From the poetic series entitled: “The Human Fundamentals Anthology”

Gravity.
The ultimate courtesy.

In the strange quiet that hangs over city streets

in early morning, we hold hands and run across

wrinkled sidewalk, hollering at bakers, leaping over

stacks of newspapers left for sleeping store owners.

Poem by Jake Parisi
Critique by John Kropa
.
“The Oak”
.
Of a danky, concealed base,
There are only gnarls illumined,
As the shadows of my other selves
Glimmer through projected lines.
.
Now at this base of more or less,
The sun-pulse throbs and grows its stress,
And a single, stoic trunk of tree
Belies my wanted unity.
.
Then there’s, “Suddenly!” as Bely knows,
So a twisted linearity explodes
From out of mind,
And out of time,
Leaves ephemeral and overlapping,
Tethered like a mental clapping
Of ropes to moments, to the last,
All mystically gone slipping past.
.
Here comes a knot! Some funny business,
Particular, yet quite ambiguous:
A feeling that …

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 …

I look forward, a mirror obscures my view
I look forward, only to see behind
The halls of ivy are all I know
But the vines won’t take me where
I think I need to go
How shall I plan when circumstances are so constantly chaotic?
My thoughts are obsolete the very second
They occur
Soon cast out into a world that isn’t
What we thought we were entitled to
I didn’t make this fucking mess
But now I’m my own life’s janitor
With a shit-stuffed toilet to look forward to
Disillusioned and demotivated
At the same time feeling the tug
Of a thousand chains …

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…

The moon was a smokey spotlight over the car. Our getaway car – Pat’s new-old Lexis – stick shift – crammed with all our belongings: books, clothes, guitar, ukulele. There were four of us: Pat, our driver, always down for a spontaneous adventure (we’d be heading down to New Orleans and Florida to see graveyards and beaches in a week), Mike, the singing poet-writer-reader from Brooklyn, Mike’s older brother, Bryan, bursting with voice and music and life, just hitching a ride with us to Vermont …