Upstay the course, the wood is vast,
beasts there chitter, in dark amass;
fabrefaction—blade from bone,
amarulence to the thorny throne.
Ramiferous lanes, newly cleaved,
swift through, gather fallen leaves.
And in the clearing, xylem stacked,
by sanguine tongues, the ochre wracked.
Tawny char there howls ablation;
the raze but kindling, for creation.
by Gale Acuff
One day when I’m dead I’ll be dead but ’til
then let’s say I’m alive and so I’ll sin
whether I want to or not and sometimes
I do, it makes life more fun and no one
really gets hurt though I know that my sins
will count up and then count against me and
Heaven when I die and go there to be
judged, which is why I think that Hell will be
a better place for me, there sins count for
more somehow, and so, ma’am, goodbye ’til next
Sunday. And then I left my Sunday School
teacher there behind her desk with her mouth
open like the tomb that Jesus came forth
from–I never said that I don’t believe.
Mr. Acuff’s work has appeared in Ascent, Chiron Review, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Poem, Adirondack Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Florida Review, Slant, Nebo, Arkansas Review, South Dakota Review, and many other journals. He has authored three books of poetry, all from BrickHouse Press: Buffalo Nickel, The Weight of the World, and The Story of My Lives.
by Gale Acuff
I want to go to Heaven when I die
to tell God and Jesus how full of it
they are, scheming up history that we
ordinary folks here on Earth never
made but the Father and the Son claim we did,
free will it’s called, I confess I’ve got some,
but not enough to choose to end the Cause
of it all and everything else I might
be leaving out out of ignorance or
stupidity or both but then again
God read minds better than Santa Claus so
He surely knows what I’ve been thinking and
think now and will think–Hell, He knows it all
just like He planned it. Let my people go
Mr. Acuff’s work has appeared in Ascent, Chiron Review, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Poem, Adirondack Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Florida Review, Slant, Nebo, Arkansas Review, South Dakota Review, and many other journals. He has authored three books of poetry, all from BrickHouse Press: Buffalo Nickel, The Weight of the World, and The Story of My Lives.
by Carl Scharwath
You are alone
I am ashamed
We walk among the lavender, wilting in the heat of our passion. Wisteria releases tears of dew drops on a lover’s pillow encased in short-lived memories. Tattered vulnerabilities, crushed velvet revelations filter through the flower field. This is the territory of asbestos laced pollen. The martyred pathway sinful and filled with misty lies under the shadows while the world is changing.
The end of the beginning
Is the beginning of the end
Carl Scharwath, has appeared globally with 150+ journals selecting his poetry, short stories, interviews, essays, plays or art photography (His photography was featured on the cover of 6 journals.) Two poetry books ‘Journey To Become Forgotten’ (Kind of a Hurricane Press) and ‘Abandoned’ (ScarsTv) have been published. His first photography book was recently published by Praxis. Carl is the art editor for Minute Magazine, poetry editor for TL Publishing Group, a competitive runner and 2nd degree black- belt in Taekwondo.
Thrilling cut, through meekness, strike,
to fracture earth and skin alike.
Malformed, craven, sickly clique,
upon them horrors, savage wreak;
til blood is strewn across the stars,
precursor to their fate once ours.
Sat the abyss,
the blue marble shines,
stony step of
a steep stair to climb.
Red god and lover,
first to be tread,
that decrepit Jove’s laurels,
may, thorough, be shred.
Reaved the caduceus,
sandals unwinged,
progeny freed
from Ops’ consort’s rings.
Thereafter, the father,
by sickle undone,
reposing before,
the horse master’s run.
Wrest be the horn,
from old Ploutos’ gloom,
that death may die,
in Aevum’s bloom.
Dead men speak from living maws,
as cordyceps, rampant, affixing jaws.
Gnashing flesh of self and kin,
rending veins for phantom sin.
Their funhouse mirror reflects no face,
no eyes to chart the charnel waste.
Yet, from the blind, keen cheers abound,
libations for the hungry ground.
As the last lichling tumbles in,
a eulogy from vast Cybele’s skin:
Wormrotted husks neither excel nor flee;
the apex of equitable unity.
by John Grey
Snow falls on snow.
And, in between,
I trudge.
Yes it’s beautiful
but it chills my bones.
It decorates.
It beautifies.
But my fingers freeze
despite my gloves.
I am on my way
to a place
that will offer me
radiance and discomfort
in equal abundance.
The weather forecaster
got it right.
Now it’s down to
the people forecaster.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Sin Fronteras, Dalhousie Review and Qwerty with work upcoming in Plainsongs, Willard and Maple and Connecticut River Review.
by John Grey
It’s blanched white tunnels
that tube-worms dig,
swirling around in complex patterns
like the trail of a child’s finger in cake frosting.
Or the emerald gleam of glowworms.
Or tiny scarlet and blue-jeweled crabs.
The world offers small
as much as it does large.
A lizard stares up at me from beneath a rock.
Its eyes are two black pinheads.
There’s a drowsy buzz
where dragonflies feed.
And blenny darters skirt
the limits of a pool,
feasting on midges.
Even the leaves for grass are in on the miniature.
A cricket pivots on one.
A second is free but blustered.
I am on my knees,
immersed in a world.
strong in detail
but thin on drama.
But then a bobolink
claims an unwitting fly.
I spoke too soon.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Sin Fronteras, Dalhousie Review and Qwerty with work upcoming in Plainsongs, Willard and Maple and Connecticut River Review.
Shattered stones, the waters bound
Hushed be wind, the roots unwound
Ichor bled, from sea and sky
From space and earth, til wet was shy
On that fire, supped and filled
And with the remnants, pyres trilled
From the carcass, dark and glassed
A fleshspun spire by hunger massed.
Sculpted stone to rend the meal
It the mind to bake the wheel
Culinary engines whirl and pur
No captive to the hungry fur
Thence to mine the tynes of night
To cast the seeds up to the heights
The barren plane, hushed and vast
The arrow flies and must be passed
The stage of contest, endless night
The dark undone in curtains flight
Threads of thought, like gold out-spun
Threads of thought, to braid the sun
To sculpt the stars, like wetted clay
To hold the seasons, one must pay
Coinage flowing—slick and red
Mintage of the psyche bled
Algid silence, from the tomb
Pulsing notes, as from a womb
Ruptured by the plenum’s ire
Thrumming fierce as serpent’s fire
It to be expunged—consumed
Reforged amidst the death of doom
/////Logos Literature 