MISSOURI


︎︎︎ Tiresias Tobin-Priest

︎ June 9, 2026

MAKE IT lean;
hard, dry, cold;
athletic, geometric;
clear-eyed, chiseled;
concrete as the horizon.










Tiresias Tobin-Priest is a writer from Virginia who will never go to law school.

Also by Tiresias: THEBES






Cadenza for my debased WASP Bushwick bartender


︎︎︎ Vladislav Davidzon

︎ June 7, 2026

For K.
   
    My libertine lover
      came on the Mayflower
    clutching
    a volume of Lord Rochester
right, against her muscled thigh

  Cadenza for my debased WASP
    Bushwick bartender
  my bunched and purloined plot
against America   
“her hand, her foot, her very look's a cunt”
  encrusting my lyric filth
    against her adulation  

    that
  old time
    ost jude
  off the boat
fantasia

cadenza for my debased WASP
Bushwick bartender
smeared over
her pearlescent breasts
  and comic grace
  “you’re no coward…
    but a militant comedian”
  she swooned me

I implored her to accept
an offer
of regal restitution
for the litigious sins
of her vulgar Yid landlord
  dinner
  drinks
      schlong

  that
    old time
  ost jude
  off the boat
fantasia

“I am reading Farewell to arms”
she tells me
“so we will fuck
at least once more”

I write her this at war
frayed baroque carpeting
of the Odessa hotel bunker
    quaking trembling
  shuddering

that
old time
ost jude
off the boat
fantasia

swaying chandelier
  quivering with carnal violation
    the Russian Kamikaze drones
less fierce
than her caresses



Vladislav Davidzon is a Ukrainian-American artist, writer, and war correspondent. He is the author of Jews and Ukrainians: The Birth of a Political Nation.






In Response, A Sonnet


︎︎︎ C. Sandbatch

︎ June 6, 2026

Watch hunters draw the elephant to die,
in love with some false woman they have made,
a mask of grace, a mistress-shaped facade,
bright, fatal, dressed beneath a painted eye.

If human wit runs subtler, then, than I
can name in any beast that God has made,
who blames me if I fall upon this blade
and die for you, not forced, but willingly?

Some will condemn me; let them. They have known
no sight of you, no angel in the face,
no sovereign form that alters blood and breath;

nor felt how beauty makes its empire shown,
nor passed beneath her wide imperial grace,
nor loved, nor stood so near a living death.



















C. Sandbatch is an American writer. Buy his new book.

Also by Sandbatch: The Marques Dreams of Her






Propaganda


︎︎︎ Christopher Hammond

︎ June 5, 2026

You flaunt your taste
like a puppet or
a halftime show.

I try my best
not to poke fun;

I find the urge to be mean,
crass; not very pleasant—

Because you are men,
I do not inform you
of your condition

or of your proximity
to your own demise.

What was it you said?

Oh right… Yes—it was love.

I tell you cocaine’s not all that fun,
but I am lying.

Yes, yes. Love.



Christopher Hammond is a writer from Virginia. He sometimes goes by Chris.

Also by Chris: Saints Hotel






Message


︎︎︎ Dustin Cole

︎ June 4, 2026

Cursor is from the Latin
meaning runner

From the Middle English
meaning running messenger

A horse catches up to
the messenger to stop the message

The mounted messenger
signifies negation

The horse is a real horse
The messengers are real messengers

The cursor on your screen
is a real runner really running

but brought back
by the mounted messenger

to empty silence
with open eyes

The eyes of the messengers
are real eyes

Where they stand
is wide open



Dustin Cole’s latest poetry collection, After Sunstonewas published by Farthest Heaven.