Volume 8, Issue 1

Philbrook - Elizabeth Ketrick

 --"We are each of us angels with only one wing and we can only
fly by embracing one another" - Luciano de Crescenzo--

Creative Circus

421 errr Victims to Date

the wreck

you
are a car crash i can’t stop staring at
an enrapt and tangled
mash and mangle of metal
curving in places at once devastating and divine
i’m the passenger at the moment of impact
rippled and shockwaved
bones shuddered and splayed upon the concrete
the tenderest meat you will ever savor
as canines compress on concave of neck
shivers tracing torment down my spine
the lasting sting of the lash’s lateral lines
soap rinsing slowly over
every exquisite rip of back
recycling every second of the wreck
discipling me penitent
head pounding windshield
cracked and shattered
pulse punching holes
chassis rattled to bolts
spinning over and over and over
smashed splat against a canyon floor
crumpled and crumbling
wondering if i am dead
and i can’t tell
if the half drunk light
swimming into the room
is a streetlamp
or the smolder of a wreck
echoing fire up sandstone walls

what does it matter
at 4:36 in the morning
when a phantom speaker
spins paradise circus
playing dark fantasies
in the half light

your breath
dancing
mischievous sprite
a pirouetting bullet in the night
that demure assassin of sleep
steady hand taking aim
my dreams plié and relevé
an improvised échappé
muzzle flash
and vanishing smoke
hang low over your soft lift

your scent
like resin
penetrates where only breath has ever been
digs in
makes me an offering
a sacrifice
a wafer aching to melt at touch of tongue
take me in
consecrate this mess of man before you
convert this heathen prayer of wanton skin
lick every shadow its own ungodly sin
turn every muscle into madness
unleash chaos on every synapse
make me boon to your avatar

be soulslinger
wring me clean
and render me senseless
separate this wreck from its flesh
i am not afraid
martyr my life for your amusement
pierce these palms with pens
twist my tongue a tourniquet
to stop the poems bleeding from my lungs
until the gates become unhinged
and singe this world a burial beat
i am ready
my love if you must
my life is yours i swear it
just kiss me

Ian R. Dougherty

 

firestarter

because i give birth to silence

because i think
and because i feel

because i know fear

because i know bliss

because i have seen
the birth of stars super novas
meteorites

because i am inspired

because i ignite

because i lied

because i love the light

J.A. Spahr-Summers


                                                  Trap

life is just life - zzbaggins