Mark Young

from 100 Titles From Tom Beckett


#76: The Sedimentation of Sentimentality

Armageddon arrives; & the
messages glide off every Hall-

mark greeting card, merging
as they meet. Then, collectively,

this mess of mangled messages
slides toward the nearest water,

silts up the rivers. Continues to
move, further downstream, has

learnt from lava. Blocks the deltas.
Water no longer / reaches the sea.

#10: Poem Beginning with a Line from Charlie McCarthy

When I get smitten, I stay smut. It blasts
the wheat in the ear, makes everyone I
come in contact with seem less wooden
than I am. Perhaps that's why it took me
several days to get used to our very limited
accommodation. Forget spending a few
minutes in a relaxed state — I had to buy
my own tung oil since none was provided.

Then water started dripping from the apart-
ment above. That meant the light wouldn't
work. Now the dark place I was in be-
came darker. I felt a hand, an arm, reach
up my back. My mouth fell open. I couldn't
speak; but still a voice spoke out. "i've got
a good mind inside me to…" it started out.
"Then why don't you use it," I interjected.

Michael H. Brownstein.

THEN  

if radiant energy
if the prism with well-lit blossoms
if a tambourine sparks the scent of orange-blue

walk with me through the forest of log cabins
near the path of the river of gold
into the cave where diamonds echo vibrations of taste

this could be a maybe
this could be a possibility
this could be the silent laughter

in the end what if
if could be anything else
but the if it allows itself to be

Vernon Frazer

No Room at the In


fretting pineal 
the flume hotel transit 
disposed 
its torpor militia

breaking a somnolent rumor 
from its disport habitat
a worn boomerang vocalist
caught the horned legions

reversing the bearskin
to ghost their venom pageants 
declines frontage 
under the madwoman habitat

the next dreamer
temples a sentient breath
precision simmer
elicits a resuscitator tonic

replication
lowered its climb ladder
its stain fin
sentenced to bromide

Cameron Morse

The Vision

In the vision of myself as electricity
encased in a black rubber
sheath, there are wires in the walls
of my body. Lightning bolts
drop from my fingertips
and the jerky squirrels
in my yard are seized by lightning,
the epileptic squirrels.
How this energy is in hell is this
fireball harnessed how it
could be held if needed.
Power lines lasso my horizon.
Transformers on the march across Kansas
drag their heavy lines and for once
I am lacey light. My lines are sails that lift
in the tender morning air.
My webs invisible in this light.

Mike Sikkema

Diana Magallon

Butterflies

To add
more fractions. 
Do you know 
why you are doing this? 
Tricks like the butterflies should be avoided. There are several reasons

2/5 + 1/5 
is simply 3/5  
this is your new denominator
 that becomes your new numerator.
Tricks like the butterflies should be avoided. There are several reasons

I like my trick and it works,  
tricks like butterflies should be avoided. 
Have you seen similar behavior? 

Tricks like the butterflies should be avoided. There are several reasons



Russian translation by Gleb Kolomiets

Бабочки

Сложить 
больше дробей.
Ты знаешь,
зачем делаешь это?
Следует избегать трюков мойр. На это есть несколько причин.

2/5 + 1/5
просто 3/5
это твой новый знаменатель,
таким стал твой новый числитель.
Следует избегать трюков мойр. На это есть несколько причин.

Мне нравится мой трюк, он работает.
Следует избегать трюков мойр.
Тебе уже встречалось такое поведение?
Следует избегать трюков мойр. На это есть несколько причин.

J. D. Nelson

the cherry coke brain waves

alone with the nothing of the old world
I’m stuffing my skull with new brains

in the glove of forgiveness
the new world is a clean hand

the machine of the head
the eye of the rainbow

the bible of the broken clock
the berry named for an apple

milk mulch is some serious ammo
I have the power to be the soft ape

what does the skull say?
o nocturnal earth!