Vincent A. Cellucci

a masterpiece of nothing

botch this unfinished rhinoplasty planet
when risks submit to disappointments 
disguised in drag and the monotony
merely the exotic butt-dialed
to death I dare you time
fingerpick the instant we meet 
conversant in a stockyard of complaints 
carefully laundered and set out with the chance 
for showers we cello today property 
count the names that we refuse 
to let run away 
when even observation becomes violent
and omniscience a loss
a masterpiece of nothing 
this creation amounts to destruction
and the mowing down of civilians 
to prove our wisdom only official 
opinions without room for renovation
criteria’s not a source of jubilation 
a paradise of crimes and counterfeiting missions
encouraging the execution of sporadic planning
that folds our calendar into origami 
automatic weapon expiration dates 
getting scalded alive
the original quotidian orphanage
one must assure the fetal conflict
to carry out this deference to counting 
the commission for this tragedy stuck on repeat
forced to dig a hole to place ourselves in and get squat over as ritual
abrupt recession of the years weeks days hours seconds
a round of applause for the impossible 
second encore for our illusions

Louis Bardales

I've Waited For English And Cried For Spanish

Never arriving at any direction, I had no other choice
for I'd try to hear a voice and I'd lose a voice and mine
So instead I asked a vine for guidance
and it gave me a theater
though, not entirely,
only the air of a stage 
exiting my hieroglyph
 with enough violence 
to offend an empty hall

Extending this immediacy of plague
a mistranslation punches the eye of my storm's heart
and triggers a screeching asylum
by jumping off an imminent bridge
and landing upward
at the top of a fury
where the freight's darkness
is nourished by extinction
and hello,
I'm the mind pouring weaknesses
into the void that begs
to be unaligned

A cry reads it's own adonis
and weddings occur 
in the forest's doldrums

In cold dais
our sentences govern a space in the cigarette
The flowering bulbs of harsh sighs
warn of daisies pushing deaths
from underquilt hideouts
to foregrounds of tongues lost

Believe in a century's fall
then rise, tarantula
at the end of the doldrum's day