Lite - S B Smith, Essaouira, Morocco

JUST TRUTH, I GUESS

what does billie and patchen havin common?
dogs, rollin in hot grass, giving off certain smells
that drum up, drum always up.

thot i herd a sailor
out back, covered by starlit,,,,

here am i watching the drawn
creatures attracted by sun and springy things
like green ribbons on a second grade bedpost,,,for tomorow's hair!
to wear with the pretty, green and white dress, of eyelets! of mown sheep!
of soft beds singing new days, always new.

behind the safety of the eyelit dress and green spring ribbons
there is a fox lit by lamps of a withered street. one street too
paved to be true. a woman sings about aint'd no one's bizness
and about a man who got inna pickle but the fox just prances.
for the war that was over. for the trees whose pines were coned.
for the gin that spilled down the painted brick step of an apartment
where a dentist screamed to understand every foolish thing a woman
might scheme.

but i cannot worry onna child's dress. a scheming woman. a fox in cone
light with or without ribbons that are green. i can turn a page ona patchen
or sing a holiday tune. it wld be on the record, true.

Bree

 

Melissa J. Craig

4TH STREET ANGELS

House – that are sound proofed – tops don’t
Abound with blue eyes.

Nobody suddenly goes
There.

His lunatic voice
Is a voice of sacrifice,
And a voice of sacred void,
And a voice of sage.

Strange ornaments looked
Oval, just like open scowls.

Richard Biscayart

 

TEMPLE, LONDON
for Maggie Hindley

Wind howled
like the trumpet of a fierce Kali
rushed in through
the Temple Tube Station
to slap my face
to smother the flame
of my breath
and blind my vision
as I soared
floating up the steely slope
of the escalators
in spirit of reaching
a hillside shrine
that our goddesses
always prefer to live on.

Once up
out of the Station
in the freezing cold
as I exerted to push
my overcoat up
my shaking frame
I saw her there
on the wet pavement
out alone in the open
with a swollen black eye
and an issue of The Big Issue
held like a trophy,
a sacrificial rooster
against her sagging breast.

Yuyutsu RD Sharma