Category: Poetry
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Turn Back the Clocks
The river is the river is the river. This & other reassurances. When I stared so hard at the string lightsmy vision softened to sparkling butter. Surely, by 27, you outgrow suicide. Another season spent in the arms of my mother. Another apology too smallfor the enormity of my mistakes. When I was little & sure of my place. Cat-like on…
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Grindin’ on Island Time
I never glided a blade across skin but instead inflicted harm in my sleep. Always grindin’ from 9-5 and in leisure timebecause father trained me to,and I followed suit obediently. Odd. An anomaly, remarked the dentist when evaluating my destruction ofa custom mouth guard device.Unheard of, in such a short time. Only once, a TMJ patient fully…
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Hitting Pause
There are moments likethe first flush of a shower.hot thoughtlets sprayingin anonymous cascadeover a fallow pausein a constricted mind,savoring the absenceof import or consequence. Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He’s had about 700 stories and poems published so far, and fifteen books. He works the other…
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Two Poems by Hayden Nielander
Death Rock Classics Can’t fuck in candlelightNo more kept watchingMy shadow A kitchen’s A machineOf your psyche Did you hear meIn the detached garagePainting myself in cut-off shorts Look at my faceIn the microwave doorDefrosting the light in my eyes I’m calling you from the bushI’m calling from fromYou are like yeah hey what Heard me…
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Subscription Viola
I rent my viola through midnight platformsthree dollars per hourplus transit taxplus digital handling corporate audits approachthrough sealed email chainsthrough barcode scans near elevatorsthrough men using tiny calculators I polish each string with cooking oilborrowed from a sandwich stallunder train arches beside water tanks A teenager in Limapaid for nineteen minutesrequested funeral musicduring chemistry revision…
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Three Poems by Andy Reischling
To Benzodiazepines I’m sorry I cried so much when you told me to calm down.I really didn’t want to. You held me together. But where are the doctor bills?I’ve paid my dues, not that I remember what they were. They mess with your memories. But here’s one I still have:It was night out and the sky was…
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Two Poems by Mike Bagwell
Jimmy Two-Toes and Romance I think it will be okay, but I’ve beenwrong before. Bad news from upriver:the plastic surgeons are unitedin their efforts to remold Shelly,and will stop at nothing. It’s only fair to tell youI have a second circulatory system.I call it goodbyethankyoueven though it is mostly origami. Listen, I’m part sin-man part…
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Buc-ee’s Drive Thru Car Wash Meditation
O goofy beaver Bat-signal swept across my windshieldO pink and purple suds and gay ass disco lightsO Saturday morning ritual, Shannon’s “Let the Music Play”on repeat and gas station coffee and nobody can see meshimmy my shoulders on the memory of a dancefloorwhere I’m kissing a redhead with scruff on his chinI’m not wearing my…
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Lines Composed Pulled Over In The Parking Lot After Picking Up Dinner
Fire department outside the wedding venue.All we want is a little blood, & thena little more. I’ve never been greedy enough. Pick up Raising Cane’s then circle back,see the lights still there flashing.What better way to start a new love than with a small disaster? But I’m telling yousomething you already believe:maybe the best way…
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grasshopper jacket
Put the fries in the bag.Collapse all memories.Recall the grasshopperson the windbreaker.How they scuttledfor first attention.Einstein’s not on the beach anymore.He finally gave up on swimming.Before that he went to Rippers.Had ten beers, ten burgers, and wept. Windswept, the grasshopper operator’snew collision. A dusk of form and function.You spend long hours at the rack,eyeing an…