by Peter Schireson

I’m coming to the cemetery tonight
and I’m going to lie on top of your grave, baby
pull a blanket up over us,
me on the grass, you in the grave,
and whisper to you as birdsong —
            Red–eyed Vireo,
            Wilson’s snipe,
            Hu hu hu
            as it used to —
as I used to,
and I’ll whisper how I miss
coconut pie for breakfast, how I miss
how none but you knows all the stupid shit I’ve done.
I miss that too.

by Charlene Langfur

What do we do now? Global warming is rising.
It’s not surprising. I walk out into the world
in spite of it. Each day I pass the sycamore trees
surviving on too little water in a drying land. We all
wait for the rain as if there is a chance it will come
and come soon. I watch how the white tailed rabbits run
for the green grass in the near dark. All the annuals have changed
how they move now and most of us water in the dark
if at all. The effort, to keep away loss any way we can.
The need for change is right in front of us now but some changes
come bigger than others. This is one of them.
Unstoppable stuff everywhere. All of it coming at once.
Which way do we go to save what is left? Use less.
Plant a garden. Live more simply. I make a list of a 100
ways and start at the beginning. A walk. Organic
green tea in a tall glass. It glows in the sun light next
to the wild roses in a glass cup.

by Rochelle Owens

In an early version
a deaf mute
a hermaphrodite
captured after the siege
a hermaphrodite
emptied of allegory
seated on the stump of a tree
wearing body paint
his soaring paper thin
shoulderblades
the dome of her skull
his earlobes
the angle of her nose
his fat ankles
her perfect toes
his legs collapsing under her
multiple hues of flat color
triangles of purple
circles   squares   stripes
Teasing femme / homme
hypermasculine   hyperfeminine
murderous sex cells
her long pale eyelashes
And gazes upwards smiling
An altruistic mother’s deathless love
Deathless love saved the babe
an impure creation
carnal /spiritual
pale and red his lips
she could feel and taste colors
his mouth watering
Meek sweetness the face the face
of the hermaphrodite
her platinum blonde curls
bringing millions to their knees

In a later version
out of a lost narrative
a deaf mute
seated on the stump of a tree
covered with tattoos
an asymmetrical form
vertical / horizontal
an impure creation
she could feel and taste colors
A hermaphrodite
out of the center page
the edge sharp   dangerous
hidden before the siege
Spasmodic the spirals of color
astrological symbols
a kaleidoscope slowly turning
purple   orange   blue
shards of green glass forming
letters   abstract designs
His mouth watering
taste buds pulsating   a flow
of hormonal forces
hypermasculine   hyperfeminine
murderous sex cells
signs and wonders   veins   muscles
sweat glands   ligaments
intertwining   darkening ruby–red
burning silver
the marrow filling the cavities
neurological linkings
streaks of burning gold   thick   thin
strokes alternating
slashes of color seeping
He sucks evening to morning
milk of the mother misery
milk of the father terror
She sucks morning to evening
milk of the mother misery
milk of the father terror

tasting the color drippings
nipples spurting nectar
An altruistic mother’s deathless love
Deathless love saved the babe
an impure creation
carnal / spiritual
the shape of blood poured
into a cracked cup
pale and red her lips
her arms floating above
red and pale his fingers pulling
the spirals of her hair
blood of the hermaphrodite
Meek sweetness the face the face
of the hermaphrodite
his platinum blond curls
bringing millions to their knees

by Mark Terrill

Sunday morning coming up out of the subway in Berlin
the last shreds of lucidity torn away from the streets
not far from the Alexanderplatz —
consciousness being redefined by the parameters of
a toxic hangover in which Russian vodka, Afghani hashish,
fractured memories of a bad Johnny Cash cover band
and a lousy poetry reading are all playing major roles —
the transcendencies now locked in a cruelly designed
holding pattern, constantly consternating —
beginning to understand the hapless ratios
for the very first time this time around —
someone wants to peddle you something and
someone else wants to take it away from you,
like that lovely old whore over there
with the garish make–up and that Helen of Troy haircut —
they say she was around when Picasso painted Guernica.