Five Poems by Valentine Penrose, trans. from French by Mia X. Pérez
If it is a stone of sorrow, there I am seated / There, where ribbons fall sideways on the plain / White veils. This is nothing. / Where the wild-eyed goddess plunges the child of another into fire. / The tree refuses to orient itself. The emerald / Keeps its fist clenched... Read More
Six Poems from Flow state by Ryan Skrabalak
Write a music. Write a music more of with more no world, with things arranged. Things rearranged in no. World with no question (past, as night) in the mode of your fog. So that the fog was suited for your music and you made it with. Not owned. That’s your sense of this world... Read More
Four Prose Poems by Benjamin Paloff
I can only wonder at the decisions the ever-elsewhere hummingbird is weighing mid-air, but its suspension in all-at-onceness makes perfect sense in this “rarely” so rare as to mingle with never-forever. Taking the corner wide to skirt the black ice, there’s no need to keep looking... Read More
Four Prose Poems by Ken Taylor
if he talks his voice will not be the thing said, but the way of not saying it. what it aims to spurn. short on collar points. disciple of celestial steering. he keeps his mouth shut. the image will have to carry. not to be seen as holdup to action. he’s lost in thought in... Read More
Five Poems from The Cheapest France In Town by Seo Jung Hak, trans. from Korean by Megan Sungyoon
The heart was about to explode when the pipe was raised, still bleeding. The length of happiness was inversely proportional to fear, that bold solidity. Disgusting laughter echoed around. I, too, almost cried... Read More
Three Poems by Cheryl Pallant
I veer toward lucid incomprehensibility and squint. I know nothing and / linger by chance in the pause. The nervous system assesses risk, to fly / or freeze, or measure the length of breath. Earth’s axis, I’m told, is off, / the poles unfixed, opinions digging a deep divide... Read More
Second Beginning by Isabel Sobral Campos
I neglected my period blood / somewhere secretly I drink it / under a rock to trick time. Tis / a pleading smell. Scent / of moon-stages, coals. / (Pause). I don’t see well. / (Pause). Will you tell me / if I misspelled / something vital / like my body / something / like…a... Read More
THE WIND’S MONOLOGUE by Natalie Stamatopoulos
I am an archive / of song. / I have infinite ears / & abdomens. / Am toothless / like a dry rag. / Like a petal. / Am weightless / without mooring. Pregnant with wishes. An essence / of pollen. Brisk / nudge at the ankles. Citizen-full as a trashcan. I am looped &... Read More
Five Poems by Douglas Piccinnini
No, I know you’re the persona above. No, I know you’re only this dusted self. No, I know you’re this manufactured smile... You must be between futures, the roof so heavy with unlit sky. You must think it’s sweet to offer helpful suggestions. You must have fed the anger that pulled you so far into... Read More
Two Poems by AM Ringwalt
silk: a sheen to wear like water. glistens, then, in palest / light. i wrap it ‘round my legs in dreams. i name myself / a partisan, provisional, python, pythagoras? before you /
died, grandfather, you were speaking nonsense into being. / it’s what you thought you knew you saw... Read More