Poems
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An Old Farmer Remembers His Dog
By Judith BeveridgeThe ewes are rattled; they bleat as if the wind gusting around their ears
were the hard panted breath of mustering kelpies. Last summer,
Cheroot, my best dog was struck by a king brown on Wydah Hill.
I thought he must have lapped from a fetid ditch, for a while -
ganma-li
By Rudi BremerYour memory of my love is longer than mine
It reaches back to days when I could lose you
Simply by closing my eyes
Or letting go of your hand in a crowd -
from Omnia Sunt Communia
By Snack Syndicate, Astrid Lorange, Andrew BrooksTo push onto and into, as a screw bears down on its thread.
Marcus sings, in the morning I surround you.
-
the courtyard
By Missy Higginsit’s in the body
a deep history remembering itself
starting out small
a tiny ball of rolling planets under my ribs -
Dragon Fruit
By Xiaole ZhanWe didn’t see the dragon fruit lights
arriving late as we did, thinking of
Popo and Gong Gong’s graves
which we would visit the next day. If only -
Mother of Pearl
By Tais Rose WaeThe shell, the deity, the mother. Mother of pearl, of
justice, of freedom. Dancing herself into the silk of the
seaweed with a torso full of apologies, of oysters. How
do you speak the unnamed origin or remember the -
Snow
By Grace Yeein this charming quarter, someone always loses a shoe (a sneaker, a
croc, a gladiator sandal)
on the last day of summer you waited for me by the green -
what happened to me happens to everyone who needs me present
By Claire Gaskinit is a wooden dinghy in a storm my heart in how it affects how I am in relationship and a state library of echoing chambers in a red lit room for business and river birds yes your freedom means my imprisonment in disregard everything you couldn’t process participating in and witnessing keeps happening after the bombs stop droppi… -
Palmistry
By Tyson YunkaportaAmazing green aura the medium said
Rising out from me and above us all round
Radiant she held my hand and ancestors help me
I liked it -
Makinti, Me
By Nardi SimpsonI went to see you, eager to sit amongst your hair string tassels swaying pink and soft, orange waving at me from bones waiting to spread into hips.
I hoped you’d remember, I readied for the warmth glowing from your ochre powered glow, igniting knowledge in danced steps, flicking up the dust.
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Edge Of The Ceramic-Rimmed-Potted Earth
By Natalia Figueroa Barrosoyour hardcover copy of Love in the Time of Cholera
rests on my nightstand like your bones
rest in peace wrapped in the soil of our homeland
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An Heirloom of Love
By Adrian Mouhajer, Princess Arinola Adegbiteafter bell hooks
Here on my table, we share the memory of our countries,
centuries of recipes stitched into the strands of my hair, -
Perimeter of Rectangles
By Laura PanopoulosSize one
Enervated by background noise,
recollecting my words,
they are far from push-button. -
I Fell
By Heather MitchellI cannot say I knew him
nor did he know me
yet somehow in the silence
between the siren and the stillness -
I’m bored… but you like it, don’t you?
By Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips, Sawako NakayasuWhat if a film never reaches the screen because viewers walk away?
– Susan Howe
I don’t want to feel like a tourist. -
for Hansie
By Helen Franzmann, Vacant Dragon à la Subverted LipsI’ve often wondered about the
soft rumble that occurs when you laugh
washing you now I understand -
high want stay cool / cold to the touch til you've touched it
By Chloe Alison Escottall circuitry
which is to say:
artificial
cold, false -
Poem For a Stranger in a Time of War
By Tishani Doshi, Vacant Dragon à la Subverted LipsWe left the city and found at the gates
a prescription with your name on it.
We took the metro to the beach
and on the shore, we saw -
Things to do (Heart)
By Jordie Albistona. Find heart, and place hand upon it. b. Time
to metronome beat. c. Empty above of all
things earthly. d. Fill with compassion. e. Sleep. f.
Remove heart while comatose, and g. wrap -
How Water Works
By Tony Birchcup a hand
skin and bone
this water well
a beating heart
