Thirteen Myna Birds

17.

A Lantern, A Trophy

summer nights
on long lawns in Northern Iowa:
inviting fireflies
into our jars--
the golden lids of which were perforated
so that when one got
six or seven or so,
the fireflies could live
and make a lantern
for us to hold up, a trophy.

in the air, in the hot violet night air,
the fireflies had seemed to darn it in lazy arabesques
above us and around.
now they did electrons,
protons and neutrons
in our jars.

~John Andrew Fredrick~

*

16.

i may be a woman holding a bare branch

or a branch with a raven perched on it
or a woman with eyes which stare through your intentions
or a raven with an eye which views
6 enemies 12 labyrinths and 16 feasts
or a woman with an 8-petal-halo
clutching 48 diamonds

there are only two or only one or zero
once she has calculated your mass
and your magnesium begins leaching
incandescent from your bones then you begin to drop
your petals and your diamonds and your eyes
and finally your will

once you cannot see
there are either no women and no birds
or infinite women and birds
surrounding you like an immediate fractal séance
crashing into your soul like a memory
of all your past lives

this woman may be you
this raven may be you
in another blue-clouded mirror
a strange pair of eyes burning out your phosphorus
a black wing sweeping you
asunder

~Scott Ferry~

*

15.

i didn’t ask to be woven into the stars

but yet here i am—
my dendrites warp and weft
through carcass and exoskeleton
through larvae and serpent
through mandible and fly-wing
through fiber-voice and airlessness
through my dead wires and rotting tongue

but did i consent to this?
to be striated in nucleic acids?
to be a brocade of light inside a dying thing?
and how soon i unravel and return
to the soft blanket of millipede and blood?
my eyes now threadless—
my cords falling from dark fingers

~Scott Ferry~

*

14.

always knew that god

was made of teeth and light—
swirling sharkmouth on the surface of the sky

try to distract myself with sounds
of my own tides flushing

close my eyes and swing in tentacle
and scale

sing my pain to sleep by whistling
imaginary air

in the indigo
abyss

~Scott Ferry~

*

13.

Driftwood bones__
Driftwood bones
Rolling current
Shiny diadem
Sun reflected water

The river muddy brown
Thick mucous of Dagon
Bubbling toward
The Mississippi

Mind on skull raft
A search light
Strafing in circles
Looking for Tom Sawyer
& Huck Finn

The sound of the Ohio
Gurgling rushing plopping
Splashing

The percolating tumbler
Of dreams

---

~Merritt Waldon~

*

12.

Sad Moon

Sad moon, weeping like star crossed lovers,
dreaming of soft caresses offered no more.
Dying as it shines its light like clockwork.
Its white lights are symbolical sobs. Sad
moon, longing for that first kiss of long ago,
a martyr of the sky brightening the dark
night. Its sadness witnessed through the
ages. It goes without its one desire. Its moon
heart shattered like glass, littering
the pavement. When the sun comes around
and dusk is dispatched, the sad moon lies
comatose. It resides in a fairy land where
it sleeps like a jilted lover. Its dreams are
loosely based on failed romance. It finds
it hard to face all the stars in the sky.

~Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal~

*

11.

Memory Sleeps

Memory sleeps in oblivion.
Its only thought is a cloud
of doubt. It is a history
forgotten. It sleeps through
the loudest sound. Memory
floats through time lost. It
does not always return. It is
absent. It is useless to try to
recall what is lost in eternity.

~Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal~

*

10.

THE SURROUNDING SOUNDS

It is clear to me that the breathing
in the next room is not mine.
Nor are the footsteps on the stairs made by me.

When I move throughout the house,
the sounds I make are close, confined,
do not echo from the basement
or run between the walls.

There are forces here.

Why else do items move from where I put them?
Why is there a sudden breeze in the bedroom
when all the windows are closed?
Or a sudden freeze for that matter?

The house is unsettled.
And I and my unseen visitors are the same.
But do I petition God for their release
or merely pray they do not harm me?

Some ghosts, I’ve heard,
return to where they once were happy.
Or even, morbidly, where they died.

The coming, the goings,
are within my sentience
but beyond my control.

And this is what I have to look forward to –
a sedentary life
that the dead keep breaking into.

~John Grey~

*

9.

POEM BY THE MAN IN THE CHAIR

A quiet room
was suddenly full of movement.
Wallpaper wriggled.
The carpet came alive.

I felt a rubbing against my ankles.
Then, with a soft thump,
something landed on the chair arm,
swallowed my elbow
in smooth, warm fur,
troubled my nerve ends
with a motorized purr.

On the mantel,
the shape I’d taken for a souvenir,
rose up and stretched
the length of the fireplace.

From the windowsill,
a dark substance
dropped noiselessly to the floor.
Many suctioned legs
pulled away from the ceiling,
flopped down beside it.

And then, out of their hiding places,
emerged creatures with clawed feet
and sharply-pointed faces,
ran like sewer-rats
within inches of my bare toes.

The sounds they made
mingled with my uneasy breath,
became this composite hum
of man and beast,
stillness and movement,
soul and that which has no soul.

~John Grey~

*

8.

The Black Dahlia

Dahlia kissed the black narcissus
pinned to the devil’s lapel.

Blue gardenias
wrap-wristed the broken girl.

Dahlia a carrion flower
spire of thorns.

White dawn lily left
for cemetery stone.

Dahlia shattered rose
dry as salt and bone.

~Denise Gilchrist~

*

7.

Willow’s Ember

The flame of ingratiation rests
then teeters on a spiky throne

lurks in modular mazes
and in the night with Gibson strings.

The gibbous moon dances
in widdershins

as the horned specters
rot in the falling apart

behind the cluttered shed
of misplaced empathy.

~Denise Gilchrist~

*

6.

CLEARING SOME SPACE

I’ve been clearing and organising
Firstly my mind
And then my room as I start
My life over again.
Tonight i sit here and write
And remember why I should have got
Round to it much damn sooner.

The words flow and it takes all
My attention
Some days it takes all my time
To just get it out as i sit here
Now in a cleared out room
Working on these words.

Soon i may invite people round,
Only a few mind, but hell if i
Fancy showing off my new space
Then why the hell not providing
I can drag myself away from
The word and the work it maybe
Soon.

Then again i may just get used
To this new layout and finally
Sit at my goddamn writing desk
And write some words over there
But not tonight as i sit here in my
Favourite old armchair, smoking,
Drinking and writing again, just
Like time immemorial.

~Bradford Middleton~

*

5.

FEVERISH AS ADDICTION HITS

It feels like I’m feverish & high as the relapse
From hell escalates into the realms of a previously
Calmed addiction as all I can do is smoke. I’ll
Smoke the sweet beautiful bud of hope & dream
That this god-damn hay-fever will soon pass & I
Can get back down them bars & drink every
Drink & smoke every smoke I can!

~Bradford Middleton~

*

4.

our marriage

was a two-legged chair, a gawking fish twisting.
was someone trundling down the aisle
to take the middle seat next to you just as the captain's
closed the doors for take-off.

was a dog of the adorable variety
who turns out to be a superbiter.
was a gulp from a dead soldier--Bud, no less, King
of Beers--with a fresh-crushed Marlboro
Light in it that you drunkenly picked up to emergency
cheers someone pretty with.

was beautiful too.
as French German Mexican you.

beautiful as the honeymoon
moment I, a grounded refusenik gasping, saw you
fly by me, parasailing the P.V. sky in your light
blue maillot; and I thought "That's the most beautiful
bird I've ever."

was stuffed with bent-over laughter.
was so much more therefore
than the tragicomedy we watched back then
'cause we starred in it.

and truth be told now about then?
I never married again.

~John Andrew Fredrick~

*

3.

Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto

When the strings of existence loosen, you
are there to tighten them. The silky threads
of your score weave the fabric of life.

Some say your haunting first chords
sound like the bells of your youth, the
sounds you heard on the way to church.

I think they are like flowers beginning to bloom
in those videos where time is speeded up. I think
those notes are like the heart of a lover ready

to kiss his beloved for the first time. When
the orchestra joins and the concerto blossoms
I think we are awash in Alyosha’s naïve

dance at the end of The Brothers Karamazov,
the light hearted diversion from atheism and
patricide. Still, it’s yearning that sings through

this piece—yearning and hope, like the first
touch of a lover’s hand. Sunflowers, fields
of sunflowers, bend in summer’s breeze,

wave at the fall chill. Soon withered leaves
dance across the tundra, the frozen fields
of Mother Russia. But your melody, like desire

itself, remains, lingers, waits for a moment
of peace, like a snowflake silently falling
through the tumult of time.

~Charlie Brice~

*

2.

news clipping

the plaintive trill of a cricket
has coaxed a star
out of the ink, the stuff
used to coat my fingers
whenever I touched the bottle
in the dining room drawer
the drawer no one
was suppose to open
because
in the silver candy box
with pink ribbon
Grandma
had hidden my Aunt's
dead baby.

~Wayne F Burke~

*

1.

Wake

The hand of death
is cold
and the face is stone
because life has gone
and what animated the
flesh
has fled.
"To a better place," she said.
"What place is that?" I wondered.
The casket is so small--
no room to turn
around or
even stretch;
like a box stuffed with curtains,
like the closet you were shoved into
as a kid, as punishment--
like a tiny room in a
rooming house,
in a bad section
of town.

~Wayne F Burke~