October - Poem 3

Message in a Bottle / Katerina Canyon

The ocean drums
while I dive beneath the waves.
tar sticks between my water-logged
wrinkly toes.

Peeling away the bubblegum stickiness
purifies me. It leaves the bottom
of my feet white—a contrast to the brown
that starts above the arch.

These sun dwindled beyond horizon.
My legs never tired of running through the surf.
My feet sucked more tar to its heels,
and I peeled it away—
all clean again.

I scream as loud as I want
because I can never
out scream the ocean.

My hair wild—
inspired by sand dunes;
electrified by the sunset.

My body tangles in kelp.
It slows me down,
but it does not keep me
from dry sand.

My father tilts his head
and empties his wine bottle.
He tosses it to me.

I inset the note:

“Help!”

and I throw my screams

Into the waves.

For A Dekays Brown Snake At Wildcat Den  /  Sam Calhoun

It's your church 
here in the rain,

here in the middle
of the road, double 

lined, gold flaking
into rivulets in worn

asphalt, paths wanting
to be as old as these hills,

mouth agape, rushing
with the wind, 

preaching silence,
my cold ears 

listening to every 
word not spoken, 

knowing how 
the sermon goes,

how the world 
will offer a branch,

how the world
will rope you 

into the grass,
thick with weeds,

yours to decide
as the cars rush by,

to stay here, in
unfamiliar woods,

the slow way 
back to light,

or cast back 
into the road, 

how each way is right,
but maybe wrong,

how the sun always
finds a way home.

Movie Where a Man Falls In Love   /  at/om

I watch a lot of movies nowadays 
where two men fall in love and 
run away together, and I think about 
all the boys I dated in school before 
I could bring myself to admit that I was one. 

I wonder if they knew, 
would they have run away with me? 
Would they have run from me? 

My body was never really molded to 
host what I would become, but I doubt 
any of those boys loved me for my body. 
I doubt any of those boys loved me at all. 
I don’t think they could, they didn’t know me.

The difference is now I am loved by 
my own transformation, I am loved 
as the ever changing seasons. I am bounding 
like Icarus into the sunset at the end of my own 
movie where a man fell in love with himself.

the coffee after the coffee  /  Ellen Ferguson

Let’s drink a cup of coffee
After that cup of coffee;
unlike other coffee near Christopher Street
in September,
the coffee we shared was cold.

Let’s drink a different coffee
After that coffee across the avenue;
unlike that cup of coffee
Another coffee would be delicious.

Whenever coffee comes by these days,
Casting a cold eye, frothing at the mouth,
We pay it no mind, until it bangs on the door,
The metal door,
And we let it in            hesitating less             over time

Bed  /  Brett Gastineau

There is no such thing as a bed without history, but
a bed where sleeplessness becomes obsession,
a bed marked by shadows and teeth,
a bed housed in the fire of evening,
a bed heavy with happiness that almost makes you believe it
is our natural state,
a bed where morning’s cruel light falls,
a bed that does not forget rogue tenderness or whispers of
caution,
a bed that can not answer what we should do with the
darkness between us,
a bed where the body may learn to forgive but never the
hunger that hands are capable of,
a bed where the dreams of yesterdays come in blue,
a bed where you can remember yourself but lose words,
a bed that reminds you that you have lived a life you did
not choose
are the beds I have known.

A moment  /  Nicoletta LaMarca-Sacco

A moment too late
Traffic’s screech

A moment too soon
Watched pot

A moment away
Boils over, spilling

A moment in time
The last story you told me

A moment of remembrance
Your constant, welcome presence

Dear G**  /  H.T. Reynolds

when I was in seventh grade,
I wanted to be a witch—

I asked Jeeves for a spell book
but he said he couldn’t suffer
a witch to live

so I unplugged his throat,
buried his motherboard in salt,
arranged his keys into an array
and prayed over the blood of
another descending

day before Claude found me
around a conclave submitting
our invocations like an inquiry
carved out in the proper tongue

his most regal voice proclaiming
I will be a swift witness against
the sorcerers, this cloak, this thumb
snuffing out their pulse like embers

but why should gold be reserved
for death, for the brittle bones
of kings and tyrants spelling out

the destination of living,
to toil among the immobile
collecting happiness like diseases,
like the lacquered casket swapping
a dream for an empty space

but what’s the point
in feeding your kid
a shit sandwich
before cake

Tart of Acid Rising /  Gabriel Phillips

So hungry, I went to bed and dreamt of eating
instead of dreaming. I couldn’t even carry

the apple to bed. It hung on the highest limb.
My birthing spot. Which was in August,

is still the highest limb. Therefore, we should
hang the paint on monkey grass, restless

without a glance of color. Without
that brings more without. The sound of trees

escapes my mouth, I open my mouth
and a dream steps out. Coughing. With three thumbs,

two hands. Even though it
is busy there is room for more hair,

which is horizontal. It cries like a canary.
The birdcage cages only the kudzu.

Somewhere, along the garden,
the flavors of lemon echoes.

And then I think of stomping them.
And then I think of liberating the garden.