Night Time

by Fred Muratori

Night has no middle-of. Raise the paper shade

of day and there it is always, enveloping

horizons, galaxies, nebulae — infinite god

of finite darknesses: joists, desk drawers,

basement stairs, a forehead's shadowed crease,

abandoned chambers aired through autopsy.

Wake in night as in a thin unearthly atmosphere:

gasping, senses grudgingly emergent,

imagined crescent moon of tooth marks fading

from our arms, a spectral hand withdrawing

from our faces, plaster dust sifting upward

to a ceiling crack resealing like a wound in sand.

Nothing in the knowledge of our whereabouts —

not the clock's electric numbers nor the dim hulk

of antique dresser — flushes night from where it stands

astraddle every home and hovel in the hemisphere.

We can turn aside in churlish denial, play solitaire

with a deck of toast, erase the mind we are when mindful.

But stratagems are nothing more than fireflies,

carpet sparks. Night breathes like a patient,

unrequited bedmate. Inhaling hours, exhaling years.

Dead Horse

by Bart Edleman

Sister tells me, once again,

She doesn’t wish to beat

The dead horse in the barn.

But when I find the creature,

He seems very much alive,

Waiting for his morning meal—

No stranger to a heap of hunger.

I feed him, as best I can.

Having thought he expired,

I’ve come rather unprepared,

My offering meager, indeed.

Yet his appetite is hearty,

And I’m secretly pleased,

Knowing he’d done nothing wrong

To warrant the finality

Sister had in mind for him.

Now I must break the news.

Purchase her a new saddle.

Hide the whip she keeps

At the foot of her bed.

No Flowers Bloom For Narcissus

by Karina DaSilva

Sister tells me, once again,

She doesn’t wish to beat

The dead horse in the barn.

you will whisper to the machine and press your ear to cold steel, and you will wait for the scuttle of animals, for the snuffling of a coyote, and you will wait for the howl of wind, for the cackling of a crow, and you will wait for the thrush of rain, the sound of breath, and you will hear nothing but the blood in your ears, the pressure in your skull, and you will find comfort in your madness until circuitry becomes a symphony and the metallic becomes a melody composing its cacophony, and your echo whispers back a strange and terrible music.

you will try to kill that too.

alone and without reflection.

The Myth

by Karina DaSilva

I peel the paint you left upon my skull

And stain the stone with angry reds that smear

A mark upon forgotten shades of fear—

Those faded hands that knock upon my walls.

I peel the paint and think myself a man

The way a desert thinks itself a shore.

And empty houses dream of shades and ghosts

Born of wood and not of flesh and bone.

I peel the paint and think myself a myth

The way the sun thinks itself alone

And shivers in the din of dark and dead

And burns its pain to keep the nothing warm.

I peel the paint and think myself a maze

As I wade through seas of empty space

And pass by sleeping corpses made of stone

That ley their lines in eternal tombs.

I peel the paint and think myself alive

The way we claim the pit and call it home.

And distant signals stain and paint the vast

With handprints forging dreams the shades of you.

I peel the paint you left upon my skull

And stain the stone with glass and ink that smears

The shape of sound spilling down my hall—

And colors left forgotten in my skull.

A

by Lance Mazimanian

Black-hot shower,

rainbow sparkling custard.

Lightspeed daggers

and curious hedge...

with berries

of

platinum

and glass.

Nightscape flames

will do no

harm.

And...

Though skies may

fall

in section,

and girders long and glittery boil,

she keeps her garden her gait her world

her eyes

a harbor

and a journey

in the same.

Daylight returns, and the ocean ahead

she knows.

On the dash of her car, a cup of coffee.

Ladies’ Night at the Gala of the Dead

by Emily Brink

I’m telling you, there are stars in hell.

For Ladies’ Night, Hades

gave Persephone the sky,

but just for one night.

What a lovely soiree,

comets like tinsel streamers

streaking hell’s ceiling

Backwards telescope

where the nebulas swim.

The girls are trading strange new phrases,

like “ride or die”. Persephone can’t

exactly say that. In fact, she can only

speak dead languages—

her throat is a sarcophagus

a mummy stuffed

with the lost poems of Sappho.

She shows her friends the orchards,

pomegranates hanging like red udders.

I’m warning you, there is so much desire in hell.

Blind Homer wants to touch

her sinuous friends. The orchards of Hades

are watered by Lethe.

She was gathering violets, swag

when the earthquake ravished her

She must die—

Again and again,

a cat on a Roomba.

She has even forgotten her friends’ names

But she will remember them

in April and May

when the sky, ride or die

remembers her with rain.

St. Catherine Transforms into a She-Wolf

by Emily Brink

“The flesh is incompatible with charity: orgasm transforms the saint into a wolf.”
—E.M Cioran

wolf stripped

eyes rolled backward

she sings lucifericiously

wolf wings volting gray-blue

strange beast

sweat-damp bristles

flood unfastened

blasting vessel for trances

petals woods stampeding

air and mouth wheel

soaring

turns god nobody

scuffles with jesus

sulfurous clitoris

hooligan

hammer again

Insomnias

by Emily Brink

insomnias visit me

in the bloodshot altitudes

where acrobats summon

dead philosophers.

come forth, prostitutes without a sidewalk!

my gunshot eyes see only

blanks, and the silence is

a kind of broken music.

the night deepens

until the treacle of

rude light crosses the trenches.

I find someone has rearranged the furniture

and poured me

a cup of diesel, evil twin

of last night’s

absinthe binge.

underneath my eyes

Saturn rings.

To Whom the Reflection Sees

by Mason Montieth

Tell me what you see,

When you spy on a mirror?

Is the holy image clearer,

Or does the horror roam free?

When waters shine a blurry face,

To whom do you make your case?

When you see those eyes,

Will you watch as it dries?

Emergent Properties

by Hette Phillips

In the clearing outside our hamlet I would make my big mistake.

The glory of that morning light set this in motion.

Touched the girl’s braided hair, the chestnuts in her apron.

Stirred me up with such a strange emotion.

I thought I’d take advantage of the situation. Not rape,

just overconfidence. At least, no way of knowing.

She cut me off before we saw where it was going.

Throat mute, artery slit, arresting any breath I’d take

Couldn’t make a whimper or a moan.

One moment I was swaggering son and rake.

Then suddenly I'm meat and she's alone.

I woke up later under branches, a makeshift grave, a partial cloak of loam.

I knew I’d changed. I didn't rat her out, or track her down.

In truth I knew I now was on my own.

/

A ship is rich of pickings, short of temper; primed to spread a rumour like an ember. From hand to hand suspicion leaps and sidles. Fear and talk among the men cannot be stifled. As I went like a tide through flesh and rind and rifled those ripe and bloody gulleys pulsing skinfuls. Ransack, rawsuck, awestruck, couldn't believe my luck. I'll admit I went overboard. The captain said a mass; a man not to be trifled. When they nailed me in the coffin they had to build it board by board, when all my lost lads got just a winding sheet, and when with five men heave-hoed me into the deep I was glutted fit to live for weeks and weeks.

/

Spacious, palatial, a real find.

Bags of character. One of a kind!

A steal, well below the market price.

Act now or you'll regret it later.

Don't ask what happened to the previous realtor.

Put the smell of blood out of your mind.

/

– I’ve got to leave the building by the 4th.

Ignoring forlorn four-torn-cornered posters, the mattress on the floor, no coasters. The blankets tacked for curtains, stone cold radiator. No hot plate, no table, no refrigerator. The several sturdy locks upon the door.

– You’ve got the coke?

– Hand me that mirror off the chest of drawers.

In it your eyes widen, unsure,

– What –

You start to say, but don’t say anymore.

/

This is Tesco's carpark.

Yes, I know. It

didn’t used to be. At least it’s dark.

Is your name really Vlad?

Listen, do you want it sucked or not?

Your blood, I mean. Silently I add.

/

A lonely rock with wind that's sighing through it

Whistle that outlived the breath that blew it

Portal from the world with no end to it

Definitive rendition of alone.

Condensed to barest bedrock of existing

Parasite inert; carnivorous lichen

Scum of this ruined earth’s inflicting

Deaf to death's impetus; resisting

Shapeshifting koan.

In ice, in peat, some stub of hunger stirring

Awaiting a new victim’s lush unfurling

To get my hooks into, my spore, my burr in

Acceptance is the medium I work in:

Wherever I lay my trap that's my home.

Barbarism Behind Branches
during Rocco and his Brothers

by Joseph House

The bell has rung, Simone.

You yearn to be Rocco. A part

of you has fled through a black

pearl pupil. Your obsidian stare.

A strong jab countered by your other

eye caught in the ring between two beams

of moonlight.

The branch shadow. Simone, the branch

shadow. The growing fracture

of your face. A beaten, broken

heart falls to the mat to start

the count. Now you may act

on instinct.

You are hurt. The brother takes the ten count.

Simone, you are hurt. A monster gets up off the mat.

You Got Snow On Your Boots
during Fargo

by Joseph House

To try and step from enough makes

clicks like dice off a shit brick wall

or the spin of an ammo chamber.

A few pounds of pressure and now

you are cold. The life of Sysco micro-

wave dinners, gold touch-to-turn-on

lamps, family pictures on

white doilies echoes off-

camera in the voice of your

Son. Where is mom?

Is she safe? Moisture

off the boots confess

to degrade the sheen

of hardwood homes.

So you don’t

have to look

at yourself.

Ungrateful of

the life you

had that is

now behind

you.

Where

you

walk

will

leave

tracks.

The Big Reveal

by Amanda Conover

gold-leafed tarot cards locked

in formation, overturned one by one

on the unforgiving carpet as each

placement is noted in purple pen.

as I cling onto the results like they’re

the only answers I’ve ever known,

even if I knew it all along. even

when I’m feeling trapped in one way

or another and letting the trapping happen.

always dreaming of moving to a new city

with new hobbies and new this and that

and this. as if going to Denver or Austin

will stop the feeling happening so often

I can only describe it as an itching or inkling

or big witchy tingling trying to convince me

it's the place and not the person. so I go chitting

and chatting and listening to friends fall into

the same partnerships with different people.

dating another guy with bad luck who’s

on the way to getting better at truth-telling

and trust any second now. or old coworkers

who get the same shitty job in twelve other jobs.

typing slower than their manager demands

or clocked in on who knows what kind of upside

down schedule. always wanting something more,

stuck searching for the right love and money

and career in who and what they know.

and me here, now, moving slowly

from card to card, anxiously waiting

for the flip. scribbling scrambled notes

about the imbalance of the reversed

and the journey of the fool, bags

packed under fresh sun. fully lost

in the starscape map of treasure alit

in the whole spread at once. as glimmering

and golden as it is, its own kind of cage.

The House in the Valley

by Simon MacCulloch

“‘May I sleep in your house tonight?’ I asked. ‘You can come in if you want to,’ he said, ‘and sleep if you can.’”

—Edward Lucas White, “The House of the Nightmare”

The fabric of reality has flaws.

That tall white stone is shifting, left, now right.

The dreams that come in death must give us pause.

Be slow to open softly sagging doors.

A guest should fear the guests he may invite.

The fabric of reality has flaws.

This harelip boy is cold; you’ll learn the cause.

He teased a sow; she eats him up at night.

The dreams that come in death must give us pause.

The older ghosts may brush your face like gauze.

Some blow, some touch, but only nightmares bite.

The fabric of reality has flaws.

That hotly slobbering mouth, those tusk-filled jaws!

To waken from its weight brings no respite.

The dreams that come in death must give us pause.

This world where boys eat ham and boars are boars

Has sentinels whose trustiness is slight.

The fabric of reality has flaws.

The dreams that come in death must give us pause.

With Me

by Simon MacCulloch

Yes, you were with me in the valley,

And I feared no evil

For I feared you more.

Were you there always, waiting?

Or did the air of the valley -

The dark green air of the overgrown river,

The pale brown air of the boulder-clogged slopes -

Did that air make you grow in and on and out of me?

You are not human-colored,

But neither am I any more.

You do not speak,

But I can speak to none save you.

Now you are with me in the city,

In the steel-grey air of the office-block canyons,

In the blue-red air of the neon convulsions,

And we hate it here.

We hate it.

We hate.

I’ve Killed My Father

by Anna Lux Petro