When something
in the dark
begins to shift:
I move into it.
I gut the fish.
I split my own wood.
min words | max heart
Work with audio narration or other accompaniment
Robin Walter
When something
in the dark
begins to shift:
I move into it.
I gut the fish.
I split my own wood.
Amy Holman
He measured the pattern to be cut bias
cherry-coloured snippets
that will serve one single button hole.
He talked to himself little twittering tunes his greatest triumph
but there was no one there
He was vexed like a cat that expects
cream on the dresser
No more twist!
Throstles and robins sang
His badness hunted and searched house to house
and secret trap-doors without any keys
merry voices an echo
ravelling that wonderful coat
Never were seen such flowered lappets
And he talked to himself: do not lose that last penny!
We shall make our fortune shut out the light
David Bankson
but keep the fingers from severance, from severity of assumption, from a neighborhood of sheer glass in gravel, peeling out pickups like boars roaring and squealing, the crash of running out of antipsychotic healing, pirates reading poetry for the ultimate in democratic experience, an intermezzo existence, a stone’s-throw through a solid state, culture as a surface of water trickling through cracks, one hand in the hound’s mouth
Jane Huffman
I knew straight away,
like a rabbit darting across traffic
knows the extent of its quickness.
I had wanted to emerge without
emerging. A private debut,
no needling.
What happened, of course,
was threefold, like a Chekhovian
drama. First, I gave in
as some might give birth. Then,
I made the decision. Last, I stayed,
which had the staying power
of an image, a hook-handed man.
A rifle in the umbrella stand.
Philip Arnold
of the barn-tethered
goat
his joy-besotted molars
cudding
brambles in blossoming
light
the rickety-hinged holler
opens
the
cauliflower
are rife with
it
Daniel Y. Harris & Jonathan Mulcahy-King
hissing vessel desperate to be poured, poor little veins,
lava streams engulfing inland valleys, brown blood
flecks, a peaking shrine to blackmail hex on kin, old
straws, busted copper rods to suck, sacrosanct instead
of laundered preempt, sickos willed by the smack of a
papal legate, loyal gene, radical selfcombing, snarled
hair, narrates the rotary gestures, theremin with
vacuum tubes, heterodynes, Fête des Belles Eaux for
six ondes, to crave badly is to take hard the blood-tusk
Sonja Johanson
mott-gathered, hard
as hunger
rock-shelled, soaked soft
cracked
open with a maul
three days
in a basket, steeped
by the whiskey river
destitute lobes,
handful
in the pot, mouthful
in the cup
one on the sill
against the storm
Sonja Johanson
the milk, and the bone –
sickness and break fever
women in their crinoline
cages
round-toothed, scalloped
feet planted so close
together
birthing herb,
snakeroot, richweed, sanicle
ruptured shade the febrile wood
white island
in a sea of heat
terete-wrap your breeze around
my aching legs
and tongue
klipschutz
take the prose of a poem the teeth of a grin
lost weekend of a savior heyday of a has-been
golf shoes of a president a jew’s christmas cheer
a punchline in german the court eunuch’s leer
warren beatty’s crow’s feet johnny depp’s address book
the mouth of a mime the vow of a crook
take a scrivener’s eyes a blackmailer’s file
straightedge of a schoolmarm a judge’s denial
the twitch of a surgeon a divorcée’s glow
repose of a greyhound a yes man’s hell no
the staple from a centerfold bouquet of a bride
stand in line for a seat bite down hard, open wide
take an open house tour through a boychild’s wet dream
hey diddle diddle don’t make a scene
take the prose of a poem and a guilt-wracked scapegoat
hey nonny nonny death row clears its throat
Guitar by Chuck Prophet
Brad Rose
Brainwashed the dishes. Now, I’m looking for money in large amounts and small denominations. Jesus says I’m a very legible person, but Raven says I don’t have enough string to fly a kite. OK, so maybe I am still working out the kinks. This week they called off the weekend, so I’ll just work right on through, at least until those Japanese Martians land. I’ll wear water skis if I have to. I’ve heard hollow chocolate Easter bunnies really can work up an appetite. After all, you are what you eat. Of course, you can’t trust everything they teach you in hairdressing school. To make up the deficit, I practiced my danceable moves in broad daylight. Before I knew what was happening, the cops asked me to leave. That nearly killed me. I love this country like the back of my hand. Can’t count the number of times I’ve tried to set it on fire.