tell me what you loved, touched, wondered:did you dream?did you stare at your own reflection?an aching to sliver between the fluttering colors of her consciousness,the human of her, to know her ripest and most shiny parts,for her to hold my face close, spill her metallic language into meuntil i recognize that i am of her,… Continue reading Lucy Seward
I forgot the prairie because it stoodso still. I forgot the clouds becausethey were always moving. I forgotthe taste of water because it lay quietlyinside the taste of everything. I forgot a childhood when it disappearedthrough a hole in itself. — Jenny George, opening lines to “Mnemonic,” Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine… Continue reading Jenny George
The question is how you rearrange the stars above your head, to open up unexpected paths on the ground beneath your feet. — Brian Holmes, “Guattari’s Schizoanalytic Cartographies,” Continental Drift 2009/02/27
1I can’t help but hatehaiku. They end abruptlyjust as they’re getting2going. See? I needanother just to finishthis simple thought, and3maybe it’s true thatall the love in the world couldfit in a matchbox4but who would want totry, and where, in that case, wouldone store their matches?— Rob Taylor, “Haikus 1-4,” The Other Side of Ourselves, Previously… Continue reading Bob Taylor
I think the treesare firework taxidermy. A steadyreminder of celebration andlight. How quiet. I’m a collaps-ing house. Come collect me. — Dalton Day, from “Stepping Out of Sorrow,” published in Souvenir: a Journal. Fall 2015
i know i am in love again when light shakes into the cobwebs woven overall the empty doorframes. when a nearby car’sbass is a feigned serenade& the moon seems like a dirty thing. passingfuselage & hospital lights glint & i’m turned onthinking they flash for me. me, whose favorite windowfeatures a view that’s mostly ground.… Continue reading Raena Shirali
There are tiny fingersinside my clockwhich gently pullthe moments forward,and, I am sure,inside as well, a pairof tiny feet which tapand rattle through the night.But I, wide-eyed at 2 a.m.do not ask why, just simplyturn over finding comfortin the knowing of the knowingthat if time can’t sleepthen why should I. —Sally Houtman, “Why I Don’t… Continue reading Sally Houtman
… darkness is not everywhere – for here and there I find a few faces illuminated from within. Paper lanterns swaying among the dark trees. — Carol Anne Borges
Night breathed the hollow smoke of longing, — Karla A., “untitled“, July 2020
I could believe the soul is a crater—the impact ofyour hands on my chest. Fingertips & lips, forest& fire. You taste like cinnamon, or cyanide. — C.T. Salazar, from “You Called Me Castaway and I Called You,” micro collection This Might Have Meant Fire: Poems, INCH quarterly (no. 39, Summer 2019)
The Vale of Soul-Making 