James Croal Jackson… Simple Machines, This Lonesome Noise

 
 

SIMPLE MACHINES

Force plus distance creates the want.
Machines make work easier to do:
 
pick up the phone and call her.
A sloped surface can move the heart
 
from one peak to another by decreasing
exerted force per beat while increasing
 
the distance over which the want
can travel– a simpler way to have
 
without the work of wanting.

 
 
 

THIS LONESOME NOISE

spare a key
you industrial
 
revolution
you need the split
 
bark
 
not the forest
not the wood
 
not the temple
not the gate
 
unlock the room
you need you
 

James Croal Jackson is the author of The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017). His poetry has appeared in The Bitter Oleander, Rust + Moth, Cosmonauts Avenue, and elsewhere. Find him in Columbus, Ohio or at jimjakk.com.

Copyright © 2017 by James Croal Jackson

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Norah Vawter… Lie Next To Me

 

Lie Next To Me

That raw poison used to shake my soul.
I am no longer angry at the world —
Now, lie next to me, and I am whole.
 
When I was very young, I felt so old,
With scars on my body, caught in the swirl —

That raw poison used to shake my soul.

Now we bob in the sea and shake off cold,
I am like a dancer. I spin and twirl.
Now, lie next to me, and I am whole.
 
I am lucky to be alive, I’m told
But I am no ordinary lost girl.
That raw poison used to shake my soul.
 
You showed me all the beauty in the bold
Ones who laugh until the pain is unfurled.
Now, lie next to me, and I am whole.
 
In your soft arms I am a newborn foal.
Into this new, fresh life I twist and curl.
That raw poison used to shake my soul.
Now, lie next to me, and I am whole.
 

Copyright © 2014 by Norah Vawter

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

Michele Alice… DC Circus

 
 

DC Circus

 
 

I.

 
Golden rod
       is so pretty, I wonder–
has it a fragrance?
 
 
 

II.

 
Who needs Ringling
Brothers when we’ve got
Washington?
 
 
 

III.

 
New Economics 101
 
Debt
is
stimulating.
 
 
 

IV.

 
The Paul Krugman
       Equation: You’ll know it’s enough
when it works.
 

Originally from Detroit, I spent my college years studying Philosophy at the University of Arizona (Tucson) before escaping the heat and ending up in the Berkshires (Massachusetts) where I support my writing by working in a museum.

 

Copyright © 2017 by Michele Alice

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Tamara Lakomy… Calvary (in the) Fields of Waste

 

Calvary

I held you in the brilliance of my tear
Nothing could assuage the radiance of your soul
But you burned my touch as I drew near
You opened all the scars that held me whole
 
You whipped my flesh with words in barbs
And watched of the furrows of streaming blood
For you came to me in the guise of angels in all garbs
Just to trample my spark in conquest into the mud
 
I held you in the palm of my hand, as a nail against a cross
Watched your loving hatred perforate my tender care
For in the desecration of my heart you see no loss
And you see an illuminated spectacle of my despair
 
You anointed the altars of my devotion with my entrails
And laughed as the dismal cry of the abyss as I wept
As the sunlight drowns beneath the horizon, my life fails
In a bloodbath of forsaken hopes as mercy slept
 
You are nothing but the razor that I both love and despise
Brilliant as those stars that are cold yet a glory to our eyes
For in the sundering of my existence there is nothing but your lies
Always waiting to be held again in my hand to nail me to my demise
 
I am a relinquished sacrifice, denied the resurrection of hope
Till my bones dry and bleach and the garments rags fluttering free
I remain a prisoner of your Calvary, dangling by a silken rope
Woven of the dreams I once conceived, prey to your murderous spree
 
So in the brilliance of my tear, I augur the omens of your abhorrent spite
And hold in abeyance the beating of my heart lest you stalk my will
And in every denuding of my soul, and in the venom of your poisonous bite
I fade into oblivion with the confines of the world to haunt and fill….
 
 
 

Fields of Waste

The fields of waste are open, wide is my wound
Vaster than the horizon I drink with avid eyes
For there is nothing hollower than my chaos, my memory doomed
The grave beneath shall be the dome of my skies
 
There shall be no more sunshine, no more breath of air
As slowly the deconstructed mind errs as a shrieking fear
That haunts the shadows of the barrows, crouching in the devil’s lair
All is coming to an end, your untimely death is near
 
But what have you reaped of the wayward times, casting lots
What have you earned of your mortal sojourn, conquering the beast
The animal who resides in your subconscious, your sagacity blots
But still from the shorn veins, the agony is released
 
Do we prize the allotted time, as a remuneration for our insolence
Our beliefs in the poignancy of endeavours soon to greet the dust
But be wary of the signs of the horror of awakening from our indolence
For naught shall grant you immortality when your exploits end in rust
 
There is no glory in our sublime decline, moribund flesh and ribaldry
There is no irenic hell for our souls that burn like the conflagration of the stars
Caged in the immense cages of their own design, with an art surpassing sygaldry
We await our unravelling and decay, behind our prison’s gilded bars
 
I have tasted my spirit, from the gullet leaping high in its escape
For it seeks the winds, to be shredded as sea foam on broken waves
Into the chasms of the rim of the world, into the dismal awning agape
Of the pits of our torments that forever our dismal master craves
 
Sing for the skies that have no soul, eyeless auguring the fates of men
Forever looking down in spite at the vanity of the fruitless machinations
So descend from your throne creator, come walk the realms of creation again
For made in some erroneous image we live in delusions of dominations
 
 

I am an author, and a poet, but I have never sought to publish my poetry before as it was deemed too dark and heavy, laden with a melancholy and metaphysical twist that most people could not relate to. I grew up in North Africa, a tribal Amazigh feminist girl in a repressive regime, witnessing many dark things that have scarred my memory. I grew up around the mystical marabouts and the witch doctors that ruled over the souls, I was exposed to a wilderness of spirit and bare human cruelty that the West seldom comprehends; radicalisation, jihad, organ trafficking and the likes.

Copyright © 2016 by Tamara Lakomy

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Jason Constantine Ford… Returning to Mount Everest

 

Returning to Mount Everest

A single picture captures our faces below the sun

Upon a mountain we climbed together as one.

Our early moments of standing near clouds are enthroned in time

As we are looking back to achievement sublime.

Although the glory of this event has passed away,

Our memories of climbing the mountain are ones that stay.

Retracing our steps before we reached the mountain peak,

We travel back to times of either being strong or weak.

A time when we considered returning to the mountain’s base

Halfway through our climb is fading trace by trace.

Our time of emotional weakness is being replaced

With memories linked to a scene where past doubts are defaced.

Memories of reaching the mountain’s peak are sparks that ignite

The radiance of seeing the world from its’ greatest height.

 

Copyright © 2016 by Jason Constantine Ford