August - Poem 19
Cantor’s Theorem / Zoe Berger
when it began / no one thought to start counting / as in every set of numbers / contained another set of numbers / and so on / forever / didn’t matter if no one was looking / no / nobody kept scor
Monaco / Ashley Howell
There’s a street in Denver
That reminds me of the East
Big trees and old houses
I dream of living in each house
Each life a new chapter of mind
And heart I listen to a song:
“It’s nice to hear your voice again”
“I like the way you say my name”
I wonder if the me in these houses
Also loved you
There Will Be Time to Murder and Create / Dahhee Chung
after T.S. Elliot
I take my vacations in spoonfuls each day,
Change the scope of eternity into one single day.
Eight to one, four days a week,
An episode can last up to an hour, each one.
Limit sleep to six hours tops,
Break fast at noon,
White rice measured two cups in the cooker,
Washed three times,
Five minutes to rest, thirty minutes cooked,
Ten minutes rest while
Watering plants with the rice water.
Delicately scoop and fold the rice fluffy, not molded to the pot, but
Steaming hot topped with a silky six minute egg.
Sustenance in eight spoonfuls.
The remaining minutes sitting,
scrolling, scrolling, scrolling
Knowing time is up and flying out the door,
“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons”
Stirring the cup though it’s black through and through.
Otherwise go stir crazy knowing
I’ll never have time
Past the hours of the afternoon,
Each day a repetition of alarm clocks and snooze,
Hit one, two, three times.
Vacation done.
New Release / Ash Kemp
The perfect book just came out for you today!
Thrilling, compelling, heart-pounding, page-turning,{insert line skip} word mix
wait
is this ai?
Practical Magic / Hannah Page
For Shevy
They say love isn’t easy.
But it’s like falling
asleep – waking up to your
warm breath on my
cheek, your overgrown
tousle spread on your pillow
beside me at 3am and I
rustle up string
cheese with the hot sauce
you keep in ready supply for
me or a strawberry muffin
dunked in the milk
your post-surgery body is
just allowed to carry now
that you picked up on
sale from CVS when you
filled my medications with
yours today. And I never
sent for you (that’s the best
part, truly). The spells,
the anchors I cast over lovers
past – They dissolved
when your downturned
eyes pinned me beneath
that subway sign and all the
fated tragedies became
my favorite stories.
Humane Society / PF Potvin
eyes enter the room
white lab with blue
pouncing
chomping
balls to bits then.
snap
back into hallways another.
show begins with black.
& white shivers
each trial a match.
stick like a test.
struck hard.
on the box.
as you peer through
your mask your shakes your head
in my hands
That which feeds us / Janette Schafer
We like to believe
we make our own food—
but what if independence
is a failure to notice
what feeds us?
We are heterophytes dining on
photographs, memories,
conversations.
Basking in light from
forests, myths,
lovers, scripture.
Poems pretending
to rise unannounced.
A HAIKU / Kate Thuma
Ear to my eyelid,
I can see what you’re hearing —
synesthesia loop.
