INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Laszlo Slomovits
Alan Britt
Tolu Ogunlesi
Paul B. Roth
Gerald Clark
Dike Okoro
Jerry Blanton
Felino Soriano
Joanie Freeman
Steve Barfield
Shuta Crum
Running Cub
Odimegwn Onwumere
Duane Locke
Chris Lord
Fred Wolven
Nona Giorgadze
Bobby Steve Baker
Brandon S. Ray
satnrose
Serena Trome
Paul Handley
Kanev Peycho
George Moore
R. Jay Slais
Carol Smallwood
This is the last ode.
The one that measures time
in increments of dissipating matter
curled up like the nth dimension
so small that we cannot hear
or see or taste or feel of be
anywhere without it
and yet it passes through us
and is gone. This is the ode
to energy, the ghost in the breakdown
of machines, the song that vibrates
like a string, and set suns on
warped edges. This is the dream
of an ode, memory after
the incident of apocalyptic nature
when no one is there to
remember. This is the last ode
in the series of sleepers' whispers.
The synchronization of breath
the recombinant code
that sets all odes in motion.
ON A CERTAIN NIGHT IN ROME
then this girl, unknown
on a particular piazza,
the cafe ready to pull its tables in
across the hollow echoes
of marble, chiascuro backwashes
of memory and light,
a newspaper on a glass counter,
a demitasse with muddy ring,
a tortured avenue
through the center of the brain,
all and everything that
cannot be retained.
Why do we dredge a river
that bleeds into a bay?
A word like a skiff sliding
across the time, ripples
on the decayed foundations
and is forgotten.
The bifurcation of the life
into lives, into livings and not
so alive, and the mark
on the wall that pointed
the other way, into
this distended future, one
we retrieve by cutting it
free of the past. And wht
would it have cost to say hey.
George Moore, Lyons, Colorado