Poem 357 ± May 26, 2016

Stuart Barnes I hardly recognise the trial—twenty-one cycles over the sun—but I know it wasn’t child’s play. ‘Are you—’ ‘Yes, Mum.’ ‘You’ll fucking die of AIDS.’ I apologised—I can only sympathise with the daily rain of brimstone, fire. In artificial air I lay on my side and scrutinised the waverings of your eye—sea-green, curious, terrified—and … [Read more…]

Poem 356 ± May 25, 2016

Jill L. Cooper Heaven Is Now Often hidden in the problem—some unintelligible equation scribbled in chalk— resides the formula to freedom. Peel off the bitter rind of “issues,” and relish what you have been given, what you have created, what you feel—bittersweet as it may be. Not as some cruel “lesson.” Not as just an … [Read more…]

Poem 355 ± May 24, 2016

Jason S. Price Tears for a cure If tears could raise them from the ashes I’ve cried a salted sea not for their ghosts but that we will never forget them: forget their sunny dispositions, forget their sores, forget their purple laughters, the sadness they carried long before they closed their eyes forever. Sometimes I … [Read more…]

Poem 354 ± May 23, 2016

j.lewis some afternoon he is gone, he is gone news travels fast, and faster when it is hard to bear i feel a forming thunder-cloud prediction of the flood to come not so much sorrow for the dead as for the living left alone who will turn some afternoon to share a thought or laugh … [Read more…]

Poem 353 ± May 22, 2016

Melina Gotera The Hickey Poem I wore your hickey on my earlobe like a badge. Purple heart, my pride. It felt like bee stings every time I touched it. I touched it a lot. It just kept buzzing in my ears, like your whisper that night. My heart a churning hive, all burning and heat … [Read more…]

Poem 352 ± May 21, 2016

Cally Conan-Davies After a Candlelit Reading of “The Dead” “He gave the words the right amount of steel”— then you speak aloud the last words of “The Dead” as we walk along the south bank of the Thames. St Paul’s looks real. Your arm through mine feels real. But I’m not convinced. It’s almost Christmas. … [Read more…]

Poem 351 ± May 20, 2016

Rodney Jack Little Sickness Song I measure the days in medicine trays oh my Sunday through Sunday cloudy or sunny my pillbox is by my side oh my my pillbox by my side And again this morning the porcelain this morning cold so white inside oh my so cold so white inside Taking the tablets … [Read more…]

Poem 350 ± May 19, 2016

Bree LeMaire He Kissed Me We were saying good-by and he kissed me Not just a brush against my cheek, but On my lips. Did he feel me flinch? Expect It? Was there fear or revulsion? My mind went to other places, Blood, body fluids. Was there saliva, Is it still there? He spoke with … [Read more…]

Poem 349 ± May 18, 2016

Matty Layne haiku (for my first ex-boyfriend on his twenty-eighth birthday) queer. another year. my how all the years (and queers) have loosened your rear.   Matty Layne is a political pixie of a poet and MFA Candidate in Creative Writing & Environment at Iowa State University where he teaches composition and rhetoric. His poems … [Read more…]

Poem 348 ± May 17, 2016

Peter Nickowitz Stanzas (1-6) EDITOR’S NOTE: To preserve the complex formatting of this poem, we have included it as a PDF that will open in a separate tab when you click on the title below: STANZAS (1-6)   Peter Nickowitz is the author of Cinema Vernacular (Publication Studio, 2014) and Rhetoric and Sexuality: The Poetry … [Read more…]