07. Editors' choice

Including: Suchoon Mo + Rupert M Loydell + Tamara Fulcher + Lynn Strongin + Ashley Welch + Mike Burch + Jervis Martin + Paul Curtis + Paul Tanner + Paul Davidson + Frances LeMoine + Darlene Logan + Josef Lesser + Carol Fenlon + Wolf Lawson + Bill Yarrow + J. J. Steinfeld + Jesse Freeman + William Taylor Jr + Brian Blackwell + Kalium Edwards + Colleen Totz + Ursula Hurley + Dee McMahon + Harry R. Wilkens + Matt Fallaize + Melanie Faith

Flowers for Chopin

(Pere La Chaise Cemetery, Paris)

My eyes see where thousands do not

Linger awhile on the fallen leaves

October yellow amongst the blood red

And the houses of tombs of Famille

Resting and subsiding.

The pathways twist with marble veins

Grayed beneath clouds descending lightly

On white maps and white hands gripping

That circumference of peace

Weighed and sold on passing shoulders.

Victor Noir lies brassy

Fallen flat on a back above turf and stone

From an island in the verdigris of rain

Shine genitals smiling from touches

Protected and paled from bloodless lips.

A nose smells what thousands cannot

Searchers glide past the full boned earth

Clasping a single rose down a muddy aisle

Breathing the mist of scented air to

Fill a shop of flowers for Chopin.

by Jervis Martin

River Ouse

River Ouse(im Virginia Woolf)

No arsenic two stones

in equal

pockets. Buttons fastened

The edge

squelches, right

foot down, slipping

toes first

left breaks

the surface

Ankles deep

separating

cold

Water, fast

push forward

chest

soaking the

Shoulders, lower

thin lips part

last breath and

goodbye

Head under whirling

thoughts of

Classics and Bloomsbury

Drifting in

silence… No

ripples but

hours

by Ashley Welch

I.

Now

leave

me

I

go

my

way

alone

I

must

go

out

for

I

have

work

in

hand

and

insects

waiting

for

me

to

talk

busi-

ness

BOSCH’S LAST WORDS

by Bill Yarrow

II.

Now, leave

me. I

go my

way alone.

I must

go out

for I

have work

in hand

and insects

waiting for

me to

talk

III.

Now

LEAVE

me

I go my way

ALONE

I must go

OUT

for I have

WORK

in hand and insects

WAITING

for me to talk

BUSINESS.

To a Friend on the Occasion

of Her 3rd Suicide Attempt

Another trip to the hospital

and a new set of scars

and somewhere beneath

the latest tattoos

I can still see you.

The world is full

of windows to jump out of

and oceans to drown in

and you as well as anyone

know

that death is easy.

Anywhere in America

you can buy it on credit

at the corner store

a free box of bullets

with every purchase.

Death is easy,

you can have it

when you want it.

They advertise it on the TV

they sell it on the street

they give it away for free

24 hours a day.

Death is cheap and all your friends have

bought it

but your friends have always lacked

imagination.

by William Taylor JR

Sun battles fog: fog wins

An etcher has been abroad

this night,

burning ferns into windows.

Pigeons swarm around a slurry

of rice and gravy.

He moves to avoid me,

I move to avoid him:

we touch.

Red cars line the gutter,

one with smashed lights,

paisley rabbit poised on dashboard.

The blue of distant mountains

brought close on laminated

buds.

by Ursula Hurley

Autumnal Equinox 2005

Like an opera—

Mozart’s Figaro in lighter moments,

Verdi’s Otello in darker—

  at times our marriage was.

At best, my words could be an aria,

at worst, sharp staccato.

Seventeen years since our Santa Fe marriage,

three since your death.

  What remains is

a lingering melody –

no words -- simply

the final chord.

by Darlene Logan

language in morphine

To-day brought to-morrows sorrow,

raw news chafed in the telling

marinates the language in morphine.

Often the unexpected like the night

exposed when clouds at fifty paces

settle a dispute falls in a flash.

In the falling morphine speaks in tongues

to-morrow pain will translate in the telling.

by Josef Lesser