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Entropy by Anant Dhavale

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Entropy

1.

Omar Khayyam taught us
not to burn our moments
mourning the dead
for they sleep peacefully
in their cold graves.

strange fellow, he was, Omar Khayyam
didn’t think much of the world
than an ungainly vessel of wine
the potter, he said, has
made it of his own hands

drink, drink, drink so ye shall understand.

2.

Entropy is a trap
wholeness too
peel it
scratch it

it remains.

3.

The mirth

– the mirth drowned them
but no one really cares
so long as they had fun.

4.

Walking along the blossoms
red and white
I dream of a riot of colors
a commotion of the baffled –

ruffled molecules.

5.

Come, sit with me, breathe in
this longgone epoch

this rancid tobacco of time.

Anant Dhavale is a multi-lingual poet and the author of “What the Tornado Left Behind,” “Nobody’s War,” “Mook Aranyatali Paanagal,” and “Meer.” His poems have appeared in the Open Road Review, the Mid-Atlantic Review, This Broken Shore (forthcoming), Minute Musings, Poets to Come, Aaj-Kal Urdu, and several other notable publications. He is the founding editor of “Samkaleen Ghazal,” an online and print Marathi non-periodical devoted to the genre of Marathi Ghazal. Some of his works have been translated into Gujarati and Urdu. He lives in Harrison, New Jersey.

Two Poems by Scott Ferry

dear tiny flowers

i know you are weeds and i would kill you
without mercy if you were in my yard
but this is not my space to manage
so i find you wondrous
and take photos of you
zoom in on your opalescence—

the hairs of your neck reaching for water and sun
your stamen and pistil your style and stigma
your musical lure to micro-pollinators
you are your own progenitor
in an endless flick of seed and root
and bloom and fruit

here in this world i cannot control
(and i rage against the powerlessness)
you are a testament to a current
which surges and boils in the detritus
which paints the blank grass lilac and white
which paints the carmine mind blank as wind

you are everything which exists
outside and inside the field of chaos and spring
you have won have always won will always win—
every nerve is a geranium bolting in the dark
every breath an impatiens pod impregnating
the vacuum

wasp nest as the body

everything has a little ghost
inside of it—

the paper and spit
surrounding

a hundred eyes—
a hundred wings

Scott Ferry sings to invisible harpies in dollar stores. Sometimes he writes poems. His book Sapphires on the Graves is coming in late 2024 from Glass Lyre Press.

Image: Field of wildflowers by Philip Halling, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Two Poems by Abigail Gray

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Unproven Hypothesis

I’ve become so used to falling asleep
[ alone / with the thought of you ]
that I could never – truly – be with you now
I would only be disappointed
by your arms (not as soft as my six-foot fleece blanket)
or when I could not lay my head on your chest
as easily as I do on my thin pillow

Field Notes from the Suburbs

At first glance, it looks like it was caught in the tree –
blown there by the wind.
Green plastic netting, the kind they use
to fence off construction sites or
border a freshly planted shrub.
Keep out, it says. Something here
is worth protecting. Something here is
being made. Something is
here on purpose.
On closer inspection,
its presence in the branches is purposeful,
shaped and not tangled. In fact,
it has been woven,
alongside twigs and grass
and other construction materials,
into a nest. The bird responsible
is nowhere in sight.
This is not a poetic act,
an intentional rebellion, or
a twist of irony. Just a bird
who saw something green,
and flexible,
and strong. But there it is, anyway:
irony, rebellion, poetry.
Keep out.
Protection,
creation.
Purpose.

Abigail Ann Gray is a new writer from Virginia, who primarily writes fiction but sometimes writes poems by accident. She holds a BA in literary studies from Roanoke College. These days, when she isn’t writing, she works at a public library and as a freelance pianist (though generally not at the same time). She has work forthcoming in Press Pause Press. Instagram: @sheistoofondofbooks

Featured Image: “Cat-sleeping-Colosseum-Rome” by Debseye licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Broken Tooth By Ace Boggess

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Broken Tooth

A dream of a broken tooth
means fear of aging, change,
or feeling powerless.

Broken tooth would be a good name
for a rock band
in the alternative genre, or maybe punk.

Broken tooth would be a good name
for a minor battle
in a war we have forgotten.

A dream of a broken tooth
could not exist when one
has a broken tooth; there is no rest.

Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, most recently Escape Envy. His writing has appeared in Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Hanging Loose, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble. His seventh collection, Tell Us How to Live, is forthcoming in 2024 from Fernwood Press.

Two Poems by Sandra McRae

Beaver Moon Eclipse

I will love you
long after this soft pearl of a moon
is swallowed by the shadow of the earth.
Look how she mouths the luster
taking her time
as if it’s been 600 years
waiting for this kiss.

I will love you
until all the stars
fall out of Orion’s sword
and slide to the floor
of eternity.
Even as we sleep
galaxies collide
and form new stars.
Even as I move
from one end of the night
to the other
changes transpire
at the molecular level
—are they atoms or stars
that careen through our darknesses?

You have made what came before
impossible.
You have made a different future
possible.
See how the light returns!
Even as we breathe here
this one small planet
races around the only sun
we’ve ever known
with unfathomable speed
and yet here
at the center
all is calm
all is bright.

Gesture

Squinting at the tiny lines
I load the narrow needle with the dog’s insulin.
Locked up and dreaming of her bygone kingdom
she is a fragile princess I am required to torture
at regular intervals.
I remind myself to concentrate
but I don’t know what I’m doing.
How these delicate systems work
is beyond my ken. She grows thin.
I pull up the scruff of her neck
make a pocket with my thumb
and fire. Today it feels like I missed
but I can’t correct my mistake.
How will she suffer now?
I try to make it up to her with lovies.
Look, I say, we dodged the dragon
but she wants a porch in the sun
a deer leg to gnaw
a soft patch of rug on a wooden floor.
All the creature comforts I so easily divested
myself of are now her sorrows.
We look at each other
two aging gals shuffling forward
hand in paw.
The sun pushes through the frosty clouds.
I open the blinds.
What else can I do?

Sandra S. McRae writes about nature and domestic complexities, the political and the divine, food, and hunger of all kinds. Her poetry books include all the way to just about there (FutureCycle Press) and The Magic Rectangle (Folded Word), and her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She also co-authored the bestselling cookbook Weber’s Big Book of Grilling (Chronicle). Sandra has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and is an editor at Bristlecone, a poetry journal of the Mountain West. Sandra teaches writing at the University of Denver’s University College and Red Rocks Community College. Visit Sandra at www.WordsRunTogether.com.

Image: NertyS, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons