Snowbound by jkd

After Alexander Maksik's A Green Umbrella & Rufo Quintavalle's Shelf 19

I ask the flimsy flower

having sucked

toxins from

the infertile moon

there above the city

on the rusted, waxing night

weather turning wide of

an ending season’s warmth

a green umbrella

abandoned by my door

a gesture

perhaps you or yours

at last or longed for

landlocked

that, too, in this hesitancy

widened breaths

the little beach

hoping for deserts

against ocean swells

carrying things away or

looking in on the room

by my bed, your crippled desk,

some evidence sought

against tides’ black crescent

curves, listed or listening

to rain and ice floes

drifting decades

or kilometers late

too wide to go round

the urban bustle

thunder on the rise

toward the dark ship, mammoth

glacial blue and bluer still

all head cocked

strolling bare foot

ragged hair in your eyes,

sapphire wonder

for this one

confirmation

a last sign.

NEW: Shelf 19 by Rufo Q

note: this is part of a longer work based on Walt Whitman's Song of Myself. I have kept the stanza structure of Whitman's poem as well as the first and last letter of each line but rewritten what comes between. Hence "Song of Myself" becomes "Shelf" etc.
...
...
19.
...
The flower
Is ill;
It is flimsy
Through having sucked
Toxins from the land
That
The weather
Turning
Turned infertile.
The gibbous moon
...
Drupelike
Widens
...
Draining the sun of its warmth.
Do not, my friends,
Deny
...
The little
I ask of you.

words or baubles (new) by JKD

even unexpected letters tend to form

between(s)

*

lilypads

protective surface-covering

a line

*

scent of fire

day burning

charcoal blackened chimneysweep

a light

NIGHT POEM #3 by Brandon Shimoda

after "Insomniac Night Poem #2 (ambien)"
by Amanda Deutch


So I prepare to count every tooth
In the yellow alloy mouth
The yellow house
At night
Knocking wooden alley mirrors
Amber lights
And siblings that appear there
Wearing
Maternal skirts
Hopped up
Within maternal paper skirts

When a brash scare of red
Blows
Past the rice and sea
Lips and folk men dance
And folk women dance
Vulnerable and very soft
Each grain that rises
The wavering glass
Must be permitted
Also
And
Convulse volcanoes

I save the first impression for later
Like ringing in a jar
A small machine
And the better of dynastic fruits
Kept well before the throat

For the Best, by Amy Hollowell

After "why then, and the case not peculiar to myself," by lisa p

Flaneuse and a sex tart,
I wish for you and the snow
coming delicious and good enough
over the city.

What beautiful means and beginning well
I nearly know yet don’t
because you say just being
is for the best.

after after (new) by SN

behave, proem-- a
writer's pre
natal, or just
pre-- this was all
after something:
a poem escapes
by the seat of
its can'ts.

Matches Calendar (new) / after Cai Guo Qiang & for JD

Spend a year lighting a match a day
Suspend a year in flames
Suspicious ear lightning awash a daze
365
Counting
What returns as important from
A care its suspension
Singular righting a watch away
Disfigure
A year of the daily what did you
I lit and counting I lit out and
Burnt down and not regretting
Sound bowed down match after
Not really regretting
Calendar flare
Measure the escaping charred
Bend a tear mirrored fighting a laugh to stay
Weird flare
Depend upon an ear or wish upon a star
Or something (some sing)
Tend a bare here writing a touch a say
Pending

why then, and the case not peculiar to myself (new) by lisa p

the snow is coming. "I am good
at the sex," he says happy, puzzled,
and we wish him well. "as you would a friendly dog," she says.
I almost yet don't
know what she means. the moon
delicious over College Street, the city nearly beautiful,
as are we all. if he keeps trying,
we say, if she goes to the counselor or either
stops flaneuring about. because
being good at the sex just is never
good enough, or enough, or
"you know what I mean," she says, and I wish I did. I wish
he did. even if we're all hoping for the best
in winter's tart beginning.