Chaos

Anna Laura Falvey

I stand with the god, rooted

beside me on the subway platform–

As the stage, I smear my face

with mourning grime.

My grinning,

sweet deerhead god licks their thumb

and forefinger and traces a line

of clean down

the bridge of my nose,

and I smell dry ice. I look

to my left, and women are

stepping

through the walls, climbing between

the tracks and they have

talons

and bright eyes, and are graceful

rippers.

I inch closer to the deerhead–

hold their cold marble hand, feel

talons in my forearm, talons in

my cheek, talons in the soft skin

of my diaphragm,

smiles in my eyes,blind in my fingers,

and […]

Lex Kosieradzki

No no no
No no
And a thousand times
No it is not
The burned grove
Of incense cedar down there
In the valley as far
As the eye can see and
No
It is not
The crashed and burned and
Totally damaged beyond
Recognition Prius there marked
By cones in the ditch
And no
It is not the sentence
“He’s actually a preeminent figure
In the NFT art scene.”
No
It is
Not the sameness of
The jeans so
Crisp and dark and paired
With a sweater or a
Light jacket wrapping
Every
Thin and graceful body
In the park
And no it is not
The calm and happy tone
With which […]

Selena Cotte

In many ways I am like a bomb

and I do fancy myself the comparison:

What I would give to be as smooth,

curved & dangerous. Don’t get me

wrong: I have some ways to go.

I want to be planned like the bomb.

I want precision, […]

Jade Wootton

Shallow breaths in my chest pulse like a hummingbird’s wings 

So I decide

I am going to walk the same route every morning without my phone 

I am going to watch the big brown dog jumping up the tree trying to catch the squirrel 

I am going to notice the neighbors that left their Christmas decorations up for months

I am going to remember the cat purring on my chest and the way my little gold earrings camouflage into the little gold bowl on the nightstand

I am going to wonder if CBD peach rings actually […]

Mary McCarthy

Don’t patronize

don’t tell me there are no rules

when I seem to have broken

most of them, enough to think

it would be wise to post a sign

“Rocks Falling,”  “No Guard Rails,”

I’ve kept both fire and laughter

close to hand, could smell

your lies before I saw you

rejoiced in kicking over buckets

of white paint, smashing glass,

defying regulations that kept

things too neat and civilized–

More than once I’ve been stopped,

locked up, confined, limited

to a small space without air

or sharp objects able to cut

cloth or rope or flesh-

all the signatures of prison

holding me back from breaking

all those nameless […]

Mary McCarthy

All teeth and tongue

stain the stolid morning

a still ocean white

as milk lapping

toes half hidden

in swallowing sand

hand me over your

clever heart split

scissoring past teeth

Ben Nardolilli

in your country

I wait

for a response:

“best regards

for more

information”

-if you are

willing to work

together

I am looking

to invest

in real estate-

About the Author

Ben Nardolilli currently an MFA candidate at Long Island University. His work has appeared in Perigee Magazine, Red Fez, Danse Macabre, The 22 Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, Elimae, The Northampton Review, Local Train Magazine, The Minetta Review, and Yes Poetry. He blogs at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com and is trying to publish his novels.

James Bradley

Though days of persecution be endless,

Though nature denude you, clown, of your art–

Fall back to the foxholes of nothingness.

The power that restrains Mind is mindless,

Fool, in your upside-down hanging take heart–

Though days of persecution be endless.

Though the river-hewn canyon be cleftless,

At the coming of erosion’s upstart–

Fall back to the foxholes of nothingness.

Limp flags from a dead tree hang motionless,

Awaiting the day far-off winds depart–

These days of persecution seem endless.

Mind is the law that rejects mindlessness.

Mind’s sole doctrine is to Mind’s law impart–

Fall back to the foxholes of nothingness.

Through a chink […]

Kate Stanner-Maxwell

yells the flashing neon font above my head, all caps

and all inevitable, goading me to skull slam into head-

rest, gasp a final breath of relatively fresh air before

the creep and clog of carbon monoxide fingers at the

flesh of my mouth, siphoning ghoulish kiss deep

into lungs with the thick […]