Heart
Igneous lump.
when i say my father is homeless, i mean:
when I say my father is homeless, I mean: by Harley Chapman a funhouse version of himself laughing,an eclipse where his mouth should be. so smart. Just like him. he fell off the roof one Christmas& kept on falling. The snow embraced himlike the open sea swallows a sinking ship. dad vs. the State of California. I am talking about criminalities.I am talking about the act of committing a crimeas inseparable from being a criminal. my face is a long stretch of unshavenyears, stacked neatly on the tile. each implosion is entirely my fault(it is not my faultbut it is, still, entirely my fault). a portrait of god in his sunhat, shears poisedbefore an unsuspecting shoot of green. I no longer wish to be called honey,shrink from your touch. my story is changing. I cannot rememberwhat is real & what is just a name. fuck the government. Fuck the law,the police, the purse-clutchers,& every asshole with a brand-new car. an alternative phrasefor airing your dirty laundry isI have nowhere left to hide. I made a mess of it, drank myself stupid& rode that white line like a bronc. the record is stuck. A scratchy repeat:just like him. each year feels more & more like a dare. shame is a debt unpayable. Please,don’t make me explain. Poetry Home Art by Belle Dorcas
Girlhood Sonnet
Girlhood Sonnet by Sophia Ivey I lost my girlhood when my brother ripped out my first baby tooth. I can still rummage through my mother’s attic to find the VHS tape of him holding the small bleeding thing with his hands as if it were a rock bass he had just caught down at Lake Apopka. I told my palm reader this and she insisted I find all of my baby teeth and burn them to ash. I don’t. I keep them in my nightstand, though, most nights I am eager to flick my lighter in the little girl’s direction, burn each tooth to ash, bury each crumb into the dirt so I will not be reminded of things that used to be mine to hold. It would be easier, I know, but instead, I am determined to suck on each tooth like a cherry sour until it is sweet enough for me to spit out. One day, when I am done, I will rest them on my kitchen windowsill. Dry them by the wishbones I save. Like a stuffed rock bass hung on a living room wall I will find pride in preserving a slaughtered thing. Poetry Home Art by k kuulz
Gub Dog
Gub Dog by Addy Gravatte Dedicated to the Holy Body of Saint Margery Kempe I want my real red blood on that faux pink fur But then it’d be burgundy— I’m too putrid for today Nobody don’t avoid me! Before you are very stupid and then you are smart I have always been a witch And I have always been obliged To tell them I am no When I was young I’d get a creature in my stomach And close my eyes I’d know I’d see My flesh, contracting to its slimmest space, Then expanding to its largest possibly —rapidly contracting, ‘twas gut-stuck between the two Until I remembered my tangible body It was proto-sexual for me! I am gross, oh I am a gross thing. Poetry Home Art by James Kelly Quigley
Šljivovica
Šljivovica by Celeste Colarič-Gonzales In the native lands of the ghosts / who formed me / beyond the building and unbuilding / of bone borders, bloodying / rivers of language / and names eroding mountains / of faces and dirt, dispersing / across time and space / splintering / a body region / into dozens of / organs, appendages, nations / for all my ancestors lacked / their dirt homed / more ocean-hills of plums / than they could eat / so they drank them / across distinct lands and dialects / they harvested, summer through fall / fermented, through winter / palmed orbs of sunset / mauve-purple, crimson-gold / pulpy flesh falling in plumps / from the knuckle bones and nail-beds / of my ghost’s hands / dripping in red, sour-bitter juice / fingers working small globes / to their stone-cores / each of their parts / a territory divided / made useful to the whole / seed, skin, and sweet blood / no additive needed / but time their sacrificial bodies / sufficient / in yeast and sugar / for the wild of their own / nature Poetry Home Art by GJ Gillespie
Dew On The Sea
Dew On the Sea by Claire Wahmanholm Star/savior is an infirm rhyme, but here:even the smallest music box will chimeif you place it all the way inside your ear.It’s like unfocusing your eyes to seethe nest snug within the burning wood;it’s like when the weather map pulses greenafter you look away from all that red;it’s like an artless belief in mercy(who is smarter and happier than youpermit yourself to be); it’s a near-dream.It all exists, but we may need to softenour bones to be born into it. Think dewon the sea, think hammered gold, think zygote.We may have to be both borne and boat. Poetry Home Art by Sean Riley
nothing is more sad than a waning moon
nothing is more sad than a waning moon by Sirka Elspass (transl. Anne-Sophie Balzer) nothing is more sad than a waning moon in dwindling candle light you write this to have a body means tremendous responsibility and no one is born knowing how it works but someone has hung a flyer on the crescent people are being sought after cats went missing if the apple is the embrace i am the worm eating it away Poetry Home Art by Mickey Haist Jr.
The Cabinda spouses
The Cabinda spouses by Landa wo O mbé – dé 1 returned to life!O kuet – dé 2 who will protect us from lightning!If the bottom of the sea is luminous.Why does your dark eye not reflect a light of love? 1 The night hunter that kills the game for Cabinda villagers but is killed each morning by his last prey.2 The wife – widow of Mbé – dé, interred every morning and disinterred every evening before the hunt. Poetry Home Art by Keegan Baatz
Kaddish 9
Kaddish 9 by Daniela Naomi Molnar below the quick ] [ surface currents of the mind muscular water moves ] [ undiluted sentience sole and fluid flow ] [ through everyone your tongue and your own wet breath ] [ already knows the nameless so it’s ok to disown the dead ] [ multiplication and to disregard the sad arithmetic ] [ of the bad and tired plan it’s ok, do not call the failure any name ] [ let your voice calve an inoculant omission ] [ of the self a home that’s all hinge ] [ let that zero loll ] [ open be muttered or sung ] [muttered or sung by the nameless one ] [ a sound thick as no mirror ] [ and dense as love’s ] [ black hole Poetry Home Art by Keegan Baatz
Kaddish 2
Please View this Poem on a Desktop Kaddish 2 by Daniela Naomi Molnar Let the rhyming, dying dream carve a tunnel in your trachea for breath then name Let the name be lush Let the name be rangy roaming past time to the source of language : a huddle of clean ash — the only promise time makes is to be ongoing an inconclusive light that cannot dim forming pink organs and petals green fuses and rot the metastasizing muscle the prison, the cell, the organelle the eight dollar cup of coffee the animal with no teeth in the hungry street the person with no love left in the desiccated valley the quake the rubble the flood the bone-dense shadows the traps sprung on sinew in inconclusive light god a fermata