(Art - Anselm Keifer)
A
Poem by Jay Simpson
Line
Up
Line
Up
set
the stage for universal truth
enrapture
congregations
sing
holy words to dancing jackals
deliver
your promise
purge
humanity
destroy
the rivers and the streams
spray
your semen into the pool
your
religion and your holy sore
caress
your weapon
remove
the dissenters
crouch
on the Hill for the kill
destroy
the children with closed eyes
their
hope their right their history
Once
Lived
Set
the stage for universal spin
a
heavy price for rapture in the promised land
chants
and taunts the stadium rocks
a
court of jesters passing sentence
all
bets are off with crazed promises
a
country of believers come to deliver
dry
your eyes while rivers die
drink
of the praises the poisonous seed
one
mind for the numbing mob
Moses
in a suit with God on the Hill
visions
of ruin in a palace of death
red
rain to quench the sinners’ thirst
there’ll
be no escape from the burning cross.
A
Poem by Jay Simpson
Riddle
Walk
into wildness a broken dirge
caress
the curves of fallen trees
press
against raging storms
dig
deep into earth
feast
on reverie
colour
mystery in abstractions
riddle
the lines
fall
away
write
again
A
Poem by Randy Barnes
Shadow
Play
Tongue-tied
with squelched decibels
a
matter of locality or troubled inventions
collateral
damage revolving explanations
time
passes hallway to hallway
barriers
of recurring events
moans
of a lover heard from afar
every
poem a stolen liturgy
recovery
tempers the reflexes
between
tales it’s skips and groans
a
terminal sensation a final straw
payback
futures reassembled
subjects
of change romance the airwaves
alibi
profiles a past in exile
those
scents that excite a world away
an
outsider in the rain while you sleep.
A
Poem by Jay Simpson
Courting
Chaos
Break
free of encumbrance
pour
petrol on the fire
wander
the despairing forests
rue
junkies on the nod
find
chaos in their dreams
the
blind truth can’t exonerate you
can’t
restore your claim
the
glass breaks into a thousand shards
your
house of shame dies in dust
the
corner bar is bound to hell
the
rubber bullets turn to lead
A
Poem by Randy Barnes
Boomtown
Benders
Boomtown
benders’ impossible odds
tow
the line for entrapment central
death
in the fine print hung from a thread
fast
lane cruisers with fentanyl takedown
a
fireproof fedora and the well gone dry
a
world of slow suicide with bills unpaid
it’s
cockroach and rat and mummified reptile
scraping
bones from the burn zones
or
treading high water metaphors for extinction
we’ve
come back to the future what’s been told for years
it’s
difficult times in the Halls of Horror
with
no safe passage for the unforgiving children
orphans
in exile their uninhabited motherland.
(Art - Brice Marden)
A
Poem by Jay Simpson
High
Wire
The
sound is found on the high wire
the
reverb spreads its wings and flies
moving
toward the inexorable
truth
discovering heart
dancing
shoes quiet nights empty forests
oceans
sing seductively
calling
me calling you
we
long for the touch the smell
the
ecstasy of hope of want
we
touch the moment of shameless pleasure
moan
into the beat of life
A
Poem by Randy Barnes
Block
And Mortar
That
great yellow ball dreaming aloud
there’s
night with its walls and rooms
talk
of the coming storm the crossing of oceans
a
gallery of stone and enterprise
cartoon
worlds flashing fate at the margins
a
flesh upon flesh remembrance
an
old song a juke in a dim cathedral
steps
carefully placed yours and mine
a
pocket full of moon and stars
nothing
said everything felt
been
through the blow by blow
penitent
chains rusted beyond repair
silver
and gold block and mortar
new
mornings in every breath.
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