One Poem by Adam Fieled

 

Live Forever

 

We had it then— not just the embedded depth

of soul love, but glamour right on the ground,

as the formation formed by which Mary and I spent

all of our nights together. Our route— West

Philly to Logan Square and back— took two

disparate locales, made them whole, out of

a sense that they were meant to be wed, just

as we were; Logan Square with its sleek, modish

urbanity, West Philly with its rusticity, climbing

ivy, plus the obvious inversion of a well-worn

media cliché against it. By New Years Eve, 2003,

there was so much gaiety in the air, we’d pierced

a hole in the obdurate, obtrusive surface of human

life, to find ourselves in a tropical paradise—

 

I relate to it, now, as a clear demonstration that

Heaven on Earth happens. In Abby, we had a soul

sister; in the large co-op twin on Baltimore Ave.,

a safe haven; my flat in Logan Square created

a different, representatively recent kind of stage;

all were playgrounds where the dope, pills, every

thing else was shared by all, as all of our bodies

were for each other and no one else. The profound

ecstasy of that New Years was that a bunch of

artistic misfits found ways and means of being

completely at home in the world, against constraints

that needn’t have been there, with a serene sense

of what it might mean to live forever. We were

right, then and there, to be who we were, & we knew it—

 

Adam Fieled is a writer based in Philadelphia. His books include Opera Bufa, Apparition Poems, Equations, and the manuscript-in-progress Something Solid. A magna cum laude Penn grad, he edits P.F.S. Post.

Nine Senryu Poems by Patrick Sweeney

 

Nine Senryu Poems

Scattered beads of mercury on my grandfather's cellar floor;

the weight of Nessun Dorma on the floorboards above

flashing membrane of the raptor's eye

and children joining hands in the dark

hailstones through the wings of butterflies,

and the windshields of excommunicated saints

microphones hung over Beijing.

and two Neogene box turtles in Pete's bomb shelter

when they tell you stars don't fall,

remember the heartthrob, Troy Donahue

cupping his birthmark,

my father's infinite sea

the dust of ciphers on the habits of Catholic nuns

and the long division of body and soul

stepping back from the gassed lemons,

and the open-faced fans in the windows of screaming cats

the Zero-G of three beers in, 

and the numerology of sparrows on the sagging wire

Patrick Sweeney is a short-form poet and devotee of the public library.

Three Poems by Gregg Norman

 

NO MIND

 

Seek the serenity

Where serendipity survives

Where all is stillness

And creativity lives

No mind

 

Read Li Po and Du Fu

To find the effortless

State where concepts

Do not cling

No mind

 

Find a mind emptied

Of the muffled roar

Or life’s brickworks

And white noise

No mind

ASPENS

All felled, felled, all are felled;

Of a fresh and following folded rank

            Not spared, not one

(“Binsey Poplars” – Gerald Manley Hopkins)

 

Stand in a stand of Aspen trees,

Deciduous hardwoods,

White, black, and green,

Around you everywhere seen

From birth to death.

 

See how they sucker,

Shallow-rooted, spreading,

To occupy every clearing,

Dense, invasive, colonizing,

Standing together as one.

 

Resilient, adaptable,

Coming back quickly

From harvest or fire,

Recreating their tribe.

 

Look on their many skins –

Green in youth, then white,

Then black, furrowing

And wrinkling with age.

 

Look at their leaves,

Smallish, near-round, identical,

Wilting yellow in fall,

Falling from brittle limbs.

 

Think on their shallow life force,

Roots so close to the surface

Of their crowded world,

Extensive, but temporary.

 

The stand is cloned, each tree

A genetic replicate of its mates

They grow up together

To weaken and die together.

 

It is not known if they grieve,

Only that they are forced to leave

By mandated life span

That belies their potential

And brings their lives full circle.

BEASTS

 

We require our demons

to be beyond imagining,

mythical beasts born

of fears and fevers.

It has always been so.

We cloud our skies

with fierce dragons

and winged horses,

our darkest woods

with banshees and babayagas.

Leonids, griffins, manticores

lurk in our shadows.

Selkies and sirens beckon us

to the bottom of the sea.

Archetypes of antiquity;

kraken and roc,

medusa and minotaur,

cyclops and chimera.

 

Our children do not

know of such things.

We seed their dreams

with Bigfoot and Yeti,

Godzilla and Kong. 

 

We cannot deny our need

for fearful fantasies.

These beasts resolve

our mysteries,

act as culprits

in our oldest coldest cases.

Gregg Norman is a Canadian poet living and writing in a lakeside cottage with his wife and a small dog who runs the place. His work has been placed with many international poetry journals and literary magazines. He has been nominated for Best of the Net and The Pushcart Prize.

 

 

Three Poems by Marie C. Lecrivain

 

Always One Step Ahead

I wish my days weren’t filled with dread.

Grief’s always one step behind.

All my friends and loved ones are dead.

My anxiety is tendered and fed

with nightmares of the worst kind.

I wish my days weren’t filled with dread.

At night, sorrow comes into my bed

with promises both cruel and blind.

All my friends and loved ones are dead.

At dawn, I wake with an empty head,

hope’s gone, and memories data mined.

I wish my days weren’t filled with dread.

I don’t want to be the last one led

back to the wheel, karma reassigned.

All my friends and loved ones are dead.

The day when no more tears are shed

I’ll gladly undo the ties that bind.

I wish my days weren’t filled with dread.

All my friends and loved ones are dead.

Ares Vallis

I used to think Hades would be like this;

the absence of blue, green, white, 

water, trees, rams, and clean winds

fragrant with the aromas of fish

and mermaids.

In the landscape where the cosmos 

pulverized nature into submission,

I’ve become a philosopher of sorts -

it was either this - or madness. 

I’ve had time - deep time - 

to become one with 

the bombast of silence 

that surrounds me.

I’ve listened long enough 

to hear my own voice

answer back.

Ares Vallis (II)

I keep coming back here.

Perhaps the silent stones

are the only true friends

I’ve ever known.

This is where I rage - and weep, 

where I search for answers 

to my unasked questions, 

and where I fall into

a chthonic slumber

in the dusty deep.

This is where I come

to find forgiveness,

for my immortal sins,

so long forgotten,

by everyone but me.

Marie C Lecrivain is a poet, co-publisher of Sybaritic Press, and an ordained priestess in the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, the ecclesiastical arm of Ordo Templi Orientis. Her work has appeared in California Quarterly, Gargoyle, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Nonbinary Review, Orbis, Pirene's Fountain, and other journals. She's authored several books of poetry and fiction, including Ashes to Stardust: A David Bowie Tribute Anthology (c 2023 Sybaritic Press).