Vernion Frazer Lives Where All of the Surrogates Are Illegal, the Modicum's Steerage Is Worn, the Seizures Montage, and the Somehows Are Recently Completed

Bridging the Distant

regal pneumatics lean

a bandwidth forum squint

leading

past notches

                                   to forum

     dimension hatching

     as unsold vision   divested

                                     at the burn

     entertains banana flair etudes

*

unbridgeable collapses

detonate the heralds as they flume

     illegal surrogates assemble

          whispered drudgery 

          where blotches gleam broadly

               coastal anorexia vacant

               as a humdrum lotion file 

             

                satiates   bloating

         the first command              unit

                    a mediocre sabotage

      

*

when skin peals

the ring astounds its hiding

    angle

  bent to spoon

           delinquent errata

     recreating meta     

        tarsal              shafts

                     footing 

                     the bull

         by the horning studio monitor

         steering          to clear

      rafter

          debris sealing

     the modicum with its worn steerage

Apology Unsold

empty rehearsal 

to play a well-bent repentance 

     despite scenario swallowers 

          forego the somnolent wilding 

               currency disjunction filament 

motoring the ravenous frenzy mustard 

     gray breath 

            almost glows

                              nominal will 

the umber-toned ease quandary utterance 

*

gloried contour confused revenge 

occlusion boom rang frontons before vantage 

a steaming elision 

   eyes a patois  matter salons 

            fallacious cover 

     seizure montage 

     lacing beverage paper 

               blocked 

  the deluxe lumens debacle 

easing dreams in frenetic grain 

thoughtful surface burial included 

     iron tunes the heat 

  to the rung 

dawn gripping a failed gesture

Wright Wing Theatrics at Play

the accidents of plays

really finish a realist ward

         even snapped

         the changing so ago

               still banning

                    the condition

                         as foundering

     a recently completed somehow

     

            nice enough

                                to oust   

                        *

behavior made papers

calm the struggling diagnosis

     in therapy

 physical          wants to launch

principles        getting thought

 chance           heard its need

   through the nerve engine

                 retrained the exercise

                 to operate its creative

                 writing using the best

          issues later 

               the road show

               protesting a prime time reaction

                        *

fog metaphor

doesn’t see enough light

  electrical          rudeness

  afternoon         improving 

     matinee to new time 

suggesting

                  family scale

     group’s chiropractor guarantee

                           the writer starts totaled 

BIO 

Vernon Frazer's newest poetry collection is Secret’s Exhibition.

Steve Brisendine Contemplates Giving God A Free Shot, The Angel-Slain Firstborn, And Thickets Of Fingernails

edge of evening, edge of storm

everything is just short

of something

in this moment: almost

dusk,

almost rain, almost time

to go

home, almost tempting 

to grab that almost-wet

flagpole 

and say 

hey God,

free shot

Sahara haze: a plague of 2020

breathe in bone-remnants

of the angel-slain firstborn;

what blood can cover

our own doorposts, ward away

one more chastisement for who

we have failed to be?

the discarded of this land

cry out from dark soil;

we who exist between dust

and dust must give an answer

Unsafe

In which Erato, muse of love poetry, admonishes her followers:

Enough.

Still your trembling

(from need

or

exhaustion)

pens.

Come out from

(on one side)

your tangled burnings and yearnings,

long looks and looks of longing,

(and on the other)

your thickets of friction and fingernails,

shudders and satiated silence.

Stand here,

on the bridge between yielding 

yes

and claiming 

Yes,

and do 

not

breathe, 

for not even air can be steady here,

where all is slick and shaking

and everything rests upon

one

point,

thin as two layers

of skin

(and only one 

of those

yours).

Wait.

Look down.

Now write.

Steve Brisendine is a writer, poet, occasional artist and recovering journalist living and working in Mission, KS. He is the author of two collections from Spartan Press: The Words We Do Not Have (2021) and the upcoming Salt Holds No Secret But This (2022). He was a finalist for the 2021 Derick Burleson Poetry Prize.

Rp Verlaine Explores Where Androids Go To Die, The Dissolving Fish, That Heaven We Knew, And The Hemlock Of Repetition

Inadequate Patterns 

Like dissolving fish 

on the computer  

screen saver, 

we disintegrate 

each new kiss, 

each pale white room 

where we suffocate 

asking for air 

others took from us. 

 

Like fragile tape, 

the data truncated and bereft 

starting points or ends, 

the wheels just spin, 

no sticking to facts 

erased in fail-safe 

where androids go to die 

when love neither life supports 

or dies. 

 

Like sleeping patterns 

void of stimuli, 

all noiseless night 

or blinding light 

no eyes to guide us 

we drift between days 

conscious of nothing 

we take turns defining. 

 

Yet we can't be alone, 

malfunctioning toward 

final decay, but 

we can't be alone 

like the stars, planets 

oceans, and the 

dissolving fish 

for which no hook exists, 

at least not yet. 

Recalibration 

 

Disengaged to wonder 

past the indifferent portals  

of strangers, 

I still reach out 

to your vaunted charm 

in its invisible setting 

no longer there. 

 

Phantoms now 

lost in the glittering 

streets of chaos 

we once navigated 

with the confidence 

of having such arrogance 

we played by calculations 

that never failed before 

transfixed by the astonishing 

blur of a roulette 

wheel we bet on 

once misnamed love. 

 

Now disengaged 

from all we assumed 

yet unable to validate 

With religious fervor 

all former preconceptions 

we reach out looking up 

to that heaven we knew, 

no longer there. 

 

 The Safe Place

 

In utero 1st 

antiseptic scrubs 

videoed stirrings to preschool 

slow crawl walking past 

temporarily eclipsed friends, 

sports, desires each familiar  

foreign in solemn proximity 

to a safe place no longer. 

 

A cautious double 

take. Comes up empty. 

a kiss held, treasured, 

missed marriage if... 

the immune two-step 

backwards the counter 

forwards to children 

in solemn proximity to 

a safe place no longer. 

 

Work... drone drone drone, 

the hemlock of repetition 

of time's spaces between  

cracks, sickness, retirement. 

death gives its notice 

stronger yet, ‘til finally 

blessed with acceptance  

yes, this life, 

the same game lost 

a safe place no longer.

The Extended Temporary

Into the ridiculous

we fall seemingly safe

absent this safety net

we pretends is real.

Obscure as distant friends

avoiding us in passing

we turn out the lights

and pretend the familiar

is no longer a lie.

Our latest meal together

full of empty plates

and text's to others

the new clever fictions

no rescue in sight.

Additions and subtractions

we note on the abacus

video diaries without

endings or purpose. 

Every reason obscure

clever with evasions

getting at the truth

kissing with closed lips

crashing cars in new avenues

of thought with suspended

sentences we cant finish.

Each night, turning  out lights

in separate rooms pretending

the familiar is no longer a lie.

Rp Verlaine lives in New York City.
He has an MFA in creative writing from City College.
He taught in New York Public schools for many years.
His first volume of poetry- Damaged by Dames
& Drinking was published in 2017 and another – Femme Fatales
Movie Starlets & Rockers in 2018. A set of three e-books

titled Lies From The Autobiography vol 1-3 were published from

2018 to 2020. His newest book, Imagined Indecencies,

was published in February of 2022.