poetry
We were magazines
STEPHEN MEAD
I did not realize-----
the vicarious existence,
the pages as songs to find, or photos,
whole scrapbooks all in a face, our gazes,
the living cinema, our touch, experience
in a dream, knowledge as in empathy
or voyeurism, as breath kept turning the copy,
superimposing the me for you who was the scenery
of some news occurring in another land.
dim
KEN KAKAREKA
today,
a right-wing
political influencer
was shot
in the neck
and killed.
i am neither
glad
nor mad
but sad
at america’s
responses.
some
are outraged,
while others
rejoice.
most argue
and threaten
one another
online.
when it’s
an attack
on us
by foreigners
we unite.
when it’s
an attack
on us
by our own
we lash out
and make
things worse.
we are
toddlers
in this land
we call
the beacon
for everyone
else.
follow
our lead!
but how
can they
when we
lead
w/ a torch
whose light
is dim?
follow
our lead!
but how
can they
when we
lead
w/ a torch
that burns
in sin?
Artisans
E.J. LEROY
All those failed dregs of the arts gathered here
The musicians and writers and dreamers
Nursed all their sorrows on local craft beers
Like sad lovers and liars and schemers
But every one of those souls was sincere
Seeking fortune and fame and believers
Each one thought himself the next Hemingway
The drinking part they mastered anyway
Sleeping bag
MICHAEL GALE
I don’t know who previously owned my sleeping bag.
I don’t know who ashed their cigarette onto it and burned little holes - where the plastic or vinyl or whatever it’s made of started to bubble and harden, scratching at my skin while I lay awake staring into the darkness while my eyes adjust and try to make out the ceiling.
I don’t know who chose it - a bright orange and green sleeping bag - faded from what smells like about 40 years of sun and weather damage.
I don’t know where it came from. I don’t know why the zipper doesn’t work. I don’t know if it had many owners or just one who loved it until it stopped working.
I know it keeps me warm. I know it smells like moth balls. I wonder if someone died in it. I know it makes my other blankets slip off my bed In the middle of the night.
I know it’s pilling. I know it's itchy.
I don't know where it came from, or where it will go next.
Maybe it's recycled textile, maybe it's frayed by time into numerous chunked up pieces choking sea turtles. Maybe it's a national flag, an oil rag or lining the walls of a coffin. Or softening a nest for bird eggs, or left to rot and mould and breakdown for the next couple of thousand years - if that's even possible - or exist in this same exact state for eternity.
Previous, current and future owners, awake, annoyed and stuck.
