Stars fall against the murk  of the night sky, a rain of fireflies,  dying in mid-flight,  hurtling, heralding,  upon gentle heads blow, cruel truths. Nothing lasts. Nothing lasts.  Listen to the harmony, that inaudible peal (Ong), that sets heavenly bodies to spin,  amidst everchanging kaleidoscopes of the Void’s sacred geometries, pulling, tugging at Fate, with the waxing and waning  of single points of light. Nothing lasts.  Nothing lasts. We,  the kings and…

We started it. We crashed a crunchof metal and gadgetsinto their dustno wonder they retaliatedno wonderthey killed us allin fourteen slow minutesfifteen years laterwhen our paths crossedagain. ____________________________________________________________ Mark Gilbert writes poetry and prose and in between. His work may be found in Atlas Poetica, Abyss & Apex, Narrow Road…

Quite round bellyshining in the moonlight,the woman lays,eyes on the ceiling,her mind a highway.She is alone.Where does he roam?Why isn’t he home? A kick from inside,no pain,and yet she weeps.Time is a bother.It is as the moon,very still,very quiet,circular. In waiting, the night leaves her.She is alone.Where does he roam?Why isn’t…

          I am not able to hush these thoughts           or hush a jagged smile between shivering lips           a joke, a chuckle I feed on when I think of you & dad’s best friend           when I was six years old that urgency swept in—looking back           fifteen years later, ignorant bliss as smoke…

You kept time beads in a drawerthat you showed methe first time we met.You pulled it openand there they were:smooth beads nearlyvibrating, encased in the velvetarms of the drawerlike so many millionsof porcelain eyes. Amidst a handful of morninglight through the windowyou placed one on my bare chestand I felt the day…

The beach is aminiature of the timelinethat unfurls like a classroom chart. Roll your cycle along the shore:history is adjacent and deep,like the sea. The wind, kind enough to graze you with its eternal fingers. The wave, perfected over centuries,to die at your feet. ____________________________________________________________ Aditya Shankar is an Indian poet,…

A house, a dog, a couch, two cats: onefor each arm, another to hide from me.Lear’s wife, of course, nowhere to be found,but daughters here to pillage the old fool:his half-eaten memoir, nibbled on betweenbrandy bites, is the wedding cabernetgathering dust on the fridge. Everydream is about Grandpa rearrangingfurniture as…

Knowing all about easing soil aside          But wanting only water Tree roots tend toward rivers         Tip right past what must seem like just more stone All those hard stubborn things  That they couldn’t carry, keep, or protect          Shards, buckles, rusted blades         Plates, cups, combs, coins Once deeply desired, once needed…

let’s take a picture through every season. not just summer             fall                         winter                                     spring but the seasons             of us. the good the bad                         the beautiful                         the ugly through every drought and every storm— to see   how far we’ve come and how far we can go. ____________________________________________________________ Taryn Dixon is a graduate student…

Dressed in only the shroudof my nakedness,you reach for meas we lie in the bow of night,and you tell meof summeras a teenagerwhen you’d count the hourswith cigarette butts you didn’t even have to sneak because no onewas ever home to see and when you were brave enoughto slink out like…