Issuu

THESE DAYS I CAN ONLY EVER SEE YOU iN NIGHTMARES IN D FLOA WIT DOW OR F OR T AGA IT IS AND THA

YOU VISIT ME DRAPED IN JEWELS, A CROWN OF TWIGS UPON YOUR HEAD THIN LAYERS OF SKIN THAT HANG LOOSELY AGANIST YOUR RIBS DARK EYES A HEAD THAT SPINS

THE WATCHER OF SINS

THE RULER OF BIRDS

‘27’

by Blu Torres

Not quite black

Not quite brown

But somewhere special where they meet

I watched your eyes travel

I tracked the movement of your lips

You said ‘I don’t think I’ll make it to 27’

Tracing the vowels and consonants

I knew exactly what you meant

Two birds, sitting close together

On a misshapen, jagged branch

That was simply not strong enough

On the harsh

Dawning of wintertide

The only thing pulling us closer

Was always the relentless wind

Nature in her cruel humor

Formed wreaths beneath us

Wreaths of blue oak

And sandbar willows

Just one more week

You would have made it with me

Today I sit in my grief

Starting at a cake of nails

With 27 candles looking back at me

What I've Lost - K. Wells (@c.k.wells)

Today, I lost my wings.

This time, I cannot blame a predator

This time, the wind is not blocking my passage in the sky

This time, there is not some force beyond me that is to blame

This time, it was me

I, a denizen of the heavens am left flightless

I am left sunk, drowning in the sorrows of the land

I am left to sustain my life where I’ve never truly been

This time, at fault for my own demise

Not for what’s out to get me

But for my wants

For my envy of the plane I’ve chosen not to inhabit

I am left without my wings.

Prey To The Sky - Jacob Burgess

The Red Tailed Hawk is back.

Brooding on Top of the Valero Sign overlooking Highway 99, Where John Steinbeck and Jack Kerouac Traveled to Write about The Valley, Looking for Her next Meal. She looks At me with Curious zeal And I at Her with curious Longing. To fly where Ever you’d like And not give A damn about What’s behind.

Or to know

Vast American Fields full of Spring grass And lavender Stalks in Spring sprout.

Maybe she Visited Yosemite Before the snows Started falling.

Maybe she Hunted The crevices Of Pinnacles And remembers me Climbing from Caves and Switchbacks.

A Winged Rat - Michael Steiner

I am standing on Pangaea. I am on Pangaea before the Great Split of Land. Something has shifted below me from below however. I think that it is maybe a great serpent. I attest, indeed, that it is The Great Serpent from down below. It shall coil around this landmass and splinter it, choke the very Earth itself.

The Great Serpent winds its way around the world. It has fearsome fangs and a very tight gripthe fear that squeezes my heart almost every day. The feeling of fear that the rat feels as it is devoured, that the world feels as it is cracked and splintered and dispersed around the ocean, and that the ocean feels as it is divided into seven.

I am standing on a sliver of earth, and, quite now, something ugly like a winged rat falls into my hand. I can feel its ventricles pumping for sweet, dear life, and there is remorse for something I did a long time ago. Something I cannot remember any more. It wasn’t even me, maybe, but holding this flying thing in my hand, I remember what life used to be like, and I wonder if we weren’t better off yesterday or some day or some day before that.

There is an encroaching edge of darkness on everything, so that even the sun that shines through the atmosphere is surrounded by a small radiation. Like sleep, when there is no dreaming, like what death might be.

But ho!

What is this whirlwind, whirlpool, whack-a-mole type shit? Why am I like this whatever-I-am? Why is there so much hurricane-type-something Wracking around in my brain? I am tired of living my life like watching a sports game.

Let me see the moonlight as it sets on the horizon. Let me breathe in the harsh, sooty air. Let me lose track of every single thing. Let me see the magma seething To be vomited out like bile.

Something like a single tear trapped in amber. Something like a scrap of dynamite. Holding too-loud earphones like syringes. Crying out somewhere abandoned So nobody quite hears the sound Of discontentment in the Midst of a fragile day. Bear with me, please,

For just a moment.