Poetry of the Non-Prose Kind

Pastoral

Allan Peterson

Someone made a craft of balloons and lawnmowers

a chaise lounge a cup for martinis and rose above landscape

drifted and came down pleasantly streamside

where kingbirds were associating easily with peewees

and tyrants the way a dalmatian can move among holsteins

with a sense of belonging

Execution

Eric G. Wilson

Blinded and bound, I stiffen
for triggers.
Inside my eye you spread.
The horses you water by the shore.
Bullets splash my heart,
blue hooves, the waves

The Brightening Air

Eric G. Wilson

Chartreuse gown
iconic as Harlow
between songs you smoke
your bedroom flickers
my sonnet on dahlias
the hyaline dawn

As Soon As Possible in the Past

Jeff Griffin

Stuffed animals left a knife smell
we stick on the asphalt. I suggested no

such half-toothed smile. Warm
drink, arrogant beauty—

possibilities of night, deserted
hallways. It was—

 it was not her.

A blonde started throat dancing.
I dance, I did, I dance, I do a little.

Light, chewing sound of copper pennies
being run through the mouth. I found

myself licking the motel window.
Air thick with burning feathers.

Tape the door closed, tomorrow
will take all day.

Ontology

A. Molotkov

A bullet-size hole
in my chest; my best

attempts at love escape. A story
of wrong doors opened

in a wrong order. A multiple

choice test. A towel I left
on the beach

the morning
my mother ran out of air.

Turn Around

Peter Munro

Let me repent my god and die.
Without a woman I am not.
I offered everything. It bought
me nothing. In the church of thigh

and idyll, she strips. But her sighs
betray the worship I have sought.
Let me repent my gods and die.
Without a woman I am not

nothing yet my praise seems a lie,
empty as wind in a chime, caught
briefly in sound like a blood clot
snags on what a spirit denies.
Let me repent, O Lord, and die.

Sans

Jennifer Wortman

HaShem mans a mean sea.
A name’s a seam.
A seaman’s ash: amen, shema.
Mama smashes manna.

American Émigré

John Sibley Williams

The fence that wrapped our field
has collapsed from bolting horses &
the steady weight of winter. Barbs
no longer snag our jeans or bloody
our hands when we flee the burning
that is home. Small signal fires light
the hills red. Another country some-
where out there promises a peace it
cannot possibly keep. Repeat after
me: the cities we’ll build on the ruin
of other cities will shimmer & shine
before they fall.

July the 4th

John Sibley Williams

We’re lying down in a buzzcut field
watching gut-shot night sparkle &
shower us all in a hot fizzled glow.
Hiding inside ourselves as children
unsure how a country works. Rifts
excised for an hour. The distraction
of awe. Watching miniature flags
flap fiercely on thin plastic sticks.
Even the statues are forgetting their
lost battles. Moss is forgetting how
to hold the stone walls in place. So
much blue up there, our daughter
says. & reds, but together.

At Dusk

Kristen Havens

Walking at dusk, wild
flowers fry on the gray-green
back of a world half

asleep. The sun sets
fire on car fenders while in
kitchens cutlery

clinks. A show bell rings.
Dogs call out in their yards: Hey
pal, you hear that? Hey

hey, hey. Shaking voice
boxes at the fading day.
Hey hey, hey. Hey hey.

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