POETRY

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
—Rita Dove
I Garden at the Edge of Autumn

There is so little left of the tomato plants.

Dear Deer in the Compost Pile

I tap at the alphabet while a single deer
taps at the dirt beyond the brush
on the far side of the tree line.

Mom, in Her Dementia, Steals Oranges

and apples, mackintosh mostly, but any kind left in The Pub
at the Assisted Living Place

Making Israeli Salad

Now that the Israeli has left, it falls
on me to make the salad.

All In

I don’t
know why
I’m in the garden
kneeling on dirt

3:17 AM as Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks

Part of being a good sad person
is always painting the shadows
in the right direction and knowing
what sorrow to art with.

Black Ghosts of Ponderosa on a Silhouette of Hill

Even as the sun warms the concrete
the long nights’ sensual cold lingers in my clothes.

Hollywood Hills
the remarkable thing

I am still waiting for the lion

The State School 1984 His Given Name Was Wilbur  We Called Him Magpie

Mostly he ate what was put on his plate
snuck coffee grounds or dirt for a snack
Once a zipper Unzipped

Drowning in sky

I have observed, the theorist
I am

REVENGE SCENE

Okay, picture this: We’re in an elevator. The elevator shuts down. It doesn’t matter where we’re going, only that we’re alone.

Getting Postcards From a Piano Showroom

The two of us toast to a man we both love, to whatever degree, clink our glasses and laugh…

Observer of the Patient

Her brown eyes,
how a fig
considers itself.

An Interview with Brian S. Ellis

The poetry of Brian S. Ellis unravels, inverts, investigates, and complicates. His poems are radical koans and invitations to forego common narratives.

Willpower

Live the rest of your life
from one worst case to another.

An Interview with Dylan Krieger

Dylan Krieger’s poetry is unflinching, grotesque, and beautiful. Her work tackles trauma, wrestles authority, and is a decadent sonic feast.

Welcome To The House of Static

here is the sky in stop motion, flickering,
a still shot in monochrome

Letter To a Young Poet

Do not say anything anybody else has said ever. Things are not “bleached by sun.”

beach
On Undressing a Color / On Undressing a Girl

I imagine that undressing a color, though, would be so much like peeling a memory away from the grey and the white matter of your brain.