Jenn McCreary

The abyss has its own rewards
for Steve Farmer

I.
For each four-leaf clover
a six-legged frog

For each lickable fury
a feral angel

For each flaming marshmallow
a runaway shopping cart

For each scribbled treasure map
a secret test

For each naked promise
a silkworm intervention

Cellos & snakes at the heart
of every cool mistake

 

 

 

II.
Use this as a compass

Use this for the ritual

Use this for keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or
loss, & chant: pain, begone, I will have no more of thee

Use this bastard wing folded behind your back, your finely tuned
clavicle, your hair as lasso or noose

Use this splitting image, these words (fallen from my mouth), this
door (formerly a window)

Use all our girlhood superstition about scoliosis, hexes, poxes &
penitence

 

 

 

III.
To believe but only sometimes

To unearth a more useful abyss

To seek prophetic messages in the warm glow of yesterday’s shock

To navigate the inevitable underworld with pure conviction

To translate fear into possibility

To change the taste of sleep

 

 

 

IV.
Use quiet awe

Use your tongue, the strongest muscle
in your body

Use coffee, candy, secret stale cigarettes hidden
in the back of the medicine cabinet

Use the weight of your gaze, the curve of your
spine, the return of your voice

Use all of this as protection from hegemony
& cultural appropriation

Use glitter & guile to disguise your despair

 

 

 

V.
For each deathless beauty
a noble failure

For each lesser enchantment
a graceful détente

For each responsive machine
a choreographed catastrophe

For each psychosexual apocalypse
a disruption contingency

For each tedious evil
a sudden deliverance

Delight & delirium in the rubber room
of every season in hell

Thomas Snarsky

proemial relation #1

here are the upcoming
flowers, burgeoning
forth like the capital
letters that autocorrect
keeps putting at the
beginning of these lines

 

 

 

 

Obliquity

As method. As broken
Bread. As thin line. As
Diatribe. As moment.
Scenario. Nightmare-
Free zone. Sordid wish-
Bone. Mild head throne.
Our bilateral love owns
Too many raincoats.

Joel Chace

stupid ducks

 

even they matter  —

string theory is older now  —

her eyes light the room

 

 

 

 

infinite drop kick  —

so unapologetic  —

just one shop open

 

 

 

 

ceremony riff  —

degree of abandonment  —

miraculous road

 

 

 

 

until our murders  —

eight nickels in his sock drawer–

a calling off off

 

 

 

 

 

unseated, for fun  —

drove to the document dump  —

ninety desks in rows

 

 

 

 

 

mourning was let in  —

first off, she ruined each bow  —

busy with their aunts

 

 

 

 

concentrated arms  —

stupid ducks would not frighten  —

odd way to count them

 

Mark Lamoureux

LACHRYMARY OF THE SORROWS

Went with the jobbers
in mayonnaise, rugged
& welding circuits
for skort cutters. Mercury
Cougar mission
to the H.A.M. radio
meetup. Bellerophon
so what; a bauble
in the maw
of a pewter dragon,
putz is not even a madrigal
smoke bomb assistant.
Missal command of
a hard green fake granny
smith, tiny flakes
of rotten texts suspended
in orange Jell-O cichlid
heirloom. A medicine bag
for punks. Forgotten
space capsule filled
with mulch, terracotta
lachrymary for
hens & chickens, succulent,
easy on the eyes. Rococo
raccoon shaman
in the Shakespeare
garden. That’s for forgetting.
Last time I will buy
a ticket for that guy, snakes
don’t grow on trees.

John Lowther

from 555

The phobic rests before the veil and wonders what’s behind it so as to
continue to ignore what he knows not to have seen, which is
nothing.
The bottom line is that the human species has to realize the human body
is really just a cheap suitcase.
It’s like you’re reaching a critical mass.
The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of
civilization.

If you can’t spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you are
the sucker.

The dispossessed of history are not guided by method but by madness.