Eminence

April 2021 | poetry

The land in Nevada seems barren

like evil witch skin until you get

a better view. Start with a

close-up of crater valley, five shades

of brown, the ochre lip of serious

plummage, cracked ridge,

circular but not perfectly so, its irregular

features staring up at feathery wisps

of malnourished clouds.

Something as forceful as god rearranged

what once was, what once lay dormant,

dehydrated rivers, quivering

with geologic memories, nothingness pre-

served, dead sea, land succession bolted,

flat-lined except for mountain

ridges, curved, curling up toward bleak sky.

Ancient birds, vectors of pestilence, rise

from pink ash beds, illuminating

the very place I stand. I reach out, I reach

up, grasping at history’s breath, pulling it

in on top of me, seeking resurrection

of soul, spirit, body; acknowledging

the eminent passing of all that I am

into the hot mouth of time.

John Dorroh

Whether John Dorroh taught any secondary science is still being discussed. He did manage, however, to show up at 6:45 every morning with at least three lesson plans and a thermos of robust Colombian. His poetry has appeared in about 80-85 journals, including Dime Show Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Os Pressan, Feral, Selcouth Station, and Red Dirt Forum/Press. He also writes short fiction and the occasional rant.

All That We Are

April 2021 | poetry

charlotte said

there are times when i feel like i’m observing

myself from a constellated distance in the same

way one would look at a starry sky or a pastoral

scene or a bloody gory picture show

and when i see myself

in this way

i am wearing a full length black dress

and my head is shaven in a haphazard

and misbegotten manner

and the background is so white

that it becomes a sort of nothingness

not quite an ethereal nothingness

but a quivering nothingness composed

of floating particles of debris that could be

flecks of white ash from raging wildfires

and so i wrap my quavering white

hands around my shuddering body

like a cowering child in a torrent of criticism

and all i can see are a set of white hands

wrapped around a flowing black dress

in front of a spectral white nothingness

and my chalk white face is emotionless

and my eyes are painted black coals

devoid of compassion or empathy

and i am struggling to keep my mouth closed

because i know if i open my mouth

i will release a stream of swarming plague locusts

and these locusts will be filled with lechery and greed

the sort of lechery and greed that devours defenseless

acts of kindness and helpless acts of tenderness

James Butcher

James Butcher’s work has appeared in Rivet, Prick of the Spindle, Midwest Review, and Cream City Review.