what he sees when he dreams

by Donna Kathryn Kelly

his parents
long dead
floating above the hardwood floors
his faraway self
on hands and knees
in the wet grass
feeling around for a fishing lure
a river-tavern thief
with a mouthful
of toilet-valve parts
trying to answer questions
and a cop
who went into Gacy’s crawl space
choking on grim stories
grinning like a mad clown

The Tower

by Lee Garratt

I slept. And in the dark
I came to a strange land.
Low brown hills, long and lonely

stretched under a grey sky. No bird,
nor tree, nor flower grew.
All quiet, not a sound, not even

the wind that surely blew.
All the same.
Except for this. Far, far away,

a hill like all the others,
desolate and bleak.
Yet here, a lone tower rises.

Only this,
in all the waste, shows sign of man.
And, as a I slept, I knew its fell purpose.

I woke then and could scarce believe
the blue skies and green hills of my home.
But, all that day and the next, my mind

walked in the shadow of that land.
And, for the weeks that followed,
when I closed my eyes,

it was the tower I saw
as if waiting for me.
And though it was but a dream

my heart is not so sure.
And even now
I am not the same.

A horror holds me.

I live as if in a dream,
and it is the night
that is real to me.

Vessel

by Ernest Hilbert

In May the yard’s in sun till two,
When light is cut to shade
By tall horse-chestnuts to the west,
Lording light up the hill,
Their cones of flower like candles.

We modernized a single wing
And left the rest to ruin,
Put in a swimming pool, AC,
A core of luxury
Amid the crumbling halls of stone.

I swim an hour and I’m a king
In sun and made of sun.
Back inside, books are stacked so high
In their crazy ziggurats
They nearly reach the ceiling now.

*

The ruined abbey rises to the north,
A harp cast in ash.
Through it, the moon lays lattices
Of silver across the lawn.
I sip a glass and watch them near.

Someone famous lived here long ago.
I don’t know who it was
He also liked to swim and write,
I think, but no one knows
What happened to him in the end.

*

I’ve found so many relics here,
Some hard to classify.
So, you ask, what’s this skull I’ve got?
I’ve drunk from it for years
And years. I found it right out back.

I don’t know whose it is, a man’s,
An ape’s? I know one thing.
It keeps my gin so cold my mind
At evensong will soar
To Neptune’s blue and frozen storms.

Waking on My Birthday Beside Death Himself

by Ernest Hilbert

There’s no weather here. We know that now.
But why did we believe there might have been?

I always thought I’d love to have an office
Of my own, but now I’ve come to see

It’s just a tomb. Why so many elegies?
Because they’re what I like to hear.

And who are you again? I owe you?
Maybe. It might be. I probably do.  

The flow of commerce, what’s it worth?
A billion pairs of yoga pants below the earth. 

I plucked the golden violet. I plucked
The rooster’s tail. I plucked my tunes

On lutes it took me far too long to tune.
One night I rhymed the word rhyme with itself.

An unmiraculous Lenten malaise gives way
Today to some kind of paschal promise.  

I lean on a Florida strangler fig
And smoke, gazing up at the coconut tree.

I’ll be a star in Hades, shine from Atlantis.
We’re waiting and no one wants to miss this. 

To be entombed in a gold sarcophagus,
My final wish, with room for both of us.  

Those who cannot control the way they feel—
That’s a lot maybe not we’ll see let’s all hum 

A happy song let’s all make a better deal—
Try to control everything around them. 

There’s no convenient time to fall apart.
There’s never time to slow until you stop.  

My son desires the Pokémon gold pack.
He dreams of it at night. I walk to Spice 

Finch, Mediterranean fare, for lunch
With a disgraced museum director   

Who turns up dressed as always in black.
It’s boarded up, graffiti scrawled for all to see

MY HEART’S THE HORROR OF YOUR EMPTY SEA.

I watch the rain from an alien shore.

The storm-lashed lagoon is small as a bathtub
This year. Reach in and pull up some sea junk,

A wrack of dynasties dissolved from the earth,
Gold spoils seeping from hulls of rusted scows.

The spiral stair winds up to a storm of light.
Manure soaks the chilly air. At least it’s spring.

You’re so far out you don’t know where you are.
For all you know, much worse may lie in wait.

You’re on your way. I know you’re drawing near.
What’ve I been doing all this time? Not much.

My song is one long song, and it’s out of key,
But what choruses—come on. Come sing with me.

Like an Exhausted Cat

by Mario Duarte

In the doorway, the farmer died. Finally,
The dog could peel off his skin suit.
Behold, he was really a cat.

The cat pawed the farmer’s still face,
Scratching his blue cheeks bloody,
But the eyes were closed barn doors.

The farmer’s wife scurried to him,
Screaming, “Harold, you fool, wake up!”
She shook him wiping bloodied hands

On the dog suit and cried. Tenderly, she
Rubbed the craters of her deceased
Husband’s palms, short was his life line.

Out of an ocean of waving corn
Their children heard her snapping tears,
Swam closer, eyes glistening gems.

They could see something bloody,
Like a dangling skinned animal,
In mother’s hands, their hearts pistons.

When they reached the house,
They did not recognize the skin
Suit as anything, nor detect any sign

Of their father, now more a statue
In their eyes than an actual man.
Yet one girl picked up the cat

Stroked his soft, fuzzy head, and said,
“You smell like our dog, Pedro!”
And the cat finally felt seen.

For the first time, ever, it purred.
Together the family buried
The dog suit in the family plot

Beside father under the shade
Of an ancient oak that mostly
The cat visited, enjoying pissing

On the grave of the horrible dog suit
It had worn for so very long
Just because the farmer hated cats,

Said he hated their flying fur,
Claws digging into his tights,
Their rank urination but now

Nothing bothered him, or his wife,
Or his children, who now
Laughed at the sight of the cat

Sleeping on the farmer’s grave.
With his curled-up body, tail
United, the cat purred endlessly

Like the waves of corn, while the wind
Blasted the pollen over everything,
And time never felt hungrier.

As I Lay Me Down To Sleep

by John Grey

They’re sometimes seen,
sometimes merely
yearning to be seen,
white wisps of face and hand,
fault lines in darkness,
a wobble in a shadow’s shape,
all strange,
but none of them a stranger,
fed through the holes in years gone by,
begging focus from a tired eye.

Double Rhapsody

by Simon MacCulloch

Where the shadows doubled
At that spot between street lamps
I left you behind me
But couldn’t forget that
You were still ahead of me
With nothing between but light
—but light. With nothing between
You were still ahead of me
But couldn’t forget that
I left you behind me
At that spot between street lamps
Where the shadows doubled.