[John Darnielle][Allison Reitz][Lauren Espinoza][Sandra Doller] [Courtney Kilian][Allie Moreno][Cherise Bacalski][Ben Doller][Marika Josephson]
John Darnielle
Who, in 1973
did every kid on my block want to be?
Bruce Lee.
We tried out his kicks and his punches, but we
could never quite match the intensity.
There was easy-to-read iconography
in the stock stills. See here, where, miraculously,
on an island somewhere in a nameless sea
he stands scratched-up and angry and bleeding and free?
It was Enter the Dragon. Collectively,
to ourselves, sotto voce, then: that's for me.
Allison Reitz
The Ides of March
When you sat in the grey light,
talking about your dying grandmother
with a distant voice and eyes focused
on the flurries falling hurriedly outside the window,
I almost choked on the lump in my throat,
hearing those downy, white words
soaked with a heartache as heavy as snow.
And it was my own grandmother I saw,
riddled with dementia and lost in years of fog,
teetering in her hospital room on the edge
of feeling fat-and-sassy
and feeling like giving up.
It's March, almost spring, but you're
playing jazz renditions of Christmas standards —
"Because it's snowing."
And in that moment I could kiss you,
with my swollen heart spilling over and
a soul willing to swallow your sadness.
Because suddenly, and in spite of
the miles in your eyes and gravel in your voice,
we are closer and softer than ever before.
The Modern Life
We are not the humans we were born to be
until we have plugged in our USB umbilical cords
and jacked in to the hive mind.
We are the iPod people, bodies snatched
and swapped with surround-sound souls,
our eyes (windows) replaced with plasma flat screens
displaying our shallow lives in high definition.
(TiVo it for later if something better is on.)
Our hearts display neon digital affections
worn at the hip for easy access, all physical,
no emotions — put it all on the line, online for
pedophile perverts to Google and Yahoo at.
(Analog is outdated and difficult to decipher.)
The powerhouse of the human cell
is no mitochondria but a lithium ion battery.
We put our lives on vibrate and let
our voicemail speak when we cannot,
apologizing for our absence:
"Sorry, I'm not here. I've checked out
emotionally, mentally, spiritually.
Please leave a message at the —"
BEEP.
Lauren Espinoza
Untitled
Captivate the valley floor
with artificial light.
They keep utterly divisible clusters on earth
except the particles eating the sky.
Rainclouds drop fluid
printed with a hiccupping of oil.
The weather roils by
abstracted to beautiful streams
of superior time.
This rainsoaked product is life.
Life is retrieved in a disaster
fitted with evidence that prayers
are answered everyday.
Time speaks of continents
so far away from home
in the mind’s would-be limitless eye.
Untitled
Like a jukebox sitting in the corner
And you ask me for quarters.
I give you five dollars worth
Out of my Ziploc bag
Surrounded by ones, fives, and twenties
To which my friend says,
“Put that away-
You look like a drug dealer.”
But you laugh.
I smile.
A dozen songs later
We’re sitting in the corner
With ten empty bottles.
Sandra Doller
On Seeing Abbie Hoffman in a Book Store
I wish somebody would
steal a rare book
a duck
a bloodhound
The sidewalk is staring
why stall
still
That book was either lost or stolen
lost
stolen
lost
stolen
stolen
lost
lost
Paradise-A-Million
is a dealer
in rare books
That’s Shakespeare for “bottoms up”
and he grabs
his knees
and leaves
PLOTS & MONSTERS
Plot monster
doesn’t mind the rain
Oughtn’t the tin hat
on the sculpture
speak more?
Clearly she wrote
I disabuse friendship
of me
Grey padded rain
paid off
my pirate business
The stealing of the fish from the sea
for the dog
Stories out of a glass pocket
my intuition says Hey
Where’d you get that ring and
trumpet
I can see you clenched by them
She green glass growing
by the mark
on her shoulder
she sold
I had a diatonic too
once the old man entered
our fiery room
the pitted politicians we rented
swooned
To tear harmony
out of the wall where it was
catching a nap
The royalest prince
came over to me
shook his fist
said won’t you call on me
upstairs at my newborn castle
sometimes
The princess of peas
had run out of the cold
she wanted to borrow
some leather
I gave her my back
she stood in the rain
with her skin turning feathered
On the day after Sunday
a black horse in chain mail
was sleeping beside my road
slick stallion he carried
my back on his back
petite princess had sent it return
Wet table beside us
watch out for that rock
in the rock river
Take 3 sticks
and shake yourself
all over
How does the forest halt
in front of the water
like that?
Take a thing and make it
plotty
Three sisters have always had it
buddy
Go into the schools
you came from
royal back against
the pavement
sister overcast wags
at you from the broken speaker
All the girls from here have gone on
to cheaper things
Don’t fly anymore by the crux
of her skirt
Every Sunday a different
green shaker
By the time you reach a destination
the suits will all be on again
your dress of nails
will seem so
purchased
Clay pot clay easy broke
you gave me 13 things
to look at
you gave me 16 ways
to scream it
you gave me 101 reasons
for leaving
you gave me 65 types
of nothing
I have been frightened by the sight of
the next thing
you have so many different
ways of leaking
somewhere deep the hot lights
made my kimono an ocean
La gloire La Swanson had eaten
all Paris by the time
her sad ocean lined her
negatives lined the liner
I had a freight train
a sandwich
a piece of the pie
But now I know how to return
a gaze
Courtney Kilian
Seaside’s Yawn The seaside’s yawn - a night on the verge of inception. Looking around my attic (a cardboard box). Got a little poison. Zipped, jazzed. Sequined leashes, studded lassos. "What we see – then blinds on fire." Coagulating throngs. Backrush ripen, float, sour. Dredging erosion. The fan blades trace the room, a tracking. I brew the tea as black as it would go. Riprap: A layer, facing, or protective mound of stones randomly placed to prevent erosion, scour or sloughing of a structure or embankment. Also the stone so used. The geriatrics are out. I sit on a bench and talk to myself. I am practiced in the art of soliloquy.
Allie Moreno
absinthe mindedhe laughs s t r e a m sleft leg wrapped in worn out pagesthe l i d d e r bearing l a z a r dand the
giant little
girlDANCE in animated inkherSHOUTS w a k ethe absinthe minded
whose voices
t i c k
like faceless
c l o c k s
“LATE FOR A VERY IMPORTANT DATE!”
the thousand
year old
cat who often disappears
cradles
black market
babies
wishing to
w a s h
them
in a bath
of
w i n e
as he whispers
fortune
cookie
lies
if parking lots perspired
tonight
a cold
quiet rock
and pensive plant
a street light
blinks and
bends its eyes
queue
hasten
papers
faint on
concrete
cheeks
still walking
desolate fence
shuns
 startled truck
run from
glaring doors
be not the
window scream
tiptoe the
asphalt bowl
switching
manic keyholes
for orange escape
and sips
of eyelet
haze
Cherise Bacalski
LONG FLEE FORWARD
______________________________________________flee long up my forward long wander found—pule tumid—pule—still cache touché thrush uh jato unit—(arch randy daddy, arch skin)
______________________________________________disrupt—carp weed—disrupt micawber— perspire under constance— wearing retral current bout— rupture momentary rue—flee long current— go long upward, up skin—rupture my carp weed, you know—(knob on skin)
______________________________________________weighty non absent remedy—image forwardsidereal—taken reply:abort—delve bog sky: erstwise acrid journey—heave a randy have a yen.
FLEE LONG, STILLFLEE:thrush: forwardsiderealjato unitmicawberflank l’aspen
REMEDY:taken: replyimageretral currentpulemomentary rue
RUPTURE:erstwhile: abortcarp weedtumiddisrupt romainehave a yen
CACHE:heave: randywoodnoteacrid jitneydevoteaccess port
LONG:wander: foundfirma pistearmchair knobabsentdelve port rue
STILL:remove: wanderalcoveconstanceperspireweighty non oolert
la oudoh mere—ah shant tweet tweet the sound for twoand me and now and you and you and meprofound oh too sweet tweet (portray) ruh soundla ahhhh—because tweet tweet the sound the sweetuh lie oh mere ah ha and nowah shant tweet tweet tee hee (reflect) tee hee—la ouddah lee eeee— la oud
Ben Doller
KICK THE FLAG
what of course is the massive deal
kicking flags
ento wenning wormholes
it's just that day
afterall
howl ground & smother
should troops
year finger
indemned
into tame tame space
the tree cracks
white
by mouth
ashame me not
take me home
Marika Josephson
5 Visions of Summer
New York Haiku
In this secluded
garden a starling, humming,
a diesel engine
Man in a black suit
steps into the shade to read
the missing person sign
Muggy, damp Monday
I hold this paper limply
toward my pencil
Because I could sleep!
I didn’t even notice
missing cicadas
Me, on the stool
Stale summer air, the living room
You, by the door
