The New Moon

by Jennifer Skogen 

The moon's memory has come down tonight.
Tops of trees—mountains—tremble
for it is not the moon who has walked
the long, crackling stair, leaving an
ocher space among constellations
where a dead moon has burned her image.

We who sleep below shiver
as the moon's ghost passes through
each of us in turn. We dream of dark tides
of endless wanting for a color we cannot name;
for a taste we've never tasted;
for the touch of a hand that never existed
in this world. We sleep, yet when we wake
we, all of us, feel the ache of what is missing.

What the memory of the moon took from us
to birth a new moon.
Our desires growing in the sky each night
like a giant's eye
slowly opening.

For All the Sleep I’m Ode

by Seth Kronick 

O Sleep.
O tranquil slumber.

What is sleep but an execution of the day,
laying one’s consciousness to rest below the guillotine.

O rest.
O forgetfulness.

Seek me where I lay, and find me
where I am buried beneath the cottonous clouds.

O death.
O life.

A poet knows you are the same;
a bard sings, in hope, the difference.

NightfoG

by Ulyses Razo  

the leaf on this tree 
is a hand outstretched
showing me how it shakes.

the poem a paradox.
how can we say what can’t be said.

something’s not right about what I’m doing, but I’m still doing it—

a combine with its lights on 
harvesting in the middle of the night.

a man walks down the street & reaches 
for his head, as if to make sure 
it’s still there.

do you know?
i’m an animal
whose hunger is greater than its heart.

solution: the wrong lines
in the right order.

be subtle, Kinsella said,
as though not there.

i want our minds to touch
the way our hearts used to.

Snake Poem

by Liz DeGregorio 

for Stephanie

I feel the snake rising out of my throat,
scales tickling my uvula 
the tail twirls inside my esophagus.

I sit in the dark theater,
hearing the urban legend about the snake crawling 
into the baby's mouth,
a horrible surprise for any babysitter (or mother).

But I can only feel it the other way,
landing us back on another horror movie trope:
The call is coming from inside the house.

I want it out, out, out – damn snake.
It moves inside me, bruising my throat as 
I writhe in pain – some might even call my movements
serpentine. 

It's gathering up every bad feeling –
Every undefinable sorrow or guilt that I could only 
describe to therapists as:
"I feel bad."

The snake needs a spin on the feelings wheel, I think.
Is the snake: 
jealous discouraged embarrassed insecure hostile full of rage?
Am I?

I fight the urge to gnash my teeth,
the tail is coming up now, and
I try to hold my tongue down like I'm at 
the strictest dentist.

The snake uncoils onto the floor with a wet thump.
As it slips off, I smile, and I think 
one day, maybe today,
Maybe it could be a good day. 

Ghosts

by Liz DeGregorio 

There are ghosts in the walls of this house.
They don't pay my rent 
(don't let anyone rent space in your head for free).

They show up as leaks, 
yellowed water creeping down the walls
(cleanliness is next to godliness).

I'm unsure what to do, what to say,
My photographs rearrange themselves
(a picture is worth a thousand words).

There are cold spots here I pass through,
and I know it's one of the dead, particularly strong
(cold hands, warm heart).

There's no way to stop them:
I burn sage, I pour salt, I light candles
(the cure for anything is salt: sweat, tears or the sea).

Gradually, I give up.
I let them come through the walls
  (the only real failure is giving up).

I sit quietly and welcome them because now, 
I know it's my only option if I want to stay
(God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change).

Disintegration

by V.C. McCabe

The dead rose up before me, to keep me company, 
a ghost dance of fallow friendship. 
Heathens rarely get invited to dinner here. 
We're expected to display gratitude for any crumb 
fallen from the faithful table. Inquisition is 
in season, a party planned by patriarchy. 
The castle keep is full tonight. 
The dungeon offers a more panoramic view. 
What lovely monsters we are, shunned for our dark splendor. 
Paradise's fruit rots beneath our dirty boots. 
Serpents slither, my Medusa hair. 
I crawl, belly on floor, begging for 
some more, some morsel of mercy. 
Trust is a broken gate. Gatekeepers gaslight all complaints.  
Zookeepers don't unlock their cages. 
Under this floorboard, I curl up & imagine 
I see stars where dim light creeps in cracks. 
It takes a village to burn a witch. 
Blood on their hands like sour wine. 

A Zombie Rises

by Devon Neal 

When you’re dead, you can’t enjoy
cat-tongues of grass lapping coarse on your bare heels.

Dead eyes can’t see lights melting into smears
on the rain-speckled windshield of a thrumming car,

or islands of snow, peppered and glassy,
shrinking into the mud of the front lawn.

The dead don’t inhale the crisp fog of cigarette smoke
haunting conversations with friends in orange-lit parking lots

or the first singe of a busy furnace
waking with a clatter on a mid-Autumn evening.

There are no dinners for the dead, no butter-soaked eggs,
no smoke and shiver of a sip of bourbon.

The soundtrack of old songs goes unheard;
the dead don’t feel the chill of that song once forgotten for years.

The dead are ignorant of the slice of wind,
raindrops pattering the top of your head.

Take it from me—when you’re dead, gone is the sound
of a creaking gate in wind, of shoes in gravel,

the steel scent of rain, a touch of heat on a car’s hood,
the sound of a tree’s applause, the taste of

brains.

A Female Athlete

by Taylor Franson-Thiel  

If Death were a woman most days she’d look like me.
Which is to say, this body has been sculpted—
chiseled, to take breath from chest. Skull in hand.

Even when it feels like raven sharp talons
Ripping tissue and tendon from bone.
No part of death is an accident, all hazard, purpose and 

calamity. Bearing the stamina to leverage life—to 
take it. Death loves her job, is proud to see blue vein
grow from pale skin. Legs hewn from earth moving weight

others are afraid of. The gravity of choosing the hardness
of body and mind. Scythe in hand, smile on face.
Flirting with ghosts and laughing with pain Like they 

used to be lovers. Taking memories and building coffins.
Grateful for coarseness and calluses from grip and grit.
Biting tongue until blood reminds even death wants to 

feel alive. Sweating over rusted shovel, back bending 
taunt over willing gravel, turning flesh to muscle to weapon
As she buries those weak and ready. Forming herself as a

harbinger of quickened pulse—a final notice for last words.
Every one a fever worship pleading for more time.
Death does not submit. She has spent too long

shaping herself into strength To go around handing out 
Mercy. I am not mercy. I am sinew and forged muscle,
Carving tombstones with bare fingers. Handcrafted and 

chosen to be a body capable of carrying souls through the
veil. If death were a woman, most days she’d look like me
Which is to say, if you hear me knock, do not open the door.

Mountain Road at Night

by Ed Brickell

People say it’s best to avoid the news these days,
But when I’m driving alone at night,
Even voices repeating catastrophe
Are still voices, still something comforting 
In the droning disembodied voice of a stranger,
Saying terrible things. 

I’m moving through a country
Where people feel differently about deer—
On many a night someone driving like me 
Then a furred flash on asphalt, leap and a bound,
Car swerve screaming - 
Death as no clever conspiracy,
Just dark confusion with a hammering heart.

The tribes of trees my car lights cannot see beyond:
Under the rolling tires a network of woody nerves
Reaching under the asphalt, sharing 
Food, water, warnings, a vast, tangled intelligence,
Hiding and feeding the deer without knowing.

The familiar madness flows through my speakers,
No deciphered code from the roots beneath.
Fear, born of the hope I’ll know the next bend 
But I don’t, yet the hope continues, is necessary
For the fear to break surface, stretch in bloom -
The hope and the killing of hope, over and over,
Compost turning itself in damp darkness,
All my phobias sharpening like claws,
Beyond this brave human lullaby
Into the wild-eyed snorting, leaping into night.

The Bittersweet Incense of Their Shadowed Evenings

by Ed Brickell

All is not well, is never well
At Twicetold Abbey.

The wind, a lost child on the moor.
The moon, a patriarch’s death mask.

There seems to be 
A wolf howling competition.

Lady Abernathy writhes in her sheets,
Bedroom dark with foreshadows.

She long ago decided on
A sort of permanent hysteria.

Her husband tears his hair out again
At his bloodstained desk.

Each person’s dialogue hangs in the air,
Awaiting the fated punctuation.

A handsome stranger keeps arriving,
Vowing to rescue them all.

He disappears over and over
In the same nightly hailstorm.

And yet, repeatedly trapped in their rooms,
Each smiles in secret:

To know exactly how it will all happen,
How it will all end.

Small-Scale Crimes

by Carla Sarett 

April morning, silver-lit, Molly rises 
in an ivory night-gown and smiling,
flings a doll down the stairs.  
A fleck of pink paint falls off 
its wooden cheek, and its 
scarlet petticoat is flattened.
The spirits did this, my daughter says
and happily leads me to chase 
the tree ghosts in our garden. 
The air’s chill, she won’t feel it.    
Later, she will notice defects
in Turkish carpets and tablecloths.  
She’ll calculate the price of lace.
Too soon, her house will be ordinary.
From inside, her sister cries out: 
her favorite doll’s stolen away.  
Molly’s eyes cloud over, 
guarding her small-scale crimes; 
it’s impossible to know them all.
The ghosts have left. We go inside.
She springs up the stairs, holding
her sister’s doll by its head—the one 
the careless spirits broke.

The Fear Inside

by Melinda Giordano 

When I was a child
With a wayward imagination
Coltish, unbroken
Graceless and wild;
When I let myself ride
So long ago
That foolish beauty
I became aware
That there was a monster
Living beneath my bed.
Every night I heard it:
The nocturnal breathing
Yawning and stretching
Within its fierce concealment.
I did not know where it hid during the day
Perhaps it buried itself
Like a rodent
Vole-like
Digging tunnels and nests
With claws like scimitars
And its primeval muscles.
Or if it hid beneath the ocean
It could be pulled to shore
By the hook of the moon’s tides
In its lip,
As it sought solace
In the grottos of my room.
I worried about the phantasms:
About the living rhythms
That I heard beneath the mattress
Loud in my ears,
Like the voice of blood
Thrilling through the body,
Like my heart
That echoed through the blankets.
For I had been listening to my heart;
And I had been frightened by my heart.

At the Story’s End

by Faith Allington 

Through the plastic window 
of the airplane, the land emerges 
slowly to sight  
like an old sea bed. 

You are not a child anymore 
but the green squares of farmland 
remind you of the patched blanket 
you used to hide under  

reading with a flashlight, 
lids dragging, 
just one more page, 
yawning and slipping 
out of your grasp  

as you realized 
that once again you would not 
be taken to fairyland  

no matter how well  
you searched for entrances  
in the briar rose,  

or how earnestly you begged 
to be plucked from the dark.