INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Alan Britt
Shutta Crum
Jumoke Verissimo
Las Slomovits
Richard Kurtz
Lyn Lifshin
Duane Locke
Serena Wilcox
Jerry Blanton
Dami Ajayi
Odimegwu Onwumere
Joanie Freeman
Dike Okoro
Amit Parmessur
Paul B. Roth
Divya Rajan
Kim Keith
Fred Wolven
C. Derick Vann
Al Ortolani
Steve Barfield
Jim Davis
Chris Lord
Jennifer Burd
Will Swanson
Isabel Kestner
Lisa Schmidt
Running Cub
Tolu Ogunlesi
It isn't the truck grinding out its disdain
in the half-light hallway to dawn
or the backdoor cricket itching his lusty limb again
that unhinges me from my dreams.
Percussions of the night find their rightful place in dreams,
shaking chains from the other side like Marley.
The trespass that jogs me at night is welcome--
a footfall from the boy who slips lightly between us
smooth as a card under Christmas ribbon,
the boy with a foot sure to push my ribs,
treading sideways into my soul to let me know
even in the deepest of reveries or across the widest Lethe
that wherever I step he endeavors to follow.
BENEATH THE ROCK
Count back and recall:
Do you know where you are?
Back to what-ifs,
as if the early star fielding your wish
were less than a fiction,
less than Venus laughing at your misplaced rapture,
as if rainbows blazed the way to treasures
and flowers hid their bloom in the face of silly truths.
Step back and follow the routes leading us like orphans
through leafy conduits far removed from golden bricks
or the weak-kneed caprice of a stuffed head-piece.
Lift the rock and see what's there--
legs across our midnights,
tunnels through earth to Eden where a newborn snake
lies coiled in a tight bracelet of perfection.
Reach out and touch the thing that clutches the heart,
for too soon you'll awake and forget the sound of leaves
grounded beneath your step--
the decaying carpet that has led you so far from stars and rainbows,
far from the glimmering city of green
diminishing now like a dream in a distance.
Richard Kurtz, San Hsia, Taiwan