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
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.
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.
Alexandra Naughton is based in Richmond, California. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Be About It Press, established in 2010. She is the author of six poetry collections including You Could Never Objectify Me More Than I’ve Already Objectified Myself (Punk Hostage Press, 2015), I Will Always Be In Love (Paper Press, 2015), and I Wish You Never Emailed Me (Ghost City Press, 2016). Her first novel, American Mary, was published by Civil Coping Mechanisms in 2016. Her latest collection of short stories, Rapid Transit, was published in March 2018 by Nomadic Press.
after the parades die down
and three hundred million of us
are left with nothing to do
but pick up trash from the sidewalk:
take down the signs
as troops are dispersed
to go home
and look at themselves
in the mirror
and the presidents and senators
and colonels and capitalist
are secure in their counting houses
and it starts to rain
on flagstone on brown boot
on hair and bald head
on whatever flesh dare expose itself
even on a faded tattoo of a heart
and on rusted auto of course
dead junco live pigeon
even all over two people
who cross themselves
in a flamboyant Godspeak
then quote the desiccated Gospel of love
and rats tinkle bells
like old Rita’s cow
and ancient tongues speak
a diffused paranoia
and the young stir their names
in the muddy ground
with the last of the slicks
made of broken limbs
from trees once everywhere
now shipped in from elsewhere
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in the Homestead Review, Poetry East and Columbia Review with work upcoming in Harpur Palate, the Hawaii Review and North Dakota Quarterly.
When they tell you through
The television that
You are still not quite enough
I stew my own tender meats inside me
I watch as you preserve yours
To be devoured in private
Your eyes are kitchen windows
I am looking up at you
from inside the pot
When you ask
What’s getting to me
I become a soup kitchen
Ask you to taste it in front of me
Does it need more salt?
The anger makes a fine marinade
It often spoils the whole batch
Emotion will do that
Dilute the point
Onlookers eat me up
Leave me with only broth.
We could skate around
the issue like a figure 8
each falling down forever
the holes of a sideways shape
Where would we be
in this infinity dream?
backward into eternity
or forward toward unknown
We could cut our palms, make a pact
to help each other usher change
mix & match our blood
but the colors stay the same
We could do nothing
simply take a breath
swallow all the stones
we’ve placed within our throats
Truth is we tend to complicate things
in most cases make the bleeding worse
from a fight that isn’t there
to wanting the last word to get in first
What would we do if we
were what we claimed to be?
tumble into eternity
or headlong toward unknown
Falling forever
Into infinity
Sideways always shaping
Who we claimed to be
commercial energy / varying order and similar error constants / floor to collapse / derived from the equation / throughout the history of pine / totally nude erotic dancing is expressive conduct / an optimal balance of biological control attributes / ixnay on the hombre / she exhibited her etchings / many people who committed minor offences were executed by him / the project on middle east democracy / the war continues / interlopers from the future responsible for this / to support any government / to form a new coalition / radio stations and translators / purchase and drain / trials and friendlies / the french destroyer bambara /
The stranger walks into town,
one hush: then many more moments
or silence,
Butterfly! I saw a butterfly
and a dead butterfly is still
a butterfly.
Once you listen enough you
can almost hear the train
conductor driving through the
roots of the earth.
Some people say I waste my time…
Don’t we all sometimes..
south broadway press 