Poetry

Eli Coyle

My face feels like an emotional relief map

forever wet

My pockets are full of handkerchiefs 

that never dry 

My green corduroys lie crumpled 

on the hardwood floor

saved for later     

our bodies wrapped 

in the wax of each other

In the mornings the sky cracks open egg clouds     

raining private rain

cloud hidden

whereabouts unknown     

where I live alone like pith in trees—

mindless like tumbleweed

mindless like sages

Some days I carry on like a responsible hermit […]

Nathaniel Chew

I am saying it:

this poem is about loss

and still

it will read at a slant–

metaphor for:

social distance

death (duh)

mistranslation

digitalization

not all who wander

diagnosis

the gloaming realization that writing does not happen                          out of time

the trouble with deixis:                fat fingers

W.V. Quine on radical translation: the linguist says gavagai and means rabbit

the subject says gavagai and means first-rabbit-of-the-warm-waxing-moon

or dewlap-yet-undetached-from-rabbit

or rabbit-which-means-plenty-and-draws-teeth-from-afar

or run

and means herself                                                         to escape the subject position

I want to […]

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, […]