Category: Poetry
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Five Poems from The Tongue of Narcissus by Jennifer Bullis
Echo’s Letter to Cassandra I can’t say I blame Hera for punishing me with this voicelessness,this accursed repetition. She has run out of ways to punish Zeus except by afflicting those in whom he takes his delights.Take them he does: he does charm, but never asks consent. Leda, Leto, Metis—not one of them told him…
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Poetry: “A Non-Apology” by Katie Chicquette Adams
—for Sarah, “The Lion,” interpreter for American forces in Iraq Look, I’m really sorry there are terrifying people in your hometown who want to kill you because you helped me, that’s some rotten luck, for sure, but I gotta look out for me now. Me and mine, y’know? You’re taking this personally— it’s not…
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Side A Featured Poem: Jonathan May’s “The Night Journey”
(found poem from multiple sources [FBI Guantanamo Bay Inquiry // The Night Journey, Sura 17, The Koran // Department of Defense Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual – 1983]) The purpose of all coercive techniques is to induce psychological regression in the subject by bringing a superior outside force to bear on his will to…
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Three Poems by Heikki Huotari
CONSTITUENTS You are a good god yes you are (what I call love does not exist) so get me some constituents and fast. It’s always all about the U-turn, no? There is no wind, there is no spit. If we were Mars and Venus, exponentially decaying, and if half of us were gone, would we…
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Two Poems by Jennifer Conlon
Menagerie of Sexual Assault Fish have evolved to have four different types of mouth based on their feeding habits. * Disgusting animal. * The four types are terminal, superior, inferior, and protrusible. The 45th man to preside our country has a mouth type somewhere between inferior and protrusible. * I just start kissing them. It’s…
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Poetry: Jeanette Beebe’s “The Pallbearers”
“His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald’s being—you know, shot. That was reported, and nobody talks about it. I mean, what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death? Before the shooting?” —Donald Trump on Fox News, May 2016 As Kennedy was laid to rest in Washington with…
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Three Poems by Jess Smith
COMPLCT Long taught silence, long known loud. I’ve read we’re ripe for revolution. What’s it like (this is what it’s like) to watchthe world navel-split, umbilical and sticky with citrus? We shake hands, each as viscous as the next, each chin dribbled with what we swear we haven’t eaten, or were not finger-fed. Lipstick on…
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Poetry: “Holiday Advisory” by Jude Marr
A Christmas candle is still a candle if you light it any other day. When the power goes out, a candle gives off enough light to let a person feel they still exist. A candle is always dangerous. Strike a match. The smallest spark is potential conflagration. A cigarette can be Christmas if you spray…
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Poetry & Art Sequence: “Big Enough to Step Inside” by Xan Schwartz
Gemini Rising/Poem for Nellie It was your birthday and Iknew you and I didn’t know you. Your skin was glowinglike a cloud You were surviving to the tune of light beer to the tune of raspberries and a couple of cows to the tune of Joan of Arc’s head tilt You were singing loudly…
