if [empty] were a (space)
Alex Bastianini
si. [t]. pen. paper. .[is]
o d [-d] [“ love —“
w s
r ] it (pause)
ible]?!&*..
*sigh. write. sigh. [wr
i [te[s
] ] ]
Honeydew, don’tcha know you cantaloupe with the melon man?
Gerard Sarnat
“The more you learn about the dignity of the gorilla, the more you want to avoid people.” – Dian Fossey
Shalom salaam shanti.
Digging deeper and deeper, primate just want sto give birth.
Breathe, pay attention, push as decades ago down the coast
pulling a slick Jeff Airplane babe into the world back of a flatbed
later on coaching out the same, your own firstborn […]
In my right mind
Heikki Huotari
Out of extrasensory perception, out of universal consciousness. The
hornet swarm that doesn’t scoff at prodding is the hornet swarm that
fades. Yea though I walk in lighted aisles I fear no aftermath. My
options puts and calls, from dearth to plethora the dots connected
disappear. Some precedent slept here. If my redeemer will not work
then my redeemer will not eat. From your facetious where’s-the-fire to
an ersatz precipice I glide. Stochastic mass a mass for all of that
and protoplasmic, your location known to who you choose. To hear you
with my big ears all the […]
Carrying Capacity
Carrying Capacity
Tor Strand
There was a woman sketching mountains,
her feet wadding in rings of waves.
She moved like a silver print and I couldn’t help
but ask her story, and she said:
empanada and Patagonia, said rain forest and Santiago—
we cook our own food and do maid work.
Then her hand drew the long way
home to the Andes as she said visa
and the luck of the draw who go north, who fly-fish,
like her partner now, a breath away, tossing out neon
line in loops, his toes flexing over the woodrot and rust.
Life is a wet surface.
Her blonde hair through a […]
A Nearby Town
Pamela Carter
I know a woman who imagines hauling
horrible thoughts from a posterior location
within her skull—where she hears these fester—
b
b
b
In their new home, the notions, daylit
from larger windows and an eastern exposure,
gleam in brighter tones.
b
b
b
Enter a cleaner oxygen.
b
b
b
to her frontal lobe, like a mover
with a box-loaded dolly, her […]
Fwd: “Extreme Heat Advice – Department of Health – New York State”
Eleonor Botoman
Know the signs of heat-related illness
one day, it’ll be so hot
all the insects in the neighborhood
will goey up into a
crackling molasses of wings
Check your local weather so you can be prepared.
shredded up into their own iridescence
welding splintered thorax
to antennae crisped and boiled
into a humid lump of feeling
Find a place to get cool.
how that deathly caramel
will slide onto the […]
DEPTHS / ACROBATICS
Linda McCauley Freeman
I
When I was
little my brother
and I would climb
down the ladder
at the deep end
of the pool.
went deeper, held
longer underwater
won. Water pushed
me up as I pushed
myself down, my
long hair swimming
above me, cheeks
puffing. I am afraid
of drowning.
POMEGRANATE
Linda McCauley Freeman
I
I put the red wet seed into your mouth
my fingers lingered between your lips
your fingers in my mouth
our tongues tasting flesh fruit
I hardly knew you
we became fingers over tongues
dipping into fruit
neither of us had ever tasted.
II
You are the tongue
in my ear caress that leaves me
bruised I cannot say how
this happened except
that I planned it looked for it
A Compendium of Gases at Room Temperature in a Transitive State
Robert Omura
About the Author
Robert K. Omura calls Calgary, Alberta, Canada home where he lives with his common law wife and three too many cats. He has resigned himself to finding cat fur in everything he eats. His fiction and poetry appears or is forthcoming in journals in the U.S., Canada and abroad including the New York Quarterly, 34thParallel, Chaffin Journal, CLR, Freshwater, barnstorm, and Blues Skies Poetry. He has been nominated for the Pushcarts.
This is Not a Love Song About Water
Robert Omura
“Let me repeat what history teaches. History teaches.” – Gertrude Stein
To write a poem of love you first ascribe:
Tyrant, lover, white teeth oxide kisses
and more
Dissolves hard rock, the putty sky,
slants rain, the animus of kings – of seas […]