain compartmentalizes like a chambered nautilus
yet it is all one sand – the brain distinguishes one from the other to understand
i’ve made a career of privacy and compartmentalized objects
i’ve made a career of my traumas
what is privacy here with all exposed and sifting over one another in an endless span
how much of privacy or keeping secret is wrapped up in fears around judgement
light exposures popping up – the privacy book the mean latitudes of reason
a wish to bold concave belly flesh shoulders wrapped in marbled warscape
a wish to stand tall to withstand the seas at the door
i biked all over town in the early dawn popping off light exposures drunk on tall boys and crashed into a lexus
the me then the me
mortal rigor in the fountainin the landscape chasm
conch/sea
to rack focus like an aperture to let light in
object/frame stillness among the raging
majestic orifice right there
alate lion in the yard
these death energetics
i swallow hieroglyphs like a carceral bee
fires all around the island in a glacial crisis
war on my nerves a pallor a fungus
the lens has holes in it
a disintegration of the ephemeral
the segmented abdomen becomes integrated
losing its segments as an insect ages
cerci wave in weapons of copulation
wingless among the deciduous
the sense making
malicious octopus reticular trap
alphabet laughter in the yarrow
when you become the lens itself
so the pallor is swallowed, excreted
the moult can moult
electron nostalgia
Electra clasp the wretches
wretched the wretches wash ashore
pubic schemaold days of the goddess
stressed bellythe “curved inflorescence”
irascible pharaohegg-shaped coffin
bury me in this alleged
Home
receiving familiarLegend
Hers is thefelled hearta sword-shaped segment
when i curve toward you
the air stretches me pinnate
radio neuron electraradial split inquisitive
I splitI fire on all radials
electrons of nostalgiaacquisitive longing
how the “stigma persists at the tip”even though its buried
how trauma persiststhe skins a sun coming through it
kletic
wild mouths wild mouths
when the agor settles
when gold dust lament
covers it all
i am a beetle captured
in glass
my green thorax aglow
among the amber
my pincers akimbo
like come at me bro
i still believe in a female god
Melissa Eleftherion is a writer, librarian, and a visual artist. She is the author of field guide to autobiography (The Operating System, 2018), & nine chapbooks, including the forthcoming trauma suture (above/ground press, 2020). Born & raised in Brooklyn, Melissa now lives in Mendocino County where she manages the Ukiah Library, teaches creative writing, & curates the LOBA Reading Series. Recent work is available at www.apoetlibrarian.wordpress.com.
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