When armed with an arsenal
Of ideas bigger than bombs
And words that are piercing as arrows
Quivering
With swelling anticipation
Like the tide, it crests
When faced with a blank white page
You wait for the explosion
The crash of the ocean wave
It destroys the castles you have built
But you call it
Creation.
the moon slurs, smiles
leering compliance, consenting
out of the corner
of her face.
at midnight,
I am less, after just one more test.
regretted by the bashful
sun, at midday, his light lets learning in
from a drunk,
swallowing sex — drinking down below
all morals, creating cause, causing effect,
from all unwritten words, learned, taught, spoken, now unlearned,
in the lush lavished unloved love of leaving after love.
sinking in sleeping, in thoughtlessness, in godlessness, in this.
Chasing confusing conversations through a perplexing patron performing a grand
symphony, dancing around the idea that we all precipitate ideals, intertwined in
the vastness of human decency, which struggles below the weight of each word,
willingly wasteful, during listless listing,
slip and sip to
life’s many intricacies as my illustrations
interpret illusions on behalf of our subconscious, detailing the horizon, as chasing
the light in the day that you can never capture, before birthing the benevolent
breaking of beliefs, with thoughts of thirst to lust, to love, to long for all that can
not be between you and me.
anyone who makes a coaster
Lonely
is a friend of you and
I
yet in between your draining
Drink
your stirring speech is
Slow
and then you perch
In a performing presence
presenting your questions of hell
you try to confirm your reservations
With a sad proclamation.
We all go out like we all come in we all go out alone.
Craig McCarthy’swork has appeared in The Normal Review and other national periodicals.
Sitting in a dark room
breeds thoughts of the soul
not to be indulged
the bliss of life lies
in the simple
the penetrating sunlight
pierces through the abyss
illuminating all the shadows
dank dark crevices
new life springs from death
to be reborn anew like
a butterfly its cocoon
The raspberry bush
expanding full of life
seemed to offer
endless tart bounty
they were best picked
right from the vine
no need to rinse
or put in a fancy bowl
the red juices stained
your finger tips
a mark of remembrance
for their gifts
the gentle wind rustled
the leaves whispering to
the berries almost
begging for you to remember
Issue 113, Jan 2025
Burrdowning Media, LLC
54 pages, perfect bound
