Matthew Borczon And The Irony Of Call Of Duty, Bars Filled With Ghosts, And Leaving Your Son For War

Irony

The young soldiers play

call of duty on their x-box

with the war right outside.



Post deployment

On the first night we were home

all the bars were filled

with the ghosts of every soldier and marine I served with.




Pre Deployment

When my son asked  if I was gonna die

I told him no

only mostly sure.


Matthew Borczon in a poet and navy sailor from Erie, Pa. He has published 6 books of poetry the most recent of which is The smallest coffins are the heaviest by Epic rites press. He works as a practical nurse in Erie, Pa where he lives with his wife, four kids, three cats and two dogs. He publishes widely in the small press.

James Diaz And The Total Dark Encompassing What Kafka Said Until The Last Bomb Of Autumn

Sirens, How I Miss Being The One They're After

I come from a dark so total
light itself is the accident
how air hits the open wound
how the mirror refuses to show you
what you show it
once I put the whole damn town
into that gaping hole
and when it closed
all these refugees
were just trapped inside
my broken body
and when I look a little pinched
pained in my posture
it's all these poor substitutes
looking for a way out





The Arrow's Deepest Kiss

"The weapon of choice made a hole in my heart,
a hole so deep nothing else mattered" -Annie Gallup

in my bones
I lean
toward you
thirsty from
travel
I wear
my heart
all wrong
all these sleepless nights
I see the silver lining
go dark
around my eyes
and every ghost in this room
speaks the language
of another country
I haven't got what it takes
or what I had was taken
from me
I think you know
what I know
that at a certain point
there's no coming back
that's the point we must reach, Kafka said
well, now we're at that dark edge
and lost isn't always as lost as we think
or as lasting.




I Was Never What You Thought I Was

winter wonders how i am keeping
things from her door
i search the aubergine valley
but only orphan socks will
do, when you walk alone
you walk as you were born
this is what i know about dying
i'm better at living, for now-
in the quiet between the last bomb
of autumn, the dial tone
of a friend's voice
and static when the weeping
is all that you remember
of love



James Diaz lives in upstate New York. He is the author of This Someone I Call Stranger (Indolent Books, 2018) and the founding editor of Anti-Heroin Chic. His work has appeared in HIV Here & Now, Quail Bell Magazine, Ditch, Cheap Pop Lit and Foliate Oak. @diaz_james