Blacksnow
by Alberto Zayden
He stumbles reaching for
The white trunk of a leafless birch
And falls face first into a snowdrift
Powder hovers over him like millions of albino flies
Fighting for a morsel of anything organic
That is still softer than ice
Fragments of lucidity suggest an urgency
But nothing pierces through the gray matter
Or the sinister camouflage of that colorless blanket
Baptism from a gust of wind wipes his path pristine
Even the sound of panicked pleas gets repossessed
By hidden mics from the bizarro world
Lip readers can feel the dread
But stay empathic to the silence
Bleached bones of dead messengers
Crunch through the frozen grass
Beneath the feet of would-be rescuers
Making its point icicle clear
The Black Snow stays mercilessly white
Dark thoughts gnaw at the fat of concern
The righteous need for resignation
The funereal want of entitled relief
The sickness took him long ago
Why not call off the search?
Meet the New Boss
by Alberto Zayden
Cubanacan
Cubanacon
Cubanacan’t
Would choose instead
to pull the wool over her eyes
Or any other pair that dares to show
the battered face of compromise
Cubana won’t!
Would choose instead
to wave the flag
from separate beds
More bitter than a new divorce
More jaded than an old one
As CIA
explains away
a book of foiled
assassinations
And gulf stream sharks
chew sinewy fat
torn from the limbs
of desperation
Cubana feels the USA getting its way
and hers as well
for cases of emergency — or greed
Dancing through despots new and old
She dreads the reinvented questions
The bottom line in a reflection
Mirrored 90 miles away
With lead pencils and a black eraser
Accountants tallying the past
Cleff the notes that ring in silent
The Cha-Ching that drives the Cha Cha Cha
Assemblage
by Jeri Theriault
Assemblage
“Untitled” Circa 1975–1976
Louise Nevelson
She breaks surface
and sentiment, lets black
hold all hues hushed
and close
black blocks
and circles
box beam barn board.
black splinters
street gleanings
and detritus
she shapes clues
in laddered slats
and binds text:
the letter r rigged
over guts or gears
rumbling /
revving
the low down L
with O in its lap — half
a tight verb snugging
the table leg I
near back-to-back
arcs and vertical
dashes — I look.
I love. I lose.
She writes
this spell
safe house
squared
from her own night
Titania’s Tool
by Jeffrey Cyphers Wright
Take me to your navel.
“Aye aye, Capitan.”
And you will feel better
in the morning and also
in a few minutes.
After your silk comes off.
After my compass spins.
Ready for the Canon
to come on.
And by the way, your clown
costume becomes you.
“Aye aye, capstan.” Let me
hoist you from the depths.
A winch I’ll be for my wench.