Paisley Wallpaper

You are a memory.

Like a wildflower

in the pages

of an old book,

like a monarch

hanging in a shadowbox

above the fireplace,

like a Polaroid

in an album

under the bed,

like paisley wallpaper

yellowed with smoke,

like sand between our toes

where a mountain once stood,

like an old star

in the summer nights sky.

by  Doc Marek

Daniel Ruefman

The Nameless

All summer I wander the cemetery

between the fenced-in family plots

and the ornate stone mausoleums.

Occasionally I find my way to the nameless

resting in the north corner;

orphans, tucked away

a century before

in that one place where

the sod struggled to take root.

 

There the markers are

little more than sand;

birthdates once carved

reduced to shadow,

as if those dates

were as inconsequential

as the bones tangled

in the roots below.

 

I wonder if their caretakers ever came

without planting another,

or if they sneer at them, even now,

through the white fences of the

manicured family plots across the path,

convinced that, as in life,

they were destined to make better dirt.

 

Along the perimeter,

an overgrown pyracantha

swallowing the black

of the wrought iron fence,

so that only the speared tips stretched

from the thorned belly,

every sprig  in late bloom;

fragility falling, fair petals

loosed from the branches

to which they cleaved,

spreading casually

where the headstones met the earth

as though there were some covenant

set to celebrate the value of their flesh,

so fleeting, so forgotten,

but so much more to me than

those who busied themselves

buying implied comfort

that will never delay the inevitable.

 

 

In Dubitum Veritas

 

What if he comes asking?

 

Every now and again I pause to consider—

what? Possibility? Odds are he might come

 

with tempest blessings, bearing

questions of creation, divine inception, asking how

he came to be in that womb, at that time, and he will know that

 

we share more than consequence; what then will I do?

Answer the bleakest of his ponderings, unfiltered, uncensored,

the untruth utterances that are not fit for the moment, or

 

condemn him to know that all men make faults

and my faults made him.

 

When the time comes,

we will choose whether or not to walk the curves

of the Mobeus strip together, to rehash inches lost and gained

 

with each rotation, to sift through the honest sands

of hindsight; perhaps then I’ll know

whether or not to share the tale of how our lives

 

were one day woven, torn, and mended;

but which truths will I tell?

 

From the symphony of sorrow and joy colliding, it is clear

that all truths are just the sound of the innocence dying.

 

 

(re)collection

 

It comes in flashes,

blurred as the world on the other side

of stained glass;

 

back deck in disrepair,

untreated, crippled and rotted;

across the threshold

mound upon mound upon mound,

dog kennel buried beneath,

Rubbermaid barrel

brimful with nasty;

compost stewed in pots,

sink full with dishes, water,

and week-old potato peels—

black something steaming with fruit flies;

hallway carpeted in clothes

wet towels mildewed

on disintegrating tile;

half the living room

occupied with cabinets,

ten-year-old renovations

not yet begun;

a shag carpet path,

stained and matted with fur,

weaving through the gauntlet of the unidentifiable,

puerile trappings

frozen in the periphery

decimated by hackneyed chaos;

 

and beneath it all,

the petals of the lotus

crushed to potpourri—

a reminder of good

long lost.

 

by  Daniel Ruefman

Joshua Robert Long

783:

invention

becomes

the mother of

the incandescent

 

in here

beneath

the hum

and rigging

all

wires

and false

senses of

places to go

 

invention

becomes

tired of itself

tired of reinvention

tired of movement

and political traction

 

invention

all folding

back in

on itself

 

reminding us

of history

 

those calm

pages

we were read

as children.

 

784:

in the center

of the rug

eyes slightly

slanted

a half-sleep

a half-ringing

telephone

by the stairs

 

shes cold

in a thousand

hairs

while her

eyes

walk a thousand

miles

 

yesterday she

thought more

of herself

in the lighting

of the patio.

 

there is calm

amidst

the ruckus

amidst

the backbone

of her mouth

and she’ll know

more for certain

as the

ground stops

swelling.

 

785:

what

can we be but

children

when all we want

can be handed over

 

cash still writes

the checks

that pave

our feet

over the snow.

 

786:

the expression

written

on the wall

is that

the sweat

continues

its path

remains

on course

until

all the right

words

are soiled

into

the minds

of the children next

to the countertop.

 

787:

are we justified

in our

methods

actions

all leaving

the dinner plates

to a feeling

of the often-misread

 

no we’re still

in here

as cold

as birth

as tired

as youth

 

notion

the breath

as it reflects

off the walls

of January.

 

 

Joshua Robert Long is an American-born poet who’s work has appeared in OTCC Magazine, AURCO Journal, Fresh Fish, and The Hogcreek Review. He has an upcoming series of poems to be featured by Spork Press and is the author of 3 books: Translating The Avenues (Walleyed Press), Mixtape (Walleyed Press), and Leaving Frost Upon the Walls, which was self-released. More information can be found on joshuarobertlong.com

A Tired Performer in Another Half‐Assed Season

A change could be a bloom

as well as a withering.

 

Her half‐world suspended between

two superstructures: a mystique of waxed floors

and shattered mirrors, spiderwebbed with cracks.

 

On the rim of her sky

were only hints of sunrise,

like goldfish swimming in ink.

 

No one was disturbed

by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones,

the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils,

the movements of her braid.

 

She bleached out herself, gradually

the way of old photographs, in a slow bath of acid:

first moles and pimples, then her shadings and face,

until nothing remained but general outlines;

a wax doll to stick pins into.

 

by Andrea Starr Pelose

 

The above poem is a cento poem that experiments with lines from novels, manipulating them, and thus creating a new work of poetry. A list of the works used can be provided upon request.

Spooked Horse

I am riding the spooked horse

through a world of shadows –

 

In my visions,

there is nothing but ghosts

of all things.

 

There is another world

behind the one we live in.

Everything I see here,

is a shadow

from that world.

 

When I am riding,

things I see before me

disappear.

There is no more grass

or trees, skies or rocks.

 

When I am standing still,

I am traveling

on a horse made of bellows.

 

Attention Deficit

My mind does not sway like

awkward young lovers slow dancing

at their high school prom.

My mind does not run up and down

a beach like water carried by the tide.

And my mind most certainly does not

billow like a branch in the breeze.

 

My mind is erratic and sporadic,

It’s fantastic and its spontaneous.

It jumps from room to room,

wall to wall like electricity

it is

electric.

 

My attention deficit is not a disorder,

it is a way of life.

A way of life that not all can understand

but for the few that do they can’t live any other way.

 

Side to side, up and down but never

billowing back and forth between

hobbies, interests, goals and direction at the speed of light

hyperfocus

hyperfocus

hyperfocus.

 

Everything else ceases to exist until a new

fascination catches your eye.

Some take medicine to slow the brain,

but I think this defeats it’s purpose.

 

Attention deficit is not a disorder no,

it is a way of life that allows for

 

creative explosion.