THE DUCHESS OF DELIGHTS
Zan de Parry
︎ OCT 21, 2021
I remember her telling me that the animals in the river
Wouldn't eat me because they didn't eat people
With tail lights
I remember her saying that she'd like to pick my lock
With her teeth
And rip the door off its hinges
She made me a pig mask but I threw it in the fire
I remember when she threw her crawfish at my face
And said that I wouldn't know what it was
And would never know
The Silent World
Lawrence Bridges
︎ OCT 13, 2021
It was strange at first,
to classify my old journals
as so much mind noise.
This allowed me to sweep away
old life kindly and live today
inside the same loud machine —
my mind — and see thought
as long sheets of random music
with an occasional poem of melody.
Not much of a story, this,
if you’re looking for relief
from your own noisy head
but a poem is a device
that teaches you how to write
no poem with no thought other than
the next one, which is your poem.
Lawrence Bridges' poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, and The Tampa Review. He has published three volumes of poetry: Horses on Drums, Flip Days, and Brownwood with Red Hen Press.
Also by Lawrence: Description of Poetry
Freddie
Will Russo
︎ OCT 12, 2021
Sweet skinny boy
really put on
a show. Out of
Zanzibar, theatrics
took him steady
west—never could stop
his fleeing. Fluent,
flaunting hairless
shoulders, skintight
denim and torso, he
coaxed the tenor
of a virile genre—huge
jaw and extra teeth
open to a sky of
octaves. Frame a thin
sail. Boy could really
move those hips. Freddie—
all moustache and
fortune—you never sang
of men. How many
queens denied your
throat, your flung
voice? Whatever you
were, you weren’t
just a fag, a shaking
vibrato, a ricochet
harmonizing solely
with itself—and now I know
and now I know
and now I know
and now I know that you can hear me
Will Russo is a Chicago-based poet whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Watershed Review, Salamander, Berkeley Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Russo received a 2019 Pushcart Prize nomination and serves as Poetry Editor for Great Lakes Review.
Out
Talina Meinheit
︎ OCT 5, 2021
out
carefully swept his cells
from floorboards
ridding traces
of
time together
knocked dustpan
again and again and again and again
on the edge of the bin
certain
all of him made it
in
Talina Meinheit grew up on a farm in Lyon County, Iowa. She currently lives and writes in Minneapolis.
With Life
Uche Nduka
︎ SEPT 30, 2021
So twisted
but resting is not
always the key
chocolate bunnies, predawn
grapes that all
would gravitate towards
on a parachute
over arboreal temples
bamboo fragrance
your tresses
your lips
deep ink in the sky
of who I cook for
have you fallen
in love
with life yet
the rhinestone becomes
a mission
having a wonderful time
with the starter button
Uche Nduka—poet and essayist—is the author of twelve volumes of poems, including LIVING IN PUBLIC (2018) and FACING YOU (2020). His writing has been translated into German, Italian, Finnish, Arabic, Romanian, and Dutch. He presently teaches at CUNY and lives in New York City.
Also by Uche: A Pacific Patience, To Clocks
Read (and touch and hold) his work in Issue 1. Pre-order it here.