Oxford, 1870

“It’s too late to correct it,” said the Red Queen: “when you’ve once said a thing, that fixes it, and you must take the consequences.”
–Through the Looking-Glass

Neither he nor she says a thing.  She’s sitting, posed.  And he’s telling
The seconds that make light and silver nitrate into something not painting,

Not sight.  Into a kind of world.  Into a kind of double of this world, only
Where color becomes lost, where her pale lavender day-dress will become gray, Continue reading “James McCormick: Lewis Carroll’s Last Photograph of Alice” →

Loper, I yawn from above
in patterns of uncoiling heat.
Over stupa or quarry, Ilium

or delirium, my image proceeds
through every blind drawn tight
to keep me out. Heraclitus,

conjurer of change, laid low
by fever, dressed himself
in cow-dung and knelt Continue reading “Anurak Saelaow: What the Sun Said” →

The old man with
Ashen colored hair, like
Foam atop ocean waves,
Weary face, and tanned hands,
Wrinkled by work and sun,
Sits on a misshapen ocean tossed
Tree limb observing long past
Memories, and envisioning
Ghosts of the vanishing past
Echoing atop the oceans waves
Crashing onto the shore. Continue reading “Jim Piatt: Like the Never-Ending Tide” →

We left rosettes in fire clay
before we were naked,
exhaling each other.
One flesh nation coupling,

our blood of blood
and gristle of gristle,
shanks fat with marrow,
whisper-breathing,
lungs full of chattering dark. Continue reading “Richard Manly Heiman: In Carne Una” →

Fierce blasts unleash
from the west to batter
yellowing ash leaves

Predatory gusts snatch
at reluctant clingers
wrenching them loose

to skitter and whirl
to clutter sidewalks
and streets with ochre

Flaxen elm leaves sprint
eastward in a foot race
to no apparent finish line Continue reading “Glen Sorestad: Winds of October” →

What if the blood-thirsty thorns,
driving deep dripping crevices into the crown,
the rusted iron stakes pulverizing arteries
with a one-two-three pounding,
and the dull steel sword plunging
into the bony-caged heart
were too late
to save
one
from sacrificing
another lamb
to the dark? Continue reading “Jules Gates: The Light” →

The man who invented negative numbers
always felt he lacked everything.
As a child, he had no pet guppies,

while his best friend had ten.
His dog could walk minus one leg,
while everybody else’s walked on four. He played Continue reading “Eva Skrande: The Man Who Invented Negative Numbers” →

Small bird who bathed
in the blue basin, you
left a slender feather

you didn’t need to fly
as you dipped striped
head, fluttered wings Continue reading “Nels Hanson: Sacrifice” →

We do not know for sure the big and small.
We only comprehend the in-between.
Of earth and sky, we think we know it all,
But theorize from what we touch and see.

The galaxies almost too far from sight
Are said to be expanding out through space.
The theories rest upon colors of light
And formulas devised to guess the pace. Continue reading “Bonnie Kennedy: The Big and Small” →

One day, she looked around and realized
That she hadn’t redecorated in years.
Her divorce was still the centerpiece
Gathering dust on her entryway table. Continue reading “Bonnie Kennedy: Housecleaning” →

I always imagine him turning at the door,
looking for all the world
like the star of his own gangsta video,
aiming his gold-plated Glock
straight at my heart. Continue reading “Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue: Teacher Daymare # 254” →