Tag: poem

teenaged shell – bare ly

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desertLook closely—
part of this poem was written
20-some miles from his home
at a bus-stop in Santa Barbara.

He doesn’t know how
to give voice
to his ambitions,
so he writes half-poems
on napkins
on State Street
and pretends that
stolen toilet paper rolls
are tiny scrolls
and he is a scribe
with nothing to write
but gold.

sbgs cowskull

Bare Ly is the tender gender-fuck your parents never warned you about. They make sad music (Double A Dollar) and host an experimental podcast series called A Soft Mess. 

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you’re really something – bruce mcrae

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railroad

I’m the unpronounceable something
that lives behind the garden wall.
Something that begins with the letter something.
The something from something for nothing.

I’m really something, or I’m something else –
we can debate the various uncertainties.
We can discuss our purpose, divine a plan.
‘A thing unspecified, a thing unknown’,
the dictionary patiently explains.
‘An amount being stated that isn’t exact’.
Like ‘I love you something terrible’.
Could you ever love me in return?

sbgs cowskull

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician currently residing on Salt Spring Island BC, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with well over a thousand poems published internationally in magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His books are ‘The So-Called Sonnets (Silenced Press), ‘An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy’ (Cawing Crow Press) and ‘Like As If” (Pskis Porch), Hearsay (The Poet’s Haven).

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marks for perseverance – patricia walsh

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barnyards

Exiled to a lonely corner, wanting more than letting on
something is wrong with the state of myself,
love as transaction, flowing freely of course
being silently watched, no effort at a smile.

Making the world go round, insolent situation
cutting hands and feet to ribbons in protest,
I don’t care about you anymore, if I ever did
rolling one’s own jelly babies not really my problem.

Serial butterflies galvanise the rotten core,
protected in instances of eventual delivery
home-grown opportunity not a mortal sin
just the run of the day, everything is special.

Principles aside, nothing at a loss.
Breaking through ranks, ass being grass
and me being the lawnmower, catch you out
mutual benefit never hurt anybody.

Instant messages, never mind the duress
the tawdry ambition ascending for the kill
bleeping phones on a constant adventures
transmitting turn-ons, a glorious guilt.

Streetscape for want of a better life,
the passer-by muscles by a hearty congratulations
knowing less than required, plugged-in cartoons
advertising psychosis hidden in a purpose.

sbgs cowskull

Patricia Walsh was born and raised in the parish of Mourneabbey, Co Cork, Ireland. To date, she has published one novel, titled The Quest for Lost Eire, in 2014, and has published one collection of poetry, titled Continuity Errors, with Lapwing Publications in 2010. She has since been published in a variety of print and online journals. These include: The Lake; Seventh Quarry Press; Marble Journal; New Binary Press; Stanzas; Crossways; Ygdrasil; Seventh Quarry; The Fractured Nuance; Revival Magazine; Ink Sweat and Tears; Drunk Monkeys; Hesterglock Press; Linnet’s Wing, Narrator International, The Galway Review; Poethead and The Evening Echo. 

victoria/artemis/insinuated – moira murphy

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00 crow

victoria

I inhale the pungent ambrosia
the brackenwater of
you deathly loins.
The pulse quickens against
bolts of funeral lace
and you will reach the ecstasy
of the trite.

artemis

I massage algae into stone,
Create histories on your chilly face
melt my muscles to shape your flanks
One moment fluid, the next:
sturdy as a ponderosa pine
I change, but you?
Half a million years ago
you yawned.

insinuated

Your words are dust
Swirling into desert storms.
Your words are sand
Itching underfoot.
Your words are weeds
Choking up my roots.
Yet I know that you need me.

Like a fire that ravages,
Clears the forest land.
I destroy all virgin soil
To let you seep in again.

sbgs cowskull

Moira Murphy is a vocalist, pianist, and songwriter who fronts Oryad, a band that marries metal and opera in a trance-inducing ritual.

the haunting // the ghost of esperanza

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00 ghostie

the haunting

BY THE GHOST OF ESPERANZA

How do I write that I love you?  How do I say that I love you in a way that doesn’t want to possess you?  When you laugh and your eyes squint it fills me up.  When you look into me, you make me feel seen and alive.  Like I want to feel everything.  Your touch, your gaze, your compassion to all my energy, makes me feel like warming up the world instead of burning it down.  The way you process the world astounds me.  You make me more loving to myself. You challenge me to be better than my bad habits. You challenge my negativity.  I have never felt more love than when I am around you. I feel free and trusted.  You nurture me in a way I have needed.  When you let me in and let me see you, I am recharged.  And I have asked you for deeper.  And I am also scared of deeper because like you I am clumsy until one of us has to be the gentle one with the steadier touch.  You make me secure even when I fear myself.  You’ve helped me see my magic as the reality it is.  And I don’t think that you see that you are magic.  You give me so much life.  I need security.  I desire security that we can’t always guarantee.  You teach me patience with me.

sbgs cowskull

spirit animal – steve shultz

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spirit animal

She’s fascinated
by birds
I’m captivated
by bones

always optimistic,
she calls me pessimist
but I’m a realist, I say

is it just coincidence?
that she’s drawn
to living things
while I’m humming along
to songs of death

attractive opposites
and all that
but we really are
a perfect pair

I cheer her up
when her eyes turn dark clouds
or I give her space
if that’s what she needs

she makes me laugh
when I refuse to smile
she anchors me
reels me in
when I drift away

Magpies from her youth
Sparrows in the yard
Northern Flicker peck-peck-pecking
Blue Jays hit her heart
but she sees Crows the most

and what do I see?
but dead squirrels
in the street
a bird with broken wing

I used to have a spirit animal
a Coyote
or a Wolf
I saw him under bridges
hidden in tall grass
but I haven’t seen him
in a dozen years
did this beast take flight?
or flower into bones

I see
the plain underbelly
she sees
the decorated wings

if I had to choose one now
I know it’d be an Owl
I’ve heard him at my window
I’ve seen him up on high

sbgs cowskull

Steve Shultz is a poet, mailman, and former journalist from Aurora, CO. His third poetry collection, Pancreatic Care Package, was published in September by West Vine Press. He blogs sporadically at https://fmghost.wordpress.com.

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remembering to dream – linda m. crate

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IMG_3663

standing on the edge of love, i looked in but was always forced out; a false god stood in the temple of my family keeping me away from all those who loved me—i could not break his lies nor could he swallow my truths, and so we stood he and i; two different shades of fire unable to communicate—he misunderstood me, claimed i misunderstood him; people have always whispered that he is good but they didn’t have to kill his ghosts—they didn’t know how my feet trembled in fear of breaking egg shells or how hard it was for me to reclaim all that was lost, didn’t know what it was to be versed in silence so they could know the hymns of peace when they really wanted to war against monsters; they do not know the definition of good—but maybe that’s the point, no one really knows what they are saying, no one really knows; everyone thinks but no one knows until they see the monster how monsterous a monster can be—but i know, and i’ve seen, his fangs; he cannot feign innocence to me—sometimes monsters take the shape of people we love, and sometimes that means we have to kill nightmares so we can remember how to dream.

sbgs cowskull

Linda M. Crate’s poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has five published chapbooks A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press – June 2013), Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon – January 2014), If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications, August 2016), My Wings Were Made to Fly (Flutter Press, September 2017), and splintered with terror (Scars Publications, January 2018), and one micro-chapbook Heaven Instead (Origami Poems Project, May 2018). She is also the author of the novel Phoenix Tears (Czykmate Books, June 2018). TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK

Photo: Steve Shultz

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