Literary as hell.

Category: Poetry (Page 6 of 20)

“3:07 a.m.”, a poem by Kurt Luchs

Silence so deep you can hear

that moth combing its antennae.

The trees are asleep on their feet, oblivious.

A single leaf yawns, turns over.

At the hint of a breeze the grass

pulls the bedclothes tighter.

I should mention how the moonlight

looks but I can barely keep my eyes open

so instead I’ll say what it sounds like:

like a dining room in a

long-foreclosed mansion where the finest

china has just been laid out on

the finest tablecloth by the

ghost of the late butler

who nodded off while looking

for the spoons.

The secret joy of the hour

is that anything could happen

and nothing ever does.

 


Kurt Luchs has poems published or forthcoming in Into the Void, Triggerfish Critical Review, Right Hand Pointing, Roanoke Review, Grey Sparrow JournalAntiphonEmrys Journal, and The Sun Magazine, among others, and won the 2017 Bermuda Triangle Poetry Prize. He founded the literary humor site TheBigJewel.com, and has written humor for the New Yorker, the Onion and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, as well as writing comedy for television (Politically Incorrect and the Late Late Show) and radio (American Comedy Network). Sagging Meniscus Press recently published his humor collection, It’s Funny Until Someone Loses an Eye (Then It’s Really Funny), which has been nominated for the Thurber Prize for American Humor. His poetry chapbook, One of These Things Is Not Like the Other, is forthcoming. More of his work, both humor and poetry, can be found at kurtluchs.com.

This poem was first published in Fjords Review.

2019 Spring Writing Contest Finalist: “School Bus” by Sara Backer


Sara Backer has two chapbooks: Bicycle Lotus (Left Fork) which won the Turtle Island Poetry Award and Scavenger Hunt (dancing girl press).  A book of poetry, Such Luck, is forthcoming from Flowstone Press. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and has recent or upcoming poems in Qu, Nonbinary Review, Crannóg, Tar River Poetry, Noble/Gas Qrtly, Hawaii Pacific Review, and Gargoyle. Website: sarabacker.com.

Poetry by Darren C. Demaree

POEM FOR KATIE, QUEEN OF OHIO #88

Speak to the cicada.

They have the violent

 

sounds we need

to coal the ridges

 

of Ohio, to set the fires

& watch the state run

 

away from complacency.

The rich will cover

 

their ears, Katie.

The rich will drop

 

their guard.  Take all

that you can.

 

 

 

POEM FOR KATIE, QUEEN OF OHIO #89

I have great hopes

that you will have

 

your mother’s dark

hair.  If you can be her

 

continuing, if you can

be her without

 

all of that goodness

you might just take

 

the unpretty state

of things here

 

& thrive amidst

your revolution.

 

POEM FOR KATIE, QUEEN OF OHIO #90

Dear young lady,

if anybody else

 

addresses you

in this way,

 

you should probably

take their property

 

first, then give

their lilies to the sky,

 

& then burn your name

in their field.

 

Fuck any minimizing

of your ecstatic.

 


Darren C. Demaree is the author of ten poetry collections, most recently “Lady, You Shot Me”, which was published by 8th House Publishing.  He is the recipient of a 2018 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louis Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal.  He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry.  He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.

“Dog Walks Itself,” a poem by Oak Ayling

I’m dreaming
Always
Of my grandparents
My preacher
Of you as a small boy
The nights are days
Of finding you all
In turns
And patterns
Fields and haunts
Unearthing
Old treasures
And smiling
They minister
To the migratory in me
But you look at me
Helpless
As a broken-winged bird
And I’m trying to figure out
How to mend you.

 


Oak Ayling is an English poet whose work, both current & forthcoming, can be found in the Literary Magazines Anti Heroin Chic, From Whispers to Roars, Foxglove Journal, Drunk Monkeys, Memoir Mixtapes & in print anthologies ‘For the Silent’ from Indigo Dreams Publishing & ‘Light Through the Mist’ from author Helen Cox.
Follow her on Twitter @OakAyling and on Instagram @oakayling
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