You would not hold me
Nor kiss me
Nor caress me
Attentively—
You nursed the whispers of your entrails
And neglected the loving curves
Sitting beside you—
Her thoughts wandered quickly
To Singapore,
Your future nest
And hiding hole.
I am less than a memory to you
Now.
Your wild, Irish curls
Vacillated,
Protruded,
Projected,
Connected,
Intertwined,
[Spoke]
[Conversed]
With my tamed,
Romanced strands—
Then the film strips
Danced
Behind my back,
Behind our backs,
Behind the shadowed movement
Of tongues,
Of hands,
Of long, novice fingers,
Of arched backs,
And of blinded,
Inexperienced eyes.

X I can X
X do anything— X

Poem by Michael Coughlin
Critique by Matia Guardabascio

“Silent Voices”

It was the coldest night in August. No not August,
but a much later time, oh wait, it was August.
I remember that night like I remember my road
back  home after a barrel.  No I think it was in August.
The wind chilled your bones to brittle lyrics, in an empty echo
verse.  So it was a cold night?  Yes the coldest night in August.
I remember, i felt so alone in a sweltering chill.  No sun
to warm the throat.  I felt my hand turn black. Frostbite in …

A frozen rivulet of Bailey’s slowly runs between my caramel hills—
Between my erected peaks.
My breath quickens—
My stomach rises and falls as the liquid flows and rests in my navel.
A curious, crimson snake slithers savagely—
It absorbs my Sex like maddening creatures.
My Latin loins quiver incessantly.
Their opening speaks in lustful White.
It whispers your name in a seductive rhythm.
It yearns.
It craves.
Make me melt on your lips, my sweet.

Scatter, Rain, Fascious, Butterfly, Waterfall, Ostensible, Fuck, Voluptuous, Friend, Perspective, Ergo, Perhaps, Periphery, contradiction, Hypocrisy, Gentle, Poet, Universe, Insidious, Intention, Deconstruction, Conspicuous, Imagination, Prudence, Persuasion, Bustle, Seduction, Observation, Ridicule, Collision…

A poem by John Kropa, submitted for your consideration…

.

A reaction to Claude Monet’s Le Soleil Levant, 1872

she blinks wind breeze a jolt

to the chambers. and i

solemn smile feel cells never before

felt.

II

Is what we’re doing now

ordinary?

Ordinarily it would be

but

These are extraordinary

circumstances.

\the day began as awkward as the ticking

of a clock; the silence is in between.

just watching as the ship was slowly sinking

.seconds grew so like the killing weeds –

each budding fruit that bloomed along a vine