Two Poems by Matt Dennison

I Want the Wings of an Old Dried-Up Angel Draped Over Me

 

or the milkman

whistling his tune

 

inside a saddlebag

of foreign coins—

 

that kind of banjo.

 

 

The Preventing House

 

With father as vertical

/horizontal the mother

 

children are crucified

upon the parent cross. 

Three Poems by Sheila Murphy

Portrait with Boys

Hot griddle in the middle of oak table

bacon, bacon grease with salt to drizzle

across buckwheat pancakes, plus eggs fried

in said bacon heat. The grandfather barks

"hark!" his only punctuation to cool 

the jittery commotion among the boys

at the table. He's been awake so long 

choring across fields and feeding horses 

cows sheep etcetera daylight comes 

long after his day begins. He mostly speaks

of the fiddle to his daughter's violin 

played on command. His legendary players

calling their own at dances. He stares hard

at grandboys with a blend of venom and lust. 

Contemplative Contempt

 

Oxymoronic place kick sticks in the gut

and mind, mind you. Don't prevaricate.

Just sing what stings from informal playthings

milked for all possible power then

cardboard-ed out of another’s projected 

thoughts that ought to be debrided in good time,

parked beside the perennial park 

we taunt ourselves to think will not become extinct.

It's now no never-mind though rarely

thought through. You know your way around wounds 

and their offspring cluttered with karma

just like mother used to fake with aplomb

the square root of bomb apart from shelter 

in this sweltering spring mislabeled fling.

Tradition

 

Unless you looked down through that window. Unless

you raked up acorns having given up on 

their popping in the fire. And memorized

the bass drum from campus lashed with brass.

Vetted friends based on claps of blunder

from the percussion. The felt vibration from 

a mile beyond the band. Not about a music.

Cheering in the stands as commercial hands

clapping bare-chested fans smashed into

late afternoon. Tailgating in place of thought.

Saying Gonna miss you guys. Never safe

from recollection. Of the thinning trees

unleashing piles of crisp leaves to sweep 

away into a pile of fire. 

Sheila Murphy

Two Poems by Diarmuid ó Maolalaí

The colour of fog

 

getting some beer in

this evening. some white

wine. and fish smells of piss

quite deliciously in thin

plastic sachets. it’s cod fillets.

soft, and the colour of fog-

covered mirrors and skin,

after a yawn and a shower.

they nestle down, curl

like a cat between beer

bottles into the shopping

bag; drape over potatoes,

the steak and a half-pan

of bread. outside the sunlight

is red as a lipstick-mark,

a tongue on the plate-glass

facade of the supermarket

which holds dusk at bay

in a kicked dust

of fogginess, thrown

out by cars – their exhaust

fumes – in passage

and idling lorries.

 

The poem

 

the line is the line. the poem

the poem. I am a young man – early-

mid-thirties and striving artistically

as much as an elderly terrier

dog will still worry at pigeons.

I walk croppy's acre, the graves

of dead patriots – watch

young brazilians play volleyball

next to the stones. there are sections

of life which exist but the line

is the line and is static:

the poetry comes and it burns in these movements

and then is forgotten. I sit and I write

other lines unrelated to anything

felt in a moment: your bra and your trousers;

how they press into hips and leave prints.

Four Poems by Mark Young

bonsai propaganda

 

I've been working on myself since

I turned thirteen, a librarian lost

in the wasteland, contemplating

the conflation of religion with racist

nationalism. All the lines, shapes,

& illustrations stemming from this

are drawn as vector graphics. I have

six wind chimes in total now; it is

 

essential to match your brand ide-

ntity. So, color palette, tone of voice,

font face — line them up like ducks

in a row. Not for yourself but for

others to applaud. What they pick,

combined, may partner your persona.

 

 

Nostalgia Treadmill

 

Unless you were a prisoner

& the machine was designed

by Sir William Cubitt, life on

a treadmill was fairly simple

before TikTok came along. "The

12-3-30 workout is a low-imp-

act cardio workout. Set the

treadmill to a 12% incline &

walk 3 miles per hour for 30

minutes." No longer enough.

Now you have to dance on

them, preferably in tandem

with a friend on a parallel

machine, or wear the latest

fashion, or light a few candles

& walk on the treadmill at a

gentle pace in your pyjamas

with a cup of tea. 'Cosio cardio'

it's called. You can even repli-

cate making your way through

an airport with a backpack on,

speeding up if you're scared you

might miss your flight. A song

rises unbidden from my murky

mental depths. "The 12-3-30's

been & gone, doo-da, doo-da,"

sung to the melody of Stephen

Foster's 1850 Camptown Races.

Puts it in its temporal place. That

might be an anachronistic atti-

tude, & now politically incorrect,

but, hey, I'm sure you get the drift.

 

 

Quadratic Cha‐cha

(A Tom Beckett Title)

 

A variable is raised to the power of two (squared).

          hip rotate half circle to right

This operation is denoted by a superscript "2" after the variable.

          transfer weight to left foot

In medieval manuscripts, many superscript signs were used to abbreviate text.

          hip rotate half circle to right

Abbreviations are often divided into three types: suspensions, contractions, &

symbols.

          hip rotate half circle to left

Typographically, the ampersand, representing the word et, is a space-saving

ligature of the letters e & t, its component graphemes.

          left foot to side, chasse right

The symbol was so popular in the early 1800s it was added to the end of the

English alphabet as the 27th letter .

          very small step

It sounded strange to say and and, so people said "x, y, z, and per se and," be-

cause per se meant “by itself.”

          lateral movement (minimal rotation)

"Killing two birds with one stone" would probably make sense if you said it to

someone in context.

          hip does continuous figure 8 even on chasse for movement.

 

 

transcendental medication

 

Because electrons are shared evenly

their symmetry has a kind of beauty,

producing 'patterns' that one thinks

can be identified. This inclination to

find patterns often carries over, even

when dealing with unrelated inform-

ation, is even applied to polarization

curves that do not form dipoles. There

 

are several strategies that can be used

to change such pattern thinking which

often comes from overheating through

having too many active apps. A simple

& effective one is to set the current to

zero. The system soon stops bubbling.

Two Poems by Stacy Black

No One is Allowed to be Anti-capitalist

An animal born with old-timey bombs for eyes,

Little fuses already sizzling as he learns to walk

Through the dew. You're so lucky! 

Says a corpse born with $ for a smile

As an insincere utopian rises from an unmarked grave on Mars.

No One Looks Good in a Suit

A stabbing incident

Almost quaint compared to the shooting 

Laying bare nothing 

We didn't already know.

The will of the voters,

The thread and the needle, 

Etc.

Etc.

Etc. like a splatter of buildings

You can't find your way out of.

Two Poems by Joshua Martin

Devoted Miscommunication Eras

 

folding truckloads damper vanguard fortresses

to which / to warn / to obscure framing device:

           don’t look, memento, starry-eyed beatnik

           passing toaster oven marmalade projectiles / >

an acoustic panel praying mantis defibrillator torch 

blossoming nearest an unhappy sewer dweller hipster

rocking back-and-forth warbled enchilada sensor

fuzzy as a cadaver bike pedal missionary skirt

/ < . . . . .

              foremost among the insecticide war machine

              the hallelujah manias sewing mouths shut

              while it pushed sounds into a cracking lamp

              all singing the most cherished choking outrage

. . . . . ,

outside agitation rendering milking cows perverse

at least in angelic squirming bassline eruptions

drooping like snake skin in a manmade headache scarf

                                                 . . . . . , >

                         plunge /

                         the sinkhole envelopes

                         ugliest cut-off jean shorts

, hung from bathroom wall /

                                 largely uneventful (as a

                                                                lung),

of the living territories,

our suds prevent conversations:

                                           dwell, upon a device,

                                           merrily absconding with 

                                           turntable electroshock

                                                             therapy

                                                             vines <<<<< . . . . .

\ elongated wisps reinforcing stubbed toes

carrying the doppler effect oceanic tornadoes

laser focused as a foodie wound

                                                 \ . . . . . ,

                        what made the waiting room stuffy?

the taxidermist swooning

rooting around in clay scabs

tipping the tripled hot fudge

of uneven totality ravaging

unmasked for strategic verses    . . . . .

                                  average beating beeps

                                  hassling cinder blocks . . . . .

      loaf, the tumbling watermelon fever,

      misguided as an endive marshmallow

      and folding up beneath tooth decay > > >

> > :

the heartless unpacking of a seashell vicar

pleading with a peeled purchasing system

which concedes, at its core, to be unwavering

                                                         . . . . . ,

           \ suckling and buried and wounded / . . . . .

all unwanted rage suddenly dissolving

                                                             . . . . . ,

                  grooving bandits yawning infinity

                  thoroughly screaming at giant peas

                  pardoned and selfish and ordinary

. . . . . ,

           >>>>>

\ surgical forums of whining sheets

  bookended by crepuscular fumes

  less synonymous than disengaged \ <<<<<

                                                              . . . . . ,

                        nothing prepared a dome

                        for the sinking peephole endeavors

                        crusted over like opera glasses

                        weaving abandoned mosquitos

                        into a still untraceable utopia

Destructive Mobile Recession Puddings

 

quixotic eel scenarios at dawn

following ventured raincoat shadows

thoroughly propelling tomato childhoods

 

         household reindeer

hanging from the supper table raffle tickets

                   screaming bloody

                   vignettes

 

each genre specific episode of screaming

releases mustard gas giraffe headbands

onto a seemingly uninterruptable jean jacket

filled with duck-billed milkshake innuendoes

 

                          painted

           fuel-injected nostrils spraying

           latitudinal unfortunate leprosy

           upon regrettable tidal depots

 

wrist tattoo withering toothpick

wallowing juniper softening hiss

into ordinary grotesque rain chimes

 

                                 bellowing

                    the proof is in the sinking

                    dangling hoof instrumental

                    woof-woof-woofing dainty

                    mellow yellow roundtables

 

controlled jangle textual windmills

revealing convoluted coffee stains

abandoned near combustible inks

straining garrulous barcode mugs

Joshua Martin