Tag: Poetry

Lauren Ireland: Two Poem Rituals for Haunted Passages

Ritual for Becoming Unborn Become a secretthat turns itself inside outbecome the remotest part of yourselfbecome a snake that becomes a dark boatslicing through black brackish waterrich mud, crackling dying thingsquiet dead things.The moon cuts the water andthat’s where you fit your bodyinto the groove of cold light.The water closes around you.The water reflects nothing.Think…
Haunted Passages: “Samples from a Wichita Mountains Ontology,” a hybrid haunting by Seth Copeland

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. One summer a man fell while rappelling in the Narrows//We could hear him moan up on a cliff/his friends bright puffy squirrels circling//A helicopter lifted him out to Oklahoma City//We never heard what his next ascent was / purple horsemint flanks the lakesidetower\\we gargoyle the boulders keepingpeople…
Bonnie Billet: “Dr Larry Nassar,” a poem

when you stand up to speakyou’re suckerpunchedtold you don’tunderstand ‘the nuanced difference between sexual assaultand an appropriate medical procedure’ he pawed your small girl titshe twisted his fingers into your cunt indifferencegave the doctor all the time he needed wearing 4 pairs of underwearand having your mother in the office doesn’t stop the abuse…
“call the necromancer”: Four Poems by Leia Penina Wilson for Haunted Passages

volta OR these snapdragon flower seed pods look like little skulls because it’s all imagination & horror baby can youimagine i liketo lookat myself& i never become obsessed— would youlike to lookat my gothic: all the virgin eyes in the worldare made of glass —horror —horror —horror accumulated knowledge abstract: to eroticwith pleasure to ward…
“our next nominee should remember”: A Six-Poem Suite by Michael Chang

our next nominee should remember ne-VAD-daalways moisturizehand sanitizer is your friendand clorox, for when you get to the oval officecheck what city you’re innever wrestle with pigs. you both get dirty and the pig likes it.look out for numero unoavoid kitchenslose the friends from back homefail oftenthe opposite of armor is curiosityif you do the…
“The Man Who Smells of Lemons”: A Poem from the Future by Jude Marr

The man who smells of lemons dresses in brown and red. He stands, still as a bleeding tree, in a city parking lot. Every day he plants himself in his usual spot, where tarmac cracks radiate outward from his feet, like roots. Every day he stands and waits for a white-hot sun to crack open…
Three Verses from the Vortex(t): Poetry from the Future by Jake Syersak

Identity Vortex [ “Can Rivers Be People Too? : Inside the Radical Movement to Gain Rights for Ecosystems—and Save the Environment.” (THE NEW REPUBLIC: May. 9. 2018) ] that this garden should fall may it fall less the weight of a sigh & more the weight of scythes the rivers read the lips of…
“Ghost Tree,” a concrete visual poem by Tara Campbell for Haunted Passages

InMuirWoodsthere areredwood treesthat are completelywhite, lacking allchlorophyll. They’re called ghost trees, and theydot the forest, ivory boughsglowing against a backgroundof cinnamon bark and pine-needle green.Because they don’t have chlorophyll these albino trees aren’t able tophotosynthesize. They can’t producetheir own food, relying instead on nutrientsfrom the redwoods around them, absorbed throughan underground network of roots and…
Bad Survivalist: Five Plane Crashes by Chance Dibben

The Disappeared The airliner is not at the bottom of the ocean. Nor is it blown to bits over a 1000-mile radius of uninhabited water. No one’s dead. Hostage situation perhaps, the airliner flown to a dark forest, stored for a ransom that never comes. Maybe the passengers are contented. Maybe they will reappear in…