Days My Poems Go Far Away

I pray for monsoonal wordfalls that succumb to ravishing sunlight. Similes pool in echoing
canyons, soak into rocks, become slate shadows cooling collared lizards. I see my words in
aviator shades these lizards wear, double rainbowed, ricocheting off apricot sun. I clang the tiny
lenses like cymbals till rocks reverberate. Canyon bats, slick tuxedoed vampires upside down,
fold wings over my words, press them to throbbing chests. Make them blood thirsty. Then set
them free to stripe themselves around and around a cat’s ringed tail, letters getting cozy dancing
circles. Dancing. Circles dancing. Circles. When they’re dizzy, they spin off to clouds of
cayenne dust. Birds-of-prey swoop and grab them inches from the ground, hang glide them miles above boulders, drop them when they realize: They. Never. Die. My darlings plummet and crash among sinisterly grinning scorpions, positive they’ll surrender hopeless and scared, but they escape, muster power as they huddle. Enjamb into nightfall. Adjectives spread quilted bodies over shivering nouns. Weary words count bighorn sheep but can’t drift to sleep without order. So I coax them into zombie stanzas, coo and cajole them to extend metaphors, link arms with caesuras. The Big Dipper pours vanilla chamomile as lines blur in somnambulist trance. It’s time to poet these words home, peer into their yellow marble mountain lion eyes, stroke their shaggy bison beards, kiss their ears with promises to never unmother again.

Dana Kinsey is an actor and teacher published in Drunk Monkeys, ONE ART, On the Seawall, Sledgehammer Lit, West Trestle Review, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, and Prose Online. Dana’s play, WaterRise, was produced at the Gene Frankel Theatre.  Her chapbook, Mixtape Venus, is published by I. Giraffe Press. Visit wordsbyDK.com

parallels on wane

dithering can
wobble stationary
if facial quips remain focused
as they call more is necessary
so i crawl in blizzard slam shock
to make my point we are nothing
without believing real
is invalid here

i digested prayers
from dying dreams
between sly flutter we smiled tears
yes i know doctrines promise deliver
but i’m inclined to believe silent truth
offers twice removed faith message
given life panics
when being declines

ok that wasn’t noted
clearly even at all
but if you dissect behavior of tempted
you like they will see hopeful falling
is no less certain than parallels on wane
for gabble relieving or not collected exact
is what is sought after the fact
sinks heaven silent

Stephen House has won many awards as a poet, playwright, and actor. He’s received international literature residencies from The Australia Council and Asialink. His chapbooks “real and unreal” and “The Ajoona Guest House” are published by ICOE Press. His next book is out soon. He performs his acclaimed monologues widely.

1000 Square Feet

I don’t know much 
about the family in 13 B
where they’re from 
or how long they’ve lived here

but I do know that I’ve cracked 
a few cervezas with the father
and have eaten homemade tamales 
from the mother that I swore 
made me see the face of God

I do know that I’ve been greeted
by both abuelos passing by 
and have seen all six children 
playing with the other kids 
in the apartment parking lot 

I even know that I’ve watched 
them raise the American flag  
from their balcony railing 
higher than some eyebrows 
they received

this family 
they all live together 
inside 1000 square feet 
making room where it counts.

 

 

Cord Moreski is a poet from the Jersey Shore. Moreski is the author of Confined Spaces(Two Key Customs, 2022), The News Around Town (Maverick Duck Press, 2020), and Shaking Hands with Time (Indigent Press, 2018). When he is not writing, Cord waits tables for a living and teaches middle school children that poetry is awesome. His next chapbook Apartment Poems will be released by Between Shadows Press in late 2022. You can follow Cord here: www.cordmoreski.com