C h r i s H o s e a / Lithe Brunette, Twenty-Three Years of Age
Thoughtful, Fashionable Blonde, Late-Twenties
A s h R e i t e r / Little Black Star
T y l e r F l y n n D o r h o l t / Let Me Leave it Here
D e b r a h M o r k u n / PINGALA.
C h r i s H o s e a
Lithe Brunette, Twenty-Three Years of Age
In my hand walks Kansas called
bodies mostly cloudy, white in flash.
Powders blurs skins what was once
a comfy couch. Spectacles not brittle
not funny, we're in agreement to
radiate the cell of you and me.
Crowded moving emotions on film
so the crowd nods or doesn't go, and
each bit player makes mordant comment.
What is today that was eleven hours since
horror and the blank page became
an ironic pose a thrill sportif graffiti.
Oh you know, everyone, just all of them
that weren't us. She learns to drift
the testament toward shoppers and ice.
You could be embarrassed pouring milk
in a mixed drink under a bridge
but such is your vocation. Right on her
dancing dress you never touched too
just drown the mighty wedges, a way
to get away. Drop fingertips in selected woods.
Thoughtful, Fashionable Blonde, Late-Twenties
To murder time, one last dime
drops poison in social media pages.
Reach out and bend the covers back
to break the spine for once that day
a sweet ramble someone you'd not dreamed
of peeling apples for the administrator.
And only partly clad ambling up an oak
calling it the routing anger of a jag.
Split-second glances meaning comment later
warm us to strangers as if arrows small
as needles popped the barks. We are wanting
and find slow slow pulses hardly known
to catalogue a far-off nerd with a warm hand.
This is too close to the bone so fade to white.
Outlets reach peak flow the last plastic
organizers tumble from roof racks.
Nourishment wrapped in cellophane rots.
Grateful eyes live longer in welcome hosts.
And penned and passed over again
for an unseen throng an everyman extra
gets credit for doing the sensible thing
and putting the trained cat out, changing the mood,
and the house lights, gas, come up.
T y l e r F l y n n D o r h o l t
from Let Me Leave it Here
to move & see from that which is temporary & private
They say it’s going to get a little better / Spring is time
itself / the touch and go only turns into a docking / I
was eager for the nets to go up / the cut directly
between the eyes / bleeding onward.
Some creeks lead into Indian burial grounds / to
highway rest areas / which lead to bees in soda cans /
I am led to where pigeons are sitting down / a sign of
dogged invectives paraphrased by flight / total style of
squaring you into visions into how small the morning
room is / how cold of a decision was made when / a
body did not speak did not / like hers / from cottons
pluck.
We made it all out in a field / I had a preference for
cinematic references / the historic occasion of frogs
dropping in magnolias / the late charges.
And little rows glow now / it gets a little better in
Spring / no wonder as to how a lantern splashes the
jacket mittens the pier / I was out last night and late /
I mean it was raining and never warm.
to move & see from that which is temporary & private
They say it’s going to get a little worse / the curse is that
nobody wants to say networking / but that is what this is
/ the position a body takes in knowing death was it / the
nose-running season / neighbors continuously building
things.
Merlot in the mouth / I have to stop using the things I
know belly buttons are a terrible disconnect / throwing
up is general / bubble baths drew great attention toward
/ sticking a toe in the Jacuzzi holes / the rush of
something keening.
Ears pierced at twelve habit of / building ramps out of
mud / stealing lighters and blowing them up / in a
bullhead’s belly the rattle of a bike over the bridge the
portion of loud-mouthing / minimal in the morning /
laying there on the ice crippling slits of wind-turned
bone.
On the arm laid out the fish house I.V. / minnows
cryptic but resplendent / the multiple uses for
something luminous / and it gets a little worse belts are
lost / eyebrows slink below the eyes / and creep into the
bones / cheeks and the bone position / the neck took in
the face taking face taken.
to move & see from that which is temporary & private
They say it’s going to get a little worse / conditions
darken / the urban body is compromised / death is
sureness / sea and forest the same.
And how I drastically reimagine / my youth as one
complicated / by setting / the setting of snake skin /
settling on the lake / the geography of overhearing.
The dock that wants in on the cabin / the woman was in
the hold a mountain / the man a road / arms around
backs / in walking make wings / night swimming
enlightens.
Progressing always with new cracks / at the glance ice
sheets kicked / off buildings / the sky is not scraped / it
is conducted / she dismantled the frame.
Legs are collected close / many spaces in between / how
I spoke slowly through midnight / the failure to sleep /
streetlight lowering / breaking the window of the hotel
bending / unreach they say unreach.
D e b r a h M o r k u n
from PINGALA.
2.
lavender buds sent over
on the ferry
each year, we in this prison lot
sell our beads
to the captains of
the train
that goes over the border
a bushel of prisoners’
fingertips
sold to the men
who drive
the trains
3.
i’ve got your
haystack
standing next to
the armory
beezlebub
your pink city
4.
we are shining, and I can’t see beyond the city, by-ways
we are shining with tickets to the steamship
we are a shining place name, where the river is the ocean is the desert is the sea and the city where his antlers poke through
shining in the lobster town, torched-out glances
to see fire we went to the local reproduction of the holocaust
home-made replica, sewn by our mothers in the back lot
of the churches, motley firmament
they swore they were shining when mother left them for the birds to feast upon,
when they were gobbled up by the birds in their harvest
and the nest, of course, where the children were left after birth
they left their clothes, their infant clothes, and swore like a cocoon
they would find them once they gingerly removed their sacred cloaks
standing bare before the bruised children of the isle
who have come to keep the surf a hand-washed ornament
5.
invisible. reef thorns dawn.
we drove hammers. we moved
across the country
and the toads
and the flag-fishers:
cenotaphs, carry us
carry us, soldiers
carry us into the backroom of the harem yard where the girls are counting figs
carry us cenotaphs, for the mercy of the prison guard comes later than our grandmothers spooning one cup of desert sand into the last tartar’s pot
carry us down the back road and closer to the ferris wheel, where our brothers stand making sense of circular motions, ginger wings
6.
visible.
in the halls of saints
we piled sword
upon sword
and kept fighting
kept our two-selves
split, one in the background
and one of us the cenotaph –
a putrid shell of a shanty town
flag-fishers, the flags of generic
heaven, plaques celebrating
the last man standing
7.
second deviation. continuation in the direction of the first impulse
toward water. resulting stamina
again, the second deviation. the standard way to understand the cyclops as he pulls out his ruler to measure the sun
before the first impulse. the cyclone lane jammed with post-war lilacs
again, the second deviation. city commerce. in the backyard of the lumber field we create a cannon so large we cramp/camp in playing fields shielding time historical
weather reports no longer make sense eight years after you hear them
8.
I heard them singing to the sea / I saw them collecting their eyes from the parlor mat so they could make out the apparitions of the children on the ferry boat more clearly
I saw them give themselves over to the fallen churches / I heard them singing the names of their children to the shrines where they left their babies unguarded
I saw them pewter-like / they were carved. fossil fuels. steam of metal factories
I saw them break / a thousand people stood upright against the tenement building, my heart pounds as the usher removes my father from this book of history and puts him in the used car lot, grieving
They fell apart / they gutter-sniped the stone throne like interlopers ready to get in between the news and the honey jars of this singing sea
No more golden arrows to sell them / no more children like this on the beach
9.
Wilderness, path of access
to the south, we see
silver eagles
over the hills, we see
her golden skirts
this is explicit: whomsoever
shall bronze
the demi-gods
will blank-out
righteously
10.
O Human Activity on this moral plane.
Blood-vessel. there is
a tradition of
eternity, there is
a tradition of hoisting
two broken souls
into the sky
to see if they still bare
resemblance
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