Mercies Though tracing always the paths of voyagers past, hoping somehow to see new waves or winds, I, top-decked, posture amidst the spindrift. Flotsam of the endeavor bobs inferentially away, but, for its sentiments sparked the journey, jetsam of my spirit I turn from seeing cast over. Past the reaches of the gale the harbor awaits, where I can unload whatever's cargo and redeem it. I just have to get through this first. Days out now, it's almost night. When these winds have passed over to my room at the stern I'll return and indite: There are no ports but for all the storms. I am at their mercies. Support A deaf man smirks at the painted posterboard: 'SUPPORT THE BLIND!' Across the park a blind man is tickled to hear: 'SUPPORT THE DEAF!' Then they meet in the middle and laugh so hard they have to hold each other up as they walk home. Liberated I don't make a lot, but I don't mind it. I can buy food, pay the rent. All that. Cable, phone, internet, got those too. I can even afford to take that girl from work out to a nice restaurant. John in accounting jokes she's loose but that's no problem with me. When I'm low on gas I don't fret, when I'm tired I stop for coffee, when in the grocery line I get gum, and, if I really wanted to, I could even buy a bus ticket and go somewhere I've never been to or heard the name of. Just the thought makes the week fly. Switch "You know, you're about to do what I'm done in for doing." No pause. "I know what I'm doing needs to be done, I do." A pause. Day The distances you travel for me
and infinite forms and figures you take, like the spoon, sane queen and swan; white, of golden grace; glimmering, gone. You seem to have places to go, so never stay quite long enough. It's why I love the stars at night, but so much more so at day.
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A Wraith Named Happiness SaidOver porch-steps, door-mats, window-sashes I slide; a waif with tangled hair, Slipping through translucented blind-slashes With the doomed ardour of despair. Your forebears quested lifetimes for my grace, Now I haunt you who should hunt me; Under the wrinkling white bulblight you place Hack-work, which my home shall not be. Seeking me, alas! Is not now your care: In your own court you stand accused Of craven deeds you deem so dire, you dare Not heed my knock; and so, refused I watch you burn a heart that could be whole, Cede your head to broodings bitter; Steadily squander your riches of soul On trifles not worth a fritter I out in the wilds, you in your brick cage, We dwindle in mutual, futile rage; Deaf to the thing both know is true: You ache for me as I for you Neither To Nor Of Me‘In your future, I see death,’ said the meme, Neither to nor of me. I pseudo-shrugged At the little gold box whose sturdy gleam Served as pea-plant support for my fingers I answered, with consciously feeble wit ‘Yes, and so? Every future holds death, no?’ And every present too that is unlit By hope. But that was not why I scrolled past So quickly. See, the vulture within me Surged into my eyes and the shrinking words Yanked from my mind-pen in unholy glee And hissed: ‘Good egg. That sounds like quite the lunch.’ See, all art-makers are born part vulture Part petrified soul-cages, corpses-to-be: We feed on our death and call it culture So you may oblivious live and love. Only This Morning This morning, they packed their only large box, Laughing as the child picked and unpicked A doll to take; counted the pairs of socks Ten times, still came up one short: scowled, then kicked The stray one out of sight, giggling with guilt. This morning, the limp huddles on the grass Studded with glass shards cupped in blood and skin Loved and mocked the old handles of brass On the peeling leather that held within Colours of freedom, of lives on dreams built. This morning, the sky was a cheerful blue, The grass green, the walls a delicate cream, Solid, unperishing, lasting, meant to House three generations of the old dream, Of hard-won happily ever-afters. This morning, a wyvern’s lash of flame split Their world in two, in ‘after’ and ‘before’. After, grey from cellar to cloud, will knit Dust-scarves for the tattered box, making sure Of its one witness left neath those rafters. 'First published in Celestal Review Literary Magazine' Pearls Of Wisdom From The Ancestors‘One race alone matters, this you must win: It’s about the money you can bring in. Win, and it does not matter How or why or what you won Nor what you lost in its stead You won.’ ‘Yes, but you don't -’ ‘Just so. Therefore, I know Winners bask in the sun the livelong day In a world schooled to clap and look their way’ ‘One race alone matters, this you must win: It’s about the money you can bring in. Lose, and it does not matter How or why or what you lost Nor what you won in its stead You lost.’ ‘Yes, but you don't -’ ‘Just so. Therefore, I know Losers are weeded and cast out to stray By a world schooled to wince and look away’ Vane-Chaunt Of Inked FeathersTomorrow, we know, we may lose
Our bits of choked words, and so choose To croak our truths before the mesh Of language fleeing poésie’s thresh Closes upon us, enforcing Decrees of silence, endorsing Falsehoods for bread, forged afresh Of language fleeing poésie’s thresh Like regret, thin as mist, that tells Yawning children of tolling bells And horns blown in vain, of crèches Of language fleeing poésie’s thresh Like a tired metaphor wobbling Its way into a verse, stumbling Upon channels for the fleches Of language fleeing poésie’s thresh Wilson Taylor is a poet living in New York City. Most recently his work has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review and The Merrimack Review; all of his writing can be found online at wilsontaylorwrites.wordpress.com. Circles Life is a series of meditations like a spoke in a child’s bicycle, spinning while their parents follow down an abstract road, an asphalt river made of curlicues peeling off like leaves in the fall, each thought its own address. With a diminishing clicking the wheels of the discarded bike halt unseen, inertia not enough to carry where feet will serve us better, chasing upright knowledge up a staircase to a golden god of order but for some hidden trick of nature and first love, blue eyes drawing us into the sky, wonderful chaos and an enfolding embrace placing us among the sun and waving fronds of grass, yellow paintbrushes of light. Down below on the road a feeling wheels by like memory in the glom of consciousness and time and in the recesses of the present that old familiar ticking takes pace again, deep breaths spreading till each spoke becomes a wheel within itself. starlight junkyard elegy I look out on a graveyard of scrap metal and broken plywood, things made and unmade. just things gone to die if they were ever alive in this overcast night, the darkness white and clear. over it all a tree stretches, naked branches cutting a lattice tessellating through the in-between. does it see what has passed since it was young? I think I do; my knees ache with years of tendinitis, many paces passing underneath, the globe spinning like a long road while time stretches to places unknown. all along I was trying to figure out this life while this life was figure-eighting me through infinity, a million mes tired and alive, fresh as dew and old as dust, a gleam of light in my eye. now I know to focus on stars to see the nebula. now I know I am forever and nothing at all, decomposing at the roots of greatness. The Outskirts Everything shadowy besides the sky blue and white and wide, yellow streaking up from a golden furnace thick with smog and power lines. Someone planted wheat here once, no-one planted nothing. Now all these glass mirrors glow in the last light as if it’s not an accident, this sideways world of taillights moving horizontally beneath metal boughs. All this, out here, in-between and beyond definition, imagination vanishing and taking hold with the night moving down upon us. This was our sacrifice for the city, for the sparkling pedestal of angels made of flesh and blood like me and you. The moon sprays dreams through the scrapyard as if it doesn’t matter, a smiling crescent of independence, bringing gravity to our hidden ways of joining as we orbit continuously, fearlessly like water going home to sea. Graduation We are the gurgle draining in a late spring afternoon beneath the pavement, amidst an eerie stillness broken only by the industry of a squirrel. In the trees and grass of campus a precious final few breathe the current of clean air. They’ve put a muzzle on Frost as if there is no poetry to be spoken here. It is all out there, beyond the hill. Athletic fields lie fallow in between, golden meadows-- I chase their depths like a sparrow buzzing East towards airier climes, towards rebirth, giving in simultaneously to the call of the woods and our tendency to make piles of things. But after seeing rabbits scurrying from my path before pausing, poems in a mailbox in the woods, farmers, lovers, and thieves: I am become a hawk upon the updraft, floating above rippling fields that roll like storm clouds beneath my wings, become these words that join me and protect me and destroy me in creation. FOUR SEASONS Spring
In her dream the oak leaves rustled in delicate swings. The breeze whispered warm nothings, scampering through the fresh grass like a lime-green lizard that twisted between blades and up the downspout. There it leapt and stuck in half-lidded suspension, splashed across the warm brick. Its pores ate the air, which was soft like a stubborn cloud, pushing her feet up as her toes padded down on fresh dirt and warm sandstone. The sun split through unfinished quilts of leaves. Her hair was a spun mane in the light. She sat in the cool shade and her dress splayed flowers onto the grass. The house glowed warmly in the heat, pulsing outwards like a straining heart. The lizard’s green skeleton sluiced away, out of sight. Summer The paint on the window crosses was white and washed, curled away in the sun. She craned at the yellow bead rippling in the highest corner, in the top white-walled box of blue. Her eyes were curious. High in the sky the sun burned away shadows. Fall She ate the lotus like a gift. She ate the lotus like a peach, a piece of a tiny petal. She ate the angry curled lotus—a drop of blood. Red lips in red light, falling like glass gold, the branches spiderwebbing cracks. She sees sparks in the lattice: neurons in the frame. Winter She can feel it now: desire. Gleaming paint screams down the side of the parade. The tiger paws its chain. The fat man smiles and twinkles a monocle. The mighty cat sits proud in the bed, and trainers cower in corners, controlling her. The striped-suited ball of flesh twiddles the wheel, and waves to the crowd. Hams ride pink through the flag-waving air-- one mashes the wheel and toots a horn. The crowd smiles, and she stands there among it. Desire bares its teeth, but will not roar.
Acclamations |
Benjamin Skomorac I was born in 1996. I finished elementary school as well as Technical High School in Zenica with great success, with a number of honors after graduation, after that I enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zenica, Department of B / h / s Language and Literature. In addition to studying language and literature, I also write short forms of texts, prose and poems. I currently live in Zenica (BiH), a professor of Bosnian language and literature. So far my poems have been published in the collections of Trinity from Gradište (Croatia), Sindjelic's Cagar fire (Serbia), Pannonian seagull (Serbia), Carpe Diem (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Drina literary meetings (Bosnia and Herzegovina), and many others. |
Crossroads of life
If you ever find yourself at the crossroads of living people,
reluctant sun,
grouchy hopes,
and molded dreams,
you will find the quiet melody of birds
played on gray records
that will spin
in their enlightened enchantments.
Try to give up completely
without stakes and without compensation,
in desire for
a sense of peace.
When you are alone in front of the wall
with hope dangerously cut into it,
same as you walk on the steppes
of the indelible traces of the music
of those same birds, only from a new record.
reluctant sun,
grouchy hopes,
and molded dreams,
you will find the quiet melody of birds
played on gray records
that will spin
in their enlightened enchantments.
Try to give up completely
without stakes and without compensation,
in desire for
a sense of peace.
When you are alone in front of the wall
with hope dangerously cut into it,
same as you walk on the steppes
of the indelible traces of the music
of those same birds, only from a new record.
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AARON SANDBERG
AHMING ZEE
ANANDI KAR
ANUM SATTAR
BENJAMIN SKOMORAC
BOBBY Z
CARSON PYTELL
CHARLIE BRICE
DAVE BACHMANN
DEEKSHITA ATHREYA
EMALISA ROSE
HIBAH SHABKHEZ
JAEWON CHANG
JEFF KING
KEITH BURKHOLDER
LIAN WANG
LOIS GREENE STONE
NDABA SIBANDA
SALIMAH VALIANI
STERLING WARNER
TAEYEON HAN
THOMAS LOCICERO
USHA AMULYA NAREM
WILSON TAYLOR