POEMS of EIGHT POETS
(Spring 2015, Volume 3)
(Spring 2015, Volume 3)
Brandyn Johnson
Night Concentrating Shooting baskets on crumbling, uneven pavement alone, aspens dim to whispers of smoke raccoon eyes ember awake in wrinkles of brush, the moon draws its purple curtain down. Traffic swishes by, glittering the driveway with sheens of ivory light, copperheads imitate footprints from shadows. The last music of the evening to bow out is that of my hands bouncing the ball, that steady heartbeat knocking under the coagulating jelly of sky. Biographical information, favorite public domain poem. |
Hristo Kovatliev
Moon Running deer, twilight forest. Eye of a roe, cold moon. Shot, scream of a bird. Eye of a roe, dead moon ... Biographical information, favorite public domain poem. |
Bud Faust
Loser afternoon Loser afternoon, with no money and two addictions and a feeling of impending doom. Me and the old men in line at the grocery, on street corners, in lunchtime barrooms with dollar store shirts and beat up dress shoes – looking unhealthy and sweating profusely. Nothing to do but die a little more and keep losing until it’s all gone – flick a cigarette butt off the porch into an ugly yard surrounded by a broken fence and oil leaks in the driveway. This is the way it ends and begins – paying for bread with pocket change, cursing broken chair legs, waiting for God to die. And tonight we sit at tables, on sofas, behind doors – under dim lights and busted fixtures in the middle of nowhere, just nowhere – these trains passing in the darkness, shaking the earth, and we are motionless. Biographical information, favorite public domain poem. |
Linda Hegland
Stars like Dandelion Seeds, Scatter and Fall I once saw a star tumble from the sky. It sighed and sizzled as it kissed The earth’s thin nimbus, Then consumed itself within its own passion. I once saw a small bird tumble from the sky. The breathy hand of a passing breeze caught it And perched it on a branch. I once saw a butterfly emerge from its cocoon – Over hours and hours – Its trembling body fragile and tender, Its wings shatter-able like stained glass. It dried and grew in substance and tenacity. Wings of glass, heart of oak. It flew away, now shivering with yearning, Fields of colour spread before it. I once saw, on a sheer rock face – Granite and scree – A crippled and warped tree. It grew from a thumb of soil, Drank from the rain in the wind, Adored the sun in its own broken way. It grew because it didn’t know how not to, Its seed an augury of purpose. I once saw a bee dance, and heard prairie grass sing. Biographical information, favorite public domain poem. |
R. W. Haynes
The Patron of False Formulas What the mechanist thinks he knows, my dear, he grips In his metal, mental tentacles with awkward force Until vibration becomes critical and it slips From his unfeeling grasp and is lost, of course, If that can be lost which never had been found, And this pathetic basis is the foundation-- Of all he thinks he thinks the basic ground-- Of all causation in his conversation. And yet you admire the bold tenacity With which he embraces this inane ontology And defames the world as just technology, Justifying empty ideology. Admiration is itself mysterious, and you Mystify me with the credulity in you. Biographical information, favorite public domain poem. |
Bud Berkich
Pause, Rewind (For Kristiana Coignard) You walked in seeking help from those who should have given it (and I wish I could have helped instead of them, but--) you never walked back out again. You never walked again. Why? I don't know. But I do know it wasn't your fault. You were not to blame for what happened. I know the ones responsible for all of this, and they have a lot of faults, a lot of which to be ashamed, a lot of questions to be answered, a lot of explaining to do. This is what I know. But none of what little I know helps you in any way. Can bring you back. Can turn back the last page in your all too short book and rewrite your final story. Know that if I could, girl, I would, and with a much better ending: you walk backwards and out again, just the way you never came in here, and none of this ever happened. Biographical information, favorite public domain poem. |
Oliver Cotting
Another Tuesday, Another Autumn and i stretched the words so thin, into silence, save the transitory sighs, that sometimes turned to hapless pleas in the endless night, another reminder of how blatantly human i can be, a head full of bricks, a bag on my back, following some gaunt ghost, on the run through the trail dust town Biographical information, favorite public domain poem. |
Dave Iasevoli
Wetlands Wetlands fill again with heavy rains and thin poplar sprout overnight to trap gentle beasts for predator packs. I find more skulls and splintered bones along the creek beds. One skull stares out totemically: giant sockets, teeth the color of peat, a broad snout that failed to sense the famished things. Ooze as rich as marrow blackens beneath the thick mesh of sharp sapling, and beneath the muck more black earth. Biographical information, favorite public domain poem. |