Larissa Shmailo, Sheila E. Murphy, Grant Grays, Peter Ganick, Felino A. Soriano, Terry Folz
Aging (Fibonacci Sequence: 0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89)
by Larissa Shmailo
none
1(one)
1(ego)
two (I)
I 2 threeeeeeeeee
5 school, ruled 2 three
hate math 8/5 parents split divisor 3 & me
bad teen luck black eight-in-hole no triskaidekaphobe call five ringtones call.
now lucky legal drink I’m old-gold-rolled ready-to-hold I stick on 13 so play vingt-et-un tonight with me.
still 13 in the soul getting old with a balding working luck. 34 is dirty floor & still behind, & the legal drink now a double, hit me hit me & no! not prime.
Fivefive, now fivefive, finally loving the mother/other/the 21-still-angry child & forgiving the serious careerist, so knowing, so sure, so 34. Take our bald inner luck as it comes, let’s leave the dirty floor alone (why are these aches okay ,why are these losses, these losses, so possible to endure?) Five years plus ½ century, decoding while eroding, ofivefive.
89 am I 8 or 9? The young ones are 34, my children 55. There are 13 pills in the morning, 13 pills at night. But what, exactly what might happen next? A working soul and another season’s turn, what else did I ever have? This word is greater than my numbers, the poésie of my self. I take the garbage out and set it on the street with joy. Tell me your secrets: I am the one who truly wants to know. Lemniscate, I move toward ∞ today.
from Syllabix
by Sheila E. Murphy
1/
Suppose my name were Phyllida.
I might endure a sleight of hand-
some, norm for norm.
Pronunciation trimmed
by fact check.
Optimist that I am,
few condone
my long shot view:
American exceptionalism
functioning as headrest
on the snow.
2/
Remorse amid the fluency, all petals gracing factual mistakes.
The litmus is not gravy.
Any-old said the furtive guard.
Arrest, said the canary.
Approach, said Mother.
Then the variegated community offered up its suffering,
that we might live with gloves.
As any venture corresponds to what we numb.
With firelight at our feet.
Recovering from a stroll, a walkway, stones.
3/
Tantamount recurs. Now your job is
to find source code. Teach, easily
pronounced incomplete,
one of the tight ends in the game.
Her somewhat oval helmet,
and the houselights up to nothing.
A playwright has dissolved into
a housefly, labeled in relation to wingspan.
Tentatively obvious disclosure when the captioned
in an exercise, turns up spry deceit.
Probably about ten minutes, maybe eight,
remaining in the quarter.
Sleep is a testament to feeling good apart from
acts of will.
4/
Sugar's effete, yes? Planted moments vibrate
into pleasure (happy placement). Gem
stones, white tones, optimistic free zones.
How is weather anyone's wild posse?
The franking privilege goes to everyone
but Frank. Why not pause and calculate
a formula for funding fairly?
Every day is laden with thick prose
designed to be informative.
Nobody knows "nuttin'," on account
of discipline's being (sorely) zilch.
It's time for names to surface,
that they might be held harmless
by those of us who still believe
in memory.
stash/substrate
by Grant Grays
Ten years ago
I would hide
What I can't show today
"Canadian Tuxedo" or Chekhov Meets Iggy Pop in a Bar
Even after a few whiskeys ICould see the mixture of anger, desperation
And libido in his eyes.
"Why can't you be nice to me?" he
Demanded, putting his hand on
My shoulder, in a flirtatious
Attempt to curtail his aggression.
He was rude to my wife,
And I almost clocked him,
But the karaoke announcer called my name.
(Besides, he wasn't worth spending the night in jail over.)
Never mind that I was there to
Sing and drink cheap booze—
Even were I remotely interested,
His acid-washed denim
On acid-washed denim
Was not a flattering look.
combustion—
by Peter Ganick
not word-lion—
another canoe
on short vivace—
such penance of genetic alliance—
as the left-winged elitist simplicity
reacts to a vassel
the cordilleras call
“multiplexed coinciding middles”—
the nth collector faces a midas effect—
such networks are enablers
are the earliest cipher—
a enrichment peeve is
incertitude is a melody
canoes to whose siphon is a caisson—
shows peerage for nuance
while stories are exchanged—
as going the stint for the everlasting mode—
a snare arpeggiates delay
so the referral
to each threnody is haptic—
elsewise to evening whereins
now eternal crosshairs have gone overboard—
such interests are ever vainglory
that jingoism canes into glacial portions
recoiled inner—
the reasons for the real forum is
lucidity of preeminence—
salutations wield one’s protection—
the natural inclemency otherwise
preens to cleanse a hovering
to initialize networks—
or else as values
dent gondolas past the palazzo
a small utensil of
reflectivity spawns an igloo psalmody—
modifications were inactivity
presumes are still warded are
politesse is the seized gram
a placebo calls it inertia—
some glen [often happiness] waits
while intentions the [least formal]
are contrastive melees rendered zones
of cluster inversely paradise—
each somatic reaction reaches the
settee notifies huddling aprille
strands nit oases & oreilles
notebooking surfaces else
premonitions act radiance elsewise
& locutions within—
satraps inversely of the signature
some motto for intentions helas—
of hold this moving body
by Felino A. Soriano
Tremble
Hair
in the
widened rima oris (perished leaves-amalgamation, wind)
an opening cultivates acts of subliminal absences:
the mother eloped example two-tone apposition of
mischief | deceit
bargain life existential roaming
when of the child’s pluralized asking becomes a hoping fathom wrapped within
mouthed
resounding whispers,
distant though near the forehead of realized
dissatisfaction.
Ruminative
in the growth sans—
of—
genetic warmth the burden
realized, explored
whitened as to compliment
shadow of hoarding
angles’ hankered rise
the corporeal expansion now
vertical expedition
talkative
experience
gathering upon an age’s numerical disorder
surround the font of inward prose:
memory you’ve begun to articulate and
console
pivot of yes then ornamental physiognomy
Supposition
Fortune delinquent this
rhetorical
cultivation leaving
hand, multiplying unheard hardened
spatial interiors the
home of visualized inexistence
multiplies future’s composed knowledge of flashes encompasses
moment’s momentum of mine this
ambulatory nonfiction.
The Lightness That Is Nat King Cole
by Terry Folz
I ride on white light
The shine that is Nat King
Cole.
Atop the crest, it goes with
a bounce.
A wide bright air that
swings.
Brimming cool, yet fraught
with depth.
Full, richly sad.
Touched with hint, and dark
at the corners.
At the edge of bop.
Easy but true.
Fully true.
Without answer or apology.
A phrasing that is so. Just so.
And without equal.
For the moment,nothing
else will do.
Sinatra can take a walk.
The Beatles?
No.
Not today.
In answer I will say,give
me Nat King Cole.
Fully true. Without answer.
Nat Cole.
Essence of cool.
Image of being, and all
it entails.
Mustache White. Sideburns Whiter
by Terry Folz
My mustache is whiter
than my teeth,
jagged and yellow.
Sideburns whiter than
the mustache.
It's fifty degrees the
day after Thanksgiving.
Makes the winter shorter.
Long nights remain.
Two burners on my stove
are out.
Gas reeks throughout the
apartment.
Gravied potatoes and cranberries
day old clump in the stomach.
Acid converts to sugar.
Superstar predator coaches
hunt their prize.
Tyrant gods of Egypt
push ahead slaughter.
Heavy black boots pressed
on rebel necks.
World soccer.
Skyrocket price of bacon.
Flabby-dumb movie poster models.
Radio engine throb-chatters.
Bob and weave electric words.
Blue tired eyes.
Thick tired phlegm chokes green, stuck
in the neck.
Long nights remain.
Heavy sleep blankets.
Books.
And thimbles of brandy.
I crowd heavy close to
words in the basement brain.
Blue gas reeks.
Rent paid overdue three weeks.
Breakfast news.
Pancakes fed.
Poets dead in bed.
Riddle Kings led
to slaughter.
Images behind the wall.
I brush the holes in my teeth.
Tylenol back brittle churns.
Ice wire spasms.
Winter weeks remain.
Long nights, dark memories grow.
Gas bleeds blue flames.
Brown cake residue surface.
Mustache white.
Sideburns whiter.