Let me live here in this place Let me thrive just once On this imagined planet This alternative mental dimension called dream Called hallucination Where streets are dotted with phantasmagoria Where people speak honestly Softly Poetically A place where the women are built for speed Their bodies always rocking Their passion always exposed Always raw And the whisky lives comfortably on my lips forever
The Swirling
We swirl around this marble until somebody Or something Or both Make sense Until we feel reciprocation of some kind Warmth of body or spirit Invigoration of the loins Stimulation of the heart And a lucky few Very few Find both and transcend all of this These schedules and deadlines These bills, bullies, and bosses All the things manufactured Leaving behind the illusion of civilization Living eternally in what can only be called a dream A fantasy to you and me
TA Harrison is a writer and philosopher on the autism spectrum. A world traveler, a veteran of combat, the product of an impoverished Midwestern home, TA has lived the life his poetry beautifully paints.
Image: Iuherath, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Flash of light Glimpse of a crisp font Perfect kerning Gleaming teeth Saturated color High contrast Soothing noise Smiles everywhere Work in a pair of breasts Trigger the reward center
Permeate a scent Summon images Sizzle with flavor Perk the ears Invoke a feeling Don’t sell the superficial Project a lifestyle Get past the clutter Remember a call to action
All of that energy All for the blitz All to be thrown away All to be clicked over All to change the channel All to be ignored
What happens here
For there to be a righteous god He/She/It Must love more than me Must forgive more Must show patience more Must be more just
As I walk this world that He/She/It allegedly governs I do not see that Not in others Not in me
Therefore god Whoever he/she/it is Is either not competent Or not interested In what happens here
John Tompkins is a writer living in Texas. He has published fiction and non-fiction with a variety of outlets including the American Philosophy Association, Levee Magazine, Metonym Journal, Terse Journal and Glass Mountain.
Image: Leonetto Cappiello, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
followed him up the back stairs, through the kitchen door,
passing me at the table and into the living room
where he collapsed on the floor. I picked up the yellow phone
and dialed the number I knew but forgot. All I could do was watch
him curl on the carpet, eyes filled with surprise and his body
confused and shivering like live buds cut at the root—
blood puddling like rain in his head. I thought the ambulance
would never come so I waited by the road and paced until the first
sound of the siren made everything as real as a man’s face split in pain.
Ode to a Scar
Where did yours come from? Mine?
I fell running in the rain.
I fell chasing a boy in July.
A boy was running from me.
I started to bleed into the cement.
The cement was shocked by my eyebone.
My eyebone didn’t see that coming.
The half-moon scar reddens in the summer.
I fell chasing a boy in the rain.
Jona Colson’s poems, translations, and interviews have been published in Ploughshares, The Southern Review, The Massachusetts Review, and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection, Said Through Glass, won the 2018 Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from the Washington Writers’ Publishing House. He is also the poetry editor of This Is What America Looks Like: Poetry and Fiction from DC, Maryland, and Virginia (WWPH, 2021).
Image by Petr Novák, Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 2.5 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5>, via Wikimedia Commons
I sit lingering on the rim of some meandering water, my legs tucked under me, and daydream he’s driving
on the black thread of a road, a seam between the bank of the water and whatever the wider world holds.
I sit still as a stone, the sun shining overhead, a large brass button on the blue blazer of the sky.
I feel smothered in sweat, my breathing as elusive as the man embroidered into each of my dreams.
IN THE HEART
Pay attention to the path you take, made of mulch to muffle the crunch of your walking.
This is a quiet zone. Even stopping makes its own commotion. The snap of the camera’s shutter,
as she takes her husband’s photo, sounds out of place, though he wants her to capture all
the calmness here in the heart of the forest. For the longest time, all she’s wanted is to hold onto him.
Despite her warnings not to leave the path, he strides toward slanted light and stands where sunbeams
seem palpable. He lifts his face and lets the glade’s warm stillness slow his impatient heart.
She tries to freeze on film that second when he smiles back at her, as if the seductive essence
of whatever endows this scene and place with unspoken harmony can be caught and carried home.
Lenny Lianne was born in Washington, DC and grew up and lived in the suburbs of Northern Virginia: Arlington, Annandale and Alexandria. She also lived in Ocean City, MD. She is the author of four books of poetry, most recently THE ABCs OF MEMORY, reissued by Unicorn Bay Press. She holds a MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from George Mason University and has taught various poetry workshops on both coasts. She lives in Arizona with her husband and their dog.
Image: TwentiethApril1986, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
