Poetry Summer 2013 fiction all issues
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Sharron Singleton
Five Poems
Sarah Giragosian
Five Poems
Jenna Kilic
Five Poems
Kristina McDonald
Five Poems
Toni Hanner
Five Poems
Annie Mascorro
Five Poems
Brittney Corrigan
Three Poems
S. E. Hudgens
Four Poems
Ali Doerscher
Four Poems
David Sloan
Three Poems
Olivia Cole
Five Poems
Lucy M. Logsdon
Four Poems
Marc Pietrzykowski
Four Poems
Donna Levine Gershon
Five Poems
Eva Heisler
The Olden Days
Stephanie Rose Adams
Five Poems
Jill Kelly
Five Encounters
Ben Bever
Five Poems
Michael Hugh Lythgoe
Five Poems
Arlene Zide
Three Poems
Harry Bauld
Five Poems
Lisa Zerkle
Four Poems
Peter Mishler
Five Poems
Tim Hawkins
Five Poems
Marqus Bobesich
Four Poems
Abigail Templeton-Greene
Five Poems
Eric Duenez
Five Poems
Anne Graue
Five Poems
Susan Laughter Meyers
Five Poems
Peter Kahn
Two Poems
D. Ellis Phelps
Five Poems
Linda Sonia Miller
The Kingdom
Nicklaus Wenzel
Skagit River
Holly Cian
Five Poems
Susan Morse
Five Poems
Daniel Lassell
Five Poems
Svetlana Lavochkina
Temperate Zones
Daniel Sinderson
Three Poems
Catherine Garland
Five Poems
Michael Fleming
Five Poems
the billow and the blast
that violent subway to your house—
its tin mermaids wailing and
singing us to the next stop
jostling our mouths, our hooves,
the milk of our collective brains.
we are a people tunneling hard,
(getting out of our own way, even)
with no time for all this
sentimental rock.
and what of the afterburn of paper and
hot trash, still floating in our tracks,
saluting us in jest
as we scream for more light,
for some ice hole of hope in
this subterranean mess.
Ask me things
irretrievable, dynamite brain
an evening never goes the way you want it”
suppose we cheat the season
with our nervous
airline fuel.
cheat death, cheat altitude
through the heavy beast of a
window seat.
yell at the engines
(one, now two)
that we’re strangers
still curious about the world.
but life had better be what they say;
we’re seven times the target age
fighting the glare of the sun
fighting what photos can
do to us.
it’s memories that fly this thing
not keeping us grounded
towels too hot (to face)
exfoliate
this skin, this bird
making good come from bad,
cups of tea from your bath water.
“if you want to sympathize, empathize, or
be near anyone’s thighs
let’s drop this nothingness
we’ve got going on, and aim for grace.”
Flora and fauna
Salesman says we’ll lose the
war on bugs
that they outnumber us 5 million to one
with plenty more hatching as we speak—
in our heating ducts, our pillows,
the walls of our warm intestines.
underneath us all the time, like the
rats they ride like horses
waiting to roll our skulls across their
million backs, like buckets in a
fire brigade, like quarry slabs rolled out to
make the pyramids.
We’ve got to call up our guts,
confront those turtles and snails on
their own terms,
crunch them on their own crooked door stoops.
We have logic on our side
and those dumbstruck spiders who will never
learn to warn the others:
that a smooth-gloss bathtub is the
death of them, a purgatory,
a record needle gushing over the same
goddamn groove.
upkeep
who do we thank for a 24-hour anything?
for a drugstore always standing guard,
its treasure box of lotions, potions,
and creams.
we feel cleaner even walking in,
comforted in our upkeep of the body,
its clues and answers stacked and
neatly labeled.
we’ve got a good feeling about this one;
that we’re adding miles to our one and only life
that somewhere on these shelves we might
experience a greater joy,
a stronger one
(and faster)
what we would trade for an easier go,
for cravings gone mute,
for steps on a jeweled dance floor,
a lightness to this need that never sleeps.
Marqus Bobesich
received his BFA from York University, majoring in visual arts. His poems have appeared in Northwind Magazine, Word Riot, and Contemporary Verse 2. He is also the author of three independent chapbooks: “The Night of a Thousand Snowsuits,” “Dirty Pretty Halloween,” and “The Humans Are Singing.” He works in Toronto as an actor and musician. www.myspace.com/poormarqus