Andrew Shields as a Human Bench, as a Witness to a Tom Waits' Homicide, and as Thunder in the Sun

Bench

Most of the time, nobody sits on me
or even notices I'm offering
everyone a chance to take a break
on their way from someplace to someplace.

I'm used to it by now. I take what comes:
two teenagers who scratch their names on my back.
An overweight old man with a tiny dog.
A Dad who sits to watch his children playing

in the cul de sac. The sunshine of
the early spring that warmed my slats last week.
And now more snow than I have ever had
weighing me down after a late-winter storm.

Like everyone else, it, too, will leave me soon.
Even that Dad has stopped coming by for a rest,
his children now older and playing other games.
Like I said, I'm used to it by now.
 
I Dreamed Tom Waits Killed His Brother

accompanied by
a walking bass
and a little high hat

Took him out in a canoe to the lake's center
and there under the full moon
offered him the choice of death
or murder and in the drowning
shooting knifing or strangling
one of them died and the other
the other rowed back to shore
climbed in the car but the keys
were at the bottom of the lake
he had to hotwire the car which
fortunately he knew how to do

and while he was driving home
a cop pulled him over for going
a bit too fast down the road
cop didn't like the look of this guy
noticed he didn't have any keys
took him out of the car and cuffed him
he's doing time for stealing his own car
after killing his brother

but nobody ever found out about this
until I had this dream one night
wrote it down Tom Waits
killed his brother and is doing time
for stealing his own car
stealing his own car
stealing his own car
 
Thunder

The thunder rolls from clouds on the horizon,
although the sky above is hazy blue.
No rain is falling, but the wind is rising;
the leaves are talking, but not to me and you.

Let's sit down and listen to the thunder.
We cannot see the lightning for the sun.
But now a flash begins to make me wonder
whether we'll be dry when this is done.

Let's leave the yard and make our way inside.
The weather's good to watch behind the glass.
The branches sure are bending in this gale!
Twigs and leaves are blowing across the grass.
Pity those without a place to hide
from the torrent and the pounding of the hail!


Andrew Shields lives in Basel, Switzerland. His collection of poems "Thomas Hardy Listens to Louis Armstrong" was published by Eyewear in 2015. His band Human Shields released the album "Somebody's Hometown" in 2015 and the EP "Défense de jouer" in 2016.

Twitter: @ShieldsAndrew
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andrewshieldspoems/

Matt Borczon's Dropped Quarter, Heaven-Neglected Animals, and Smiles Like Spiderwebs

Hope

Hope is

a prayer

said out

loud in

an empty

house

it's the

sound of

a quarter

dropped in

a Catholic

church

It's a

dog wearing

a muzzle

and a

gun without

bullets

it is

love with

no expectations

beyond the

way it

makes you

feel

right here

right now.

Animals have no souls

Beyond

the gates

of Eden

an elephant

sits alone

in a

room

a wolf

howls in

a shopping

mall

as crows

scatter across

neon lit

cities

we are

all just

dreams

waiting to

be born

just thoughts

unexplained

then lost

in the

glow of

everything

we are

all just

animals

who are

not allowed

in heaven

destined

to obey

a master

we never

asked for.

Lover

your

kiss

is

a

wolf's

howl

an

ocean

wave

and

your

touch

is

a

spider's

web

big

enough

to

encase

me

like

a

mummy

smiling

into

the

face

of

death

Matthew Borczon is a nurse and Navy Corpsman from Erie Pa. He served in the busiest combat hospital in Afghanistan from 2010-2011; he writes about his experiences on Camp Bastion and about the difficulties he has had since coming home. 

Aakriti Kuntal Walks Into The Ocean And Never Returns With An Insect Strapped Into the Day's Chest And The Carnival Of A Clockwork World

Abduction


White salt out there,
your whitewashed twigs scowling,
set into motions unfamiliar

The night is growing thick
Like a matchstick,
the finger is aflame

It has sworn to shimmer
The teeth abandon the jaw
and float into the sea

A jawbone into the sea's eternity
A poet stood before the ocean

and never returned
Return he did not

and in my cupped eyelid,
a quarter of the moon, the man's weakening
steps, a half-knee dipped in water green

Arms swinging like ropes,
their jolly, an unfathomable absurdity

A poet walked into the sea
and never returned

Every day the sea washes
his stench from shells and crab skins

Every day the sea washes the sand's antenna feet

A poet walked into the sea
and never returned




Evening


Evening,
a marble plateau,
sliced breath of the day

Red pomegranate seeds splutter,
turning the mouth’s estranged sky
into a velvet sienna

Stillness—
Lack of movement?
Lack of thought?

An elongation of emotion
A requiem for the living

The air
it seems
is suffused with a flat, ochre light,
static around the bark of all trees

A consolation,
A lullaby,
A long, long pause
Everything in the goddamn world
bending down
to stare at its very own miracle

Twilight’s veil flutters,
an insect strapped to the day’s chest

She moves

Slowly
Carefully
There are no mistakes made here
The day falls in precise moments,
just as it began

A cold shudder

A celestial beast
salivates over life’s porous face

and the horizon grins

Evening,
the sly tongue of light



Artery



I.

The peninsula of the feverish hand, the upturned hand, dwelling like a conundrum above stripes of skinned air. Throbbing needlessly, desperately, throbbing in blue and lavender dots, a circus, a forest, an entire landscape of paleness. Winter's old confidante, grey and ancient, flowing steadily, rapidly, ravaging all in its path, coursing through the giant tributaries of veins, their sputtering valleys, their saline consonance.
What is it that has been spoken? What have you learned that you cannot forget? What is this disease that you have caught from the warm belly of the night that you cannot let go of? What is this desire that you conceal in your grand stutter? Why must you run in ambiguities, make of this fragile clockwork a carnival? What is it that holds your tongue and makes your limbs, your tiny feet run wild in me, day and night, night and night? What is this, what is this ugliness that you have sworn to be?

II.

In madness reigns the eccentric song of the heart. The dreadful rose heart, almost terrified, almost smitten with its own severe palpitation. Its unquenchable need to be, its admirable desire to not. Suffering in its own arms, it gathers, it steals all the songs of the world from all the curious corners, the brightened edges, the bizarre waterfalls, the ever-wading roundness of things, a pervading haze. It is its own demise, rotting behind the schizophrenic eye of the mind, quivering behind thistles and needles. It is own demise and its own solitary reed, fluttering through the atmosphere, the blind sky, the all-pervading grey lake; hiding, then flinging itself in desperation, into a bush of orange feathers, the armpits of unknown birds, into raven eyes and abhorrent beauty; burning in innocence, the unendurable truth in its vascular scream.


III.

Spring forth, arms, from the remains of the day. Spread, seed by seed, knuckle by knuckle, eat the dust that glares from the edge. The wide-eyed sphere of air that watches with an unmistakable gaze, a hollow stare, the only one, the carcass of a large God, the aftermath of all truth and untruth. Spring forth, arms; arms of restless ache, restless lisp, incurable restlessness, seek in the white fade of emptiness the echo of your being, your calamitous birth, your undying being.

Aakriti Kuntal, aged 26, is a poet and writer from Gurugram, India. Her work has been featured in various national and international literary journals. She was awarded the Reuel International Prize 2017 for poetry and was a finalist for the RL Poetry Award 2018.

Charlie Farmer Among The Coroners, Honoring The Dead, Disdainful Lunch Box, The Needle On The Record, Belaying Hell As Well, And The Floral Prints Of Timeless Youth

 “Pride Care Cleaners”

I was 18 and bought my first suit and tie,
so I could go to Grady Memorial
and say,” This is Emily.”


Handshakes with coroners.


My attempt at dignity.
To be well dressed and say,
“This is Emily.”


To identify you.


You were 32, heroin chic.
Front page cheeks.


I found you in your bathroom.
Your hair matted, mascara a mess.


I did my best to clean you
before the ambulances.


I dressed you in my favorite sundress.


Floral print.


It was important
that ambulance drivers
found you important.


Men made fun of you
on bathroom walls,
but I still dry-cleaned that suit,
The best I could do at 18.




“the first funeral”


did you throw
your lunchbox
against the wall
as i did
when a car
crushed your
first dog?

learn how
to use a shovel,
dig, bury?

learn loss lessons?

if not, understand.
this is why everything
is so important to me.



 “Simple Machines”

Some of us want
To be in love every day.
It is demanding to those
Who can pack a bag,
Close a book,
Remove the needle
From a record,
Underline phrases
That moved the world
And walk away.
I can’t walk away.
I need those books, records.
Like I need you,
You in the dark, getting
Dressed for work,
Trying not to wake me,
But I am always awake,
And I will ask,
“Two more minutes?”
And you oblige.
A short cuddle.

My favorite days
Are when you
Show up
With your hair
In tangles
After work.
You are all underlines,
Everything important.
I have given up
Finding synonyms
For your grace.





“Drinking in Parking Lots”

Some spring days there are
girls checking out library books,
And they may not be my girls, but
There is such charm in sundresses,
A book in hand.
Let's delay hell,
and worship girls
who underline sentences
and bite us
where there are no bruises
but want them.
Let's delay hell.


“Whatever Happened to Sara Shaw?”

Friday nights we boys waited for the grind of the gravel
As the girls' car, borrowed from a parent, steered up the driveway
To a friend's lean-to

The girls blew in wearing tie-dye that fit like a mistake,
Unpracticed make-up,
Pleated jeans, their schoolgirl figures obscured, unrecognizable
But she would arrive in private school chic—
Sundresses, more often than not in a floral print
But sometimes, my favorite, a navy number with fine, white dot print

Youth expires, and ghost towns last so long


Charlie Farmer is a Georgia poet and professor who loves his wife, Erin, his friends, his cats, his students, his books, his LP's, and everything else a poet should love in life. He is a lefty on the guitar but two-fisted everywhere else otherwise. 

Mark Young Returns With A Kestrel Attack In A Nordic Novel, Antarctican Kites, And A Bad Case Of Flood Denial

Nordic Noir

The kestrel in the churchyard keeps crying out for lingonberries.

"This is not a Nordic crime novel," I remind it. "I can give you jackfruit, or mangoes, or even those rotten-smelling durian whose popularity in China is rivalled only by the iPhone, but the lingonberry is beyond my reach."

I turn away, miss the kestrel flying to attack me, eyes first, & then that critical vein in the neck. My last thought just before I pass: "Lars Kepler might get a novel out of this."


 
Drag & Drop

An exhausted pair of pranksters needed police help to drag a giant metal cockroach they had moved six meters along Rundle Mall early this morning.

Domenic Esposito dropped a 10-foot, 800-pound sculpture of a heroin spoon on the sidewalk in front of a Coventry Pharmaceutical company.

Businesswoman dragging a giant heavy weight on chain, Guilt written on the ball. Cartoon vector flat-style concept illustration.

Hogan drops an elbow on the prone Giant, & another, & another.

Two German painters are dragging a giant pen through Utah, Colorado, & Wyoming.

Man uses bulldozer to drop giant boulder on a pickup truck & destroys its suspension.

Wilson will be traveling alone, using only skis & kites, dragging a giant pair of pink breasts full of enough survival supplies for 80 days across Antarctica.

Wilderness hill giants used to be an active place for F2P pking. Double the drop rate of Giant Key from hill giants in the wilderness. Hopefully this could add some interesting incentive to F2P players to enter the wilderness.


 
for Joe Zawinul, a weather report

Rising rivers vomit glossy
coffee table books on Brutalist
edifices of the 1930s. Sane adults

narrow down a list of options
for substance use. I'm camped
out here in the middle of a flood

reciting supposedly helpful
mantras for making the water
recede. I think I'm in denial.





Mark Young's most recent books are les échiquiers effrontés, a collection of surrealist visual poems laid out on chessboard grids, published by Luna Bisonte Prods; The Word Factory: a miscellany, from gradient books of Finland; & The Perfume of The Abyss from Moria Books. 

Adam Levon Brown Basks In The Dusk Of The Lyres While Jewels Cry From The Abyss In A Galactic Shine

Hallelujah Sunshine

Highways separate

into colliding stars,

wishing themselves

into being

from galactic shine

Singing Hallelujah,

I have found life!

I have found the pearls

of blood-drenched wisdom.

I have found the separate keys

on the piano which try to stay hidden

I have bled in rivulets of sunshine

to find my way home.

I have found the questions,

but never the answers.

Let them sizzle beneath

your skin,

and sing for awakening

in the grimmest of weather,

Bolted down to the doors

of your trust, and hidden

behind your gates

of razor blade truths

Let them in,

Let them in.

Hurtles go unheard

in the Sonnets of lyre

dusk

Preening themselves from fire

and hiding the dust

behind eyes of lust

Pretentious and declared

mute, the shadows quake

at the thought of eclipsing

your shame

Buried in the heels

of your feet, waiting

to give birth to Hermes,

Your smile erupts

and singes the emptiness

you call your home.

Darkness Reality

Lips of escaping

meadow signal

the depths of Abyss-worn

crowns

Cracked and smeared

with gun powder and silenced

by night fall

Jewels cry your name

as you fall deeper

into the ebony glance

of darkness reality

And luck calls

for you inside your mind,

as you attempt to claw

your psyche

from the depths of abyss

Adam Levon Brown is an internationally published poet and author in 14 countries. He has had his work translated in Spanish, Albanian, Arabic, and Afrikaans. Boasting over 300 published pieces, you can find his writing at such publications as Burningword Literary Journal, Firefly Magazine, Zany Zygote Review, Epigraph, Angel City Review, and Ariel Chart. He was long-listed in the 2016 Erbacce Prize poetry competition and received a special mention in the Pangolin Prize 2018 competition.

Tyler Wettig Is Soldering Misfit Ends, Eschewing Beethoven's Eschewing, Listening To An Angel's Death-Rattle, And Watching The Ceiling Of The Sistine Drip

Drone

Your goal is to suffer a little less
than you did yesterday, or so to do
for a different reason. You solder
the misfit ends, adlib from a sexless
lacuna, ponder/muse/regret seeds of
absurdity the maker (and maker’s
maker) planted, try to get it more
right every time. But sweet mortality’s
got its talon-grip on you, regardless:
grey, molting, and matted like the first sweet
cat you lost. You promise the first marriage
will be the last. Good. You anticipate
tragedy like it’s all you know: for those
seeds you saw planted, tilled?
They’ll grow and grow.


Pondering Romanticism

Foolhardy you plumb the standards, the hard
stuff: give thanks to Beethoven's eschewing.
Somewhere a conductor has lost his grip,
but you know hands that have seen weirder nights.

You’re lonely, in love, and engaged. Sharing
a bed has come easy . . . your thoughts: not so
much. The mind stays abuzz with repetition,
so the poems write themselves. You’re orbiting,

lucid and alive, at the crack of dark,
animus in tooth and claw to spear your
side. No, you’re not in love with your mother;
but lust, infernal muse, is burning in
her myth.



Inferno

I’m interred in autumn’s naked dusk,
the earth-chapel’s blessed breath complicit
in my better angels’ death-rattle. The
Zoloft has faded, and my little black dog,
wriggling out of his fur to chase shadows,
could sniff out my cancer just as well: soul
effaced by fatherhood’s fugue—creation
condemned to being—is an etude piano-
hands, mine, can’t resolve. I’m about-face
enough to split out of my own skin, and
and in every white-noise baptismal,
I give this to all my unborn children:
“Go take care of your mother. And what’s
at either end of that leash.”



Reckoning

In a bed big enough for only one,
I’m thinking Michelangelo’s
David: the perfect man with the perfect
body. The ceiling drips Sistine, but maybe
that’s just you. Cold pizza’s in the
fridge; an unfinished fugue in my head;
and you, well, giving head. But we have a
city to explore (for a price). So, for
now, let’s explore us: this pantheon of
the absurd. With our idols adorned so
contrapposto, let’s think Bernini:
play the heretics and pray about
it tomorrow; our knees won’t make it
that far to the ground in church.




Tyler Wettig resides in Ypsilanti, Michigan. His latest chapbook is The Adult Table (Zetataurus, 2018). Tyler's website: https://www.tylerwettig.wordpress.com.