Grounded by JkD

After Small Variation by Miranda

Beached angel, wing-split wrung round Mediterranean

balconies, spinning Flamenco pink as thighs, a dress or

vision—my sister’s? Stretched space between

her shoulder blades, stubble-stumps, a scrapped message:

we’re in the mood for faith. Alms pressed to arms, to

what revelations? The dangerous need to go home.

Now her wings fold, she has no seeds incanting

constant motion. This luminous filled space betwixt strangers'

hips, elbows. Then to kneel, a keel evened to stay with

vehicles to assume futures post-2012 Mayan calendars.

Plead with a green strip, sign from a jungle. Epochs’

derailed demise, thwarted, accosted we draw straws

and signals, speak in tongues, say be here! keep quiet!

go forth! Flight patterns’ tired pride. Trials she

can’t counter to count upon this book, the good red

throat raised in glass gasps, limping, the tattered

wing’s emargination, to drag us forth as a dead limb

against dust. She is just the sort of hissing angel

that won't go away for good. It's what we wanted, weathervanes

in the waning light. Lifted up, whimpering among the pews.

Listening ear close to shoulder, transept’s marble tiles crossing

themselves. A foreboding whispered to us all along...

why didn’t you think of it before her fall?

constricting by lisa pasold

after train passing by jill d., after missings by jkd, after cull by sean s.


she named her car Godzilla Greed, a monster in demise, plummeting but pragmatic, the cost of the fucking mileage already slowing her across countrysides. she as Medea, the sorceress who ate her children, or was that the spider-witch, how she'd always been suspicious of motherhood. wind hissing through the mouths of her snake-hair, or was that Medusa, who could bear no children and was so beautiful, turned good company to stone whatever hero approached from the horizon. frozen by a reflection. how she tried so hard not to be self-reflective, to escape self-analysis, knew where it would lead: suicidal, writhing luggage like dreads. another premium price for the damn tank, the scent of gasoline on her fingers lighting his cigarette. running from her demise or the child's while the snakes try to be good company along the shattered seats.

after after a train passing by jill d.

after missings by jkd after cull by sean s.


a train on fire catching
cascades [falling falling turning over]
like monsters in demise [plummeting or blown apart]
cascades pragmatic
and nutritious
moving across countrysides
borders
lean left
toward a sun temple
[monsters blown apart] [a hero approaches from the horizon]
writhing [suntemple][fire]
caskets mildew in the mist
hero jumping the train
shattered seats
writhing luggage
[fire and demise] [plummeting] [at high speed]

Small Variation by Miranda

after Slippage by JKD and Cull by Sean S

Mediterranean balcony, Mother spinning,
pink Flamenco dress around her thighs. My sister's
dangerous mood, arms stretched, reveals
the need to go home. Now her wings
fold she has no need, but she shouts at me, be here! knowing
I can't be. Constant motion fills space between
shoulder-blades, strangers' hips and elbows -
knees. To stay with vehicles is to assume future
movement so she stays with beached
boats, derailed trains. Keep it quiet,
was once said and she agreed and tries,
but she can't
when he riles her. Glass
in her mouth from her past, her throat
is a mess. It's the red sort that won't
go away despite
or for good weather.
It's what we wanted,
she whispers to me,
all along... don't you think?

Lies Bastion by jkd after Sue Chenette

After Sue Chenette's Libation (click her title to see her poem), posted in April. (+See comments for process note on what I was doing if you are interested.)

Jeweled scythe. Hurl. One apricot poured and pores
framed fallow waning, off flux lithe, tape-ends
*****
boiled mourn-signs, witch trolling wrung drowned
tea howls two darned! Agean – armfulls grumpier.
*****
Watch heathered, saloon-porched (bliss) we concurred, un-
waning slathered grasped, a gain in Even spatulas
*****
circum ambulations, stilled futurist I can’t! nations. Wept.
(I’m told, gruel?) I’m bold, you? Flashlit into spam
*****
thorough hazed arms spin less Motrin as a grin
prayed for her nose hair, a dozy sways, to camp can’t
*****
see you, she says. It strikes ant draws off hits iron plight.
Horror halls in daisies eye, mustard piano pique (pianissimo).
*****
Pro-miser in Faulkner saucy griddled halls. Chrirrup sparadas
the ‘n’ in christalisation. My groan (silver burlesques,
*****
cockle spells). Spear reason slit entire draught
hits parched rabbit (fungus and fungal, sigh lad, her

*****
larder knot rites i-ching green sleepy brunches,
bracken-flung, ravines post-host, fur, flora for depletion).

New: and then nothing by jkd

It’s the sound of a cat not the mewling but that heat-aggravated ground haunches into the throw rug boiling over inside the magenta thrall of her throat from which no song escapes but that growl that wakes her into the day reaching out to scruff to scabbard to scratch at the fur-lined or furry balled up whiskered thing and then past she is reaching and reaches beyond it to the fridge from bed from here in the slim spaces she is already opening the bottle and the fizz and the relief and the yowling she is reaching a point of no returns on the fees and the cat pressing itself into the floor with all the wanting she wants of the bottle touching her lips and the relief coming into her like the cat’s wailing and rolling over and over underneath the incoming tidal relief and retching relief and roiling relief and meowling she says and says and then nothing

a continental obligation by sean s

after A Love Note Left Behind by DJ Whistle Punk

About Paris, jaundice
turns her cautionary eyes
toward the smoke-filled doorways
and the customs agents' hisses and
the lick of wounded monsters,
a wet of ethics,
not of morals.