by Bryce Milligan

I’ve seen mezzo sopranos shatter glass
and wondered how this high A–flat that sings
— an octave above my guitar’s last fret —
constantly in my ears can fail to crack
the fragile bones that wrap my inner ear
so seared by sopranos who shatter glass
with a note that weeps just beyond the reach
of fingers, wire and wood but still can’t touch
that octave above my guitar’s last fret —
that tone that fills with a fierce white fire
the longed–for silence I seek in sleep.
Some demon soprano shatters glass
inside the hollow round of my skull,
scattering thoughts like Ezekiel’s bones.
An octave above my guitar’s last fret
there hangs a note so high, so pure that no
Orpheus can sing and only death stills,
razor–edged shards that slaughter hope and sleep
an octave above my guitar’s last fret.

by Bryce Milligan

I took the finger of the goddess,
broke it from her statue
in the shadows cast by years
so dim now they cannot be told
from those before, from those after.

Before we learned to bake the clay
I took the finger of the goddess —
not the one wrapped in red carnelian
nor the one set with sea blue lapis
(I am no mere thief ).

As though it were her gift to me,
it lay fragile yet fresh in my palm.
I took the finger of the goddess,
crushed it to the finest white powder
and dissolved it in good barley beer.

I cannot remember the dissolution
of my own flesh in the desert —
It has been ages and ages since all that.
I took the finger of the goddess
and have grown thin, a voice chanting

her names on the wind, singing her fame
as the stars spun in their long blur.
All but the stones and I have forgotten
her grace moving by the river where
I took the finger of the goddess.

by Bryce Milligan

          The Truth must dazzle gradually
          Or every man be blind.
                    — Emily Dickinson

Deep in this bleak midwinter
our hope has gone astray;
now horsemen come

and serpents stir where
saints have sown their
gardens of endurance.

Time was we bled for mountain dreams
and marched beyond the bridge of fate;
now discontent is seething.

Would that we lived where truth
could truly blind — but now beneath
the snow their moles have tunneled

to topple the ancient orchard.
Now horsemen ride among the ruins
to carry off the spoils

while behind their great blind army
burns root and stem alike,
churns truth into ash and mud.

What can we do, poor as we are,
to turn this tide of greed and lies
but resist, rebuild, reseed.

by Michael Estabrook

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams
he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
          Franz Kafka

1
In the mirror I’m amazed at how
I am metamorphosing into my Grandfather
getting shorter, stockier, stubble–faced, hair
shorter and grayer, old clothes and shoes, scowl
across my face but I haven’t taken to wearing a hat, yet.

2
While Kerry lay on his deathbed
Katie and Emily came in with their guitars
and mandolins and their long dark hair and tight jeans
and played Angel from Montgomery
keeping him alive for two more days.

3
Even though you’re older you cannot comprehend
how you got that way, it happened so damned fast.
And you can’t accept it either. Still hoping to get
that motorcycle one day ride it out to the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame wind blowing through the hair you no longer have.