Category: poem
poem #3 – ghost #3
In the morning I forget the feeling of your hands.
I forget the movement of our bodies together and instead dance from empty room to empty room.
Here I wander, wishing for shutters to bang, for rattling chains.
In my house we are all ghosts.
photo: @nate_dumlao
down the cellar stairs – william doreski
Corkscrewing down the cellar stairs,
I dare the worn planks to creak
or otherwise betray me. Pie-slice
wedge-steps work a right angle.
The handrail’s a linear sketch,
a crippled M-shape warped
along the concrete foundation,
then bent across a partition
painted gray half a century past.
Framed in dark, the lit stairway
flowers like something sinister,
something overripe and seeding
in the ruined old greenhouse in France
I visited decades ago.
Monet would have liked that greenhouse
with its slats and lattices of sun
trilling through the broken glass.
No natural light to ease this cellar,
no lambent blossoms run wild—
only muscled shadows thick enough
to trouble me as I descend
to face a house-wide expanse
of dusty floor and clumsy objects
of competing dimensions conspiring
in shades too subtle to parse.
William Doreski has published three critical studies and several collections of poetry. His work has appeared in various journals. He has taught writing and literature at Emerson, Goddard, Boston University, and Keene State College. His new poetry collection is A Black River, A Dark Fall.
i got drunk and pissed on the side of buffalo exchange – ghost #62
Hi. I am not dead as of yet
I don’t think.
I feel as if I still have bus passes to validate.
Cold streets to walk down in Denver
they say that walking around Wash Park is as hazardous to your health
as a pack of cigarettes
I haven’t researched it really
but it’s believable
as in it’s probably true
as in the park is trying to kill me
as in I really gotta take a minute to vote
and I should really take some time to doll myself up a bit.
Do you think that
when you die
there’s a stat sheet?
How many hours of my life did I spend on social media?
Masturbating?
Who was the king or queen actor of your porn history?
Let’s take a look at your Google searches.
Could you please pay your Englewood Library late fees before you go?
I got drunk once and pissed on the side of Buffalo Exchange.
To be honest it was exhilarating.
It felt like a statement but I’m not sure it was as simple as me defaming
Buffalo Exchange or claiming it as my own
though the double-edged sword there is certainly very interesting.
Halloween feels like getting drunk on Satan to get through Christmas.
Thanksgiving feels like impatience to get to Christmas so we eat.
All of these holidays feel like clever ways to fight seasonal depression.
All of the seasonal depression maybe is a necessary decompression.
A body in motion stays in motion
so when in constant motion
there is a necessity for a body
to somehow adapt and find ways
to recharge.
I’m falling in love with someone every week.
I’m letting go of someone every week.
I want hot cocoa but not the calories.
I think I just want someone to read my poems once I am dead.
where are ghosts – ghost #13
ghost #13 is an anomaly, a glitch in a movie that screams “wake up,” before we both almost drive the car off the side of the cliff.
ravenous – veronica love
Lips suck me in closer, as hungry hands met with hungry thoughts grab for a morsel when they crave a feast. Tempered by reality of the looming dawn and day and life and all that comes with being bogged down with that which cloys desire. A moment more.. Or two… Push back the need for separation, hold off on leaving the cornucopia for bread and water. Sirens sing of desire, though we see the rocks below, they still call, and gingerly we veer closer, pulled away last minute by reason when there is a longing to ride with reckless abandon the waves, and say damn we may…we may want to sleep beneath them, it may be worth the crash.. but last minute we steer away… And embrace the cliche of living to eat another day. One more kiss… Remind me of that I already miss..
ghosts//gardens//graveyards – k.j. kindling
You burned it all to the ground.
In a flaming baptism of self-righteous
forgiveness
you let the past go.
Like you could burn off the cowardice
if you sat in the heat long enough.
Like you could sear yourself
into being someone better
if I was gone.
If I never happen.
If our memories
were just a smoke show.
You probably thought the ash would
fertilize the next garden.
Our garden became a graveyard
and years collapsed like kindling.
But there’s an ashy taste
left in your mouth
no spring flood can wash away.
No one else can feel
the soot in your teeth.
But you do.
How nice to think
you could incinerate a ghost.
We both know
you
were
the
death
of who I was.
It’s not something
you can smolder.
You promise your next girlfriend one day
you’ll get all the tattoos that have to
do with me
removed
and you don’t tell her each time you
smell a flower
you inhale puffs of smoke.
KJ Kindling is a naturalist, a feminist, a rescue dog enthusiast, a seventh generation Coloradoan, and a naturalist. She’s currently working on three novels, two of which are verse novels, and one book of poems. You can find more of her work at www.kjkindling.com or on her Instagram or Pinterest (@kj.kindling).
the insomnia – d.s. maolalai
the snore
came suddenly
like dynamite
popping in a cave.
he woke to the sound,
shocked out of sleep,
and lay there
listening to his heartbeat
and wondering
if the roof had fallen
and were the children
alright in their beds.
the next one
came
from the pillow next to him
and minutes later.
it seemed
each night
that behind her face
was a lamp-post,
hit
with occasional
cars.
DS Maolalai is a poet from Ireland who has been writing and publishing poetry for almost 10 years. His first collection, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden, was published in 2016 by the Encircle Press. He has been nominated for Best of the Web and twice for the Pushcart Prize.
poem #2 – ghost #3
I gave my tongue to you
Loud and silent
Curled between your teeth
It was too much or not enough
My tongue does not tell the stories of your past
Only what is possible
It is just a muscle
Like my heart
Made to expand and contract
south broadway press 