Written About Doll by J Regier

after "What Was Offered" by Sue Chenette

The marrow is bright.
The dog is big who cracks
The bone. Rock makes
For a natural human head.
It is hard to bear up
And by virtue of that
Can itself bear up a good deal
Through diverse epochs.
A rock is a good distracted
Head. A marrow is bright
If a village or city dog cannot crack
It, but the mouth will be very wet.
She will have many children
And live to see theirs.

What Was Offered by Sue Chenette

after "check this box" and "very yes very no" by Lisa Pasold; "Zerochre Zerochrome" by Sean S. and "A mite giddy on-egging" and "On" by Gvance
********
**********
Under the gift wrap, no watered silk,
********
but raploch wool,
***
wound round a doll with stone for a head.
*****
What was offered.
*******
She wove it a grass placemat,
*******
drew circles of moisture at its mouth,
********
mothered it until
**********
light pushed into the bones.
********
It taught her mineral memory --
********
a hard nut meat almost Macadamian --
********
and to keep the vertebrae perishably
***********
but tightly upright
******
daring a skating trick
**********
on the oilstained woodplank floor.

swallowed dark by Rufo Q

after Want Is A Slow Train by Elisa McCool

want: pills & blow.

need: air & heat.

Want Is A Slow Train by Elisa McCool

After "Dormitories" by Sean S, “Beachfront Properties” by JKD, “Apologies for Absence” by
Amanda Deutch, and all the other ensuing poems

want is a slow train

sleeping through the night crossroads

where

skateboards…..boys

pills…………..and blow

where want is a need

shouted to the night air

radiant as the heat off town roofs

where the town clouds

flex their want into rain

where the hills cleave

to the dark swallowed need

Mine That Bird, after after by beverley bie brahic

Almost missed the last race.
Top down in the back of a silver sedan,
you know the one: underbrush
rots at the crossroads, bank
of escalators, stableboys, mall,
a ferry slip with butter fingers,
slow horn blowing low notes,
ferris wheel sleeping in the next field,
joy-riders calling Come with me?
Number 9 in the home stretch. Phones
twitter,jockey for a roost in the seams
of the oak. Teenage girl thumbs
a lift to town. Jinxed sedan stops.
Saratoga Springs, it's summer 08.

Apologies for Absence by Amanda Deutch after Slow Waltz by J. Wonham and all the poems that came before it

Apologies for Absence
Amanda Deutch


I am slow night waltzing,
a sleeping pill,
a scratched valise

Life, I mean

House, the next field

Pours
******* through
**************the waltz
and I will
waltz with you

even though
I don’t know how to

in the rain, in the heat…

Take, we must
Take.

Is that really so?
Everyone seems to be saying that these days
Take? I don’t want to take.

back to the quiet game
of world tracing,
creating in the palace of destruction-
alright under any circumstances
just because it is.

Slow Waltz by Jonathan Wonham

After Regret by Sue Chennette.

Slow waltz. Night train.
Jinx of a silver sedan
flipped at the crossroads.

One chink and it all
pours through. Life I mean.

Scratched valise, tracking back
through the underbrush,

your cologne that rots paint:
a trail of molecules and old
synaptic dust. Tonight

we must make the next
house, the next field -

take cover before the heat
comes down on us.

Regret by Sue Chenette

after "Dormitories" by Sean S and "Beachfront Properties" and "Toss" by JKD
********
*********
Slow train at the night crossroads
********
backtracking scratched contexts
********
scrabbled content
********
contending
********
with the imaginable (false)
***********
old valise
**********
flipped coin
*********
jinxed waltz
*********

Beachfront Properties by JKD

Ater "Dormitories" by Sean S

I want a slow town swallowing a
sleeping train blowing a pill
through the night crossroads
praying boys plying skateboards
up and down boardwalks to where
hill to when hill is here is there again
all of us just as we were imported stamped
the clearing backdrop cleaves into them

dormitories by sean s (new)

I want a sleeping pill to
swallow a slow train blowing
its horn through the town at
night crossroads or boys playing their skateboards
up and down park dormitory roofs