Beautiful silence

Editor's note: This is a traditional minimalist shake-n-bake hill-stomp number usually played with a 10-key concertina and a Roland MC-303. It was reportedly heard during a recent visit to a rustic laboratory while traveling through the Appalachia when the researcher happened to come across this porch performance.

Beautiful silence
How i miss you
Now that you
Are gone

Left me here
All alone
With my mind
And this song

Beautiful silence
Before you were broken
It was like that moment
When the day broke in
And she banished blessed dawn
But it was always that moment
the whole day long

Beautiful silence
How i miss you
Now that you
Are gone

Never leave me here
Again alone
With my mind
For this long

Ghosting & Falling

Like a ghost I’m falling forward
and with each step forward
to catch myself
I fall the faster.
A strip of rubber
a ribbon of hoop
a collection of sticks
that roll;
running, static
running, static
running, static...

And while I do this
a thousand songs
occupy my mind
and a thousand throngs
cavort and crash
about me and only when
I imagine
my native brother
alone in the wilds
both vulnerable
and threatening
to every challenge
and every adversity
and then all the birds
and all the small game
and the tracks of enemies
come into focus…

I collect the data
assess it and
discard what I don’t need.
Collect the data
assess it
discard…

Good things too, come from
conflicts and collisions
I have been part of many
Moby Dicks, even the parts
that suck, lived every
conflict of man
against man,
against himself,
against society,
against rule of law,
against Nature—
Ahab had even knocked up a teenage Quaker!—
every conflict, I’m against
and have survived
with lungs on fire and
drunk with the bends…

Everything is sweeping vectors
magnitudes and directions
angles of inclination
moments of inertia.
In the goodwill of
the human marketplace
the streets fold and shuffle
like decks of cards and
raucous concertina bellows
while pouting women
beautiful in their boredom
gaze down from their balconettes.
Everything comes and goes
all at once as I do, too.
I crease them
I sew them up
I clip and drag
cross a bumper crop
effortlessly slipping between
objects with a perfect economy
of motion and force,
just like the Day’s light.

Σn[in Hz] ⅟∆τ is constant

through a coiled copper tube,

distilled and dripping with brilliance

each drop faceted and radiant

a diamond third eye

winking in the moonshine

a shimmering smile that

dissolves sugar cubes

from a perforated pewter spoon

billowing into milky effluvia

cupped in the gentle touch

of crystal slightly leaded

just to soften against

lips that ever thirst

more with each passing

and are never drained but always

prismatic upon consumption.

with such a long and slender neck

you shall never be emptied

no matter how many times

your heavy bottom rises.

dropping a needle in your concha,

your tympania pierced by a 

low gauge through which steel

the caliber of Big Bertha, 

bursts with a slight dimpled stretching. 

the head now a broken womb

curst with an inequity

poisoned only by the Verb, 

which disseminates towards

a grace that cannot

be Earthbound, 

has upturned heels so vulnerable

that are held in scarred palms

and are tentatively grasped

and touched in a pledge,

that wordlessly proclaim

a bounty to avoid being

turned over to the flag 

that covers those

that bore and kicked

the ass to higher

platitudes & treasons

that shimmer downward,

like confetti laced

with fallout that rains

upon skyclad wooded

forms replete with

nothing but

another

Light twice removed.

You fade to black

Every time, lunging,

Leaving airstrips,

And precipices,

And the scent of

Long nights and

No launderings.

A plea to linger,

Or not, to not 

Explode into the

Everyday of the

Everyone, but no

Holding you

Is like pinching 

The neck of a taut,

Untied balloon

In trembling fingers

Her weeps made

the sound of

duct tape stretched

fresh from the roll

used to futilely

contain the grief that

poured from her coeur

‘Lest her soul escape

like flies from a swatted

fruit rind and not remain

intact as a beam

to be refracted

to everywhence.

Is it tract, or transit

trajectory, or the impact

that makes this mote

upon my eye?

You make me shiver, Arachne,

Hanging in your web with another

Enshrouded victim, whom you

caress and suck at like

A lover, jetting about his still

twitching body, kissing him

all over, between silver thread.

Even you cannot but help

to raise a leg and shake it in

Ecstacy.

never bet on saving a dancer's daylight

when we finally met
it was already the late afternoon
in the day of our time together
when you got off the bus
and I saw you in your sundress
how you waited with girlish anxiety
for the long traffic light to change
so you could cross over to me
I knew I had the green light
to be with you
for the short time you'd be here
I heard there's a rook, you said
sphinx-like smile
eager to start to explore

there were no dirges as
we tripped over worn gravestones
and spider-webbed crypts
remarking more about the life
left in the summer and the day
and in the other animals around us
wild turkeys puffed up at us
young rabbits ran away halfhearted
not able to pass up good clover
a young falcon gazed long
down at me
my totem giving me permission
to be me
what you would let me do

I miserably tried to get you
to sit by me hidden in the dell
I wanted to seize you
and run my hand up your dress
feel your dancer's thigh and butt
that's why I laughed when later
you revealed you wanted to
take me in your mouth
on top of the rook
the roof of the Hub
treetops already blanching
but the yard's workmen disturbed us

by the reflecting pond
while we talked of politics and feminism
I looked down your dress wanting
to see the nipple of your small breast
I wanted more of what I could see
I wonder if I'd have been surprised
it was pierced if I saw it
then later only pleasantly so
and too when I lifted your dress
kissing your stomach and found
you were shorn
you are a dancer after all

and funny too how I ridiculously
asked if you'd like to come to my home
and your concession was so blasé
I was still perplexed about
that sphinx-like smile
at my place I tried to think quick
about how to invite you to my room
and you honed in on my photo
of victorious Victoria Pendleton
I mumbled a few things and then
took you in my arms and kissed you
to shut you up
so you'd not wake my housemate

we both had surprises for each other
when we stripped one another
rocked and flickered in candlelight
cool sweat coating us for hours
your brown eyes twinkling in candle-dance
with each thrust
deforming that cryptic inscrutable smile
in your rise and peak
shudder and fall
nice to meet you we joked
glad you stopped by

we paused at turns
I didn't want to finish what
your exit would
we enjoyed our company our secrets
our jokes our honesty
and when the car came to pick you up
I should have known it was
already midnight in the day
of our time together

Route Seventy-three; 'Meet me at da Dunkins'

there's this couple
who ride my bus
they look like
they're serious pillheads
opiates and benzos
they are probably
much older then they look
but they've been together
a long time
you can tell
because they
look so much alike
they have the same expression
all the time
their faces are
deeply creased and
chaotic dashed lines
mar everywhere else
the skin looks like
it is about to slide
off their skulls
their eyelids hang
like thick heavy awnings
i've never seen
their eyes open
just squinting enough
to scratch tickets
or screw with an old phone
their mouths share
the same grim frown
i've never seen
if they have teeth but
they have too much cheek
it hangs loose on the sides
while their neck skin
is shrinkwrapped
under their jaws
they have the same
nasal raspy whine
but his is a tone
or two lower
they always wear shapeless
boston sports fan
activewear
and faded baggy unisex jeans
their slouching posture
makes their bodies look like
they are about to
slide off their Selves
so much do they look alike
they both wear a lot of
cheap yellow gold
he has big ink blots for tattoos
the high-dollar tickets
they scratch
have odds of 1 : 8.33
for even money
[i looked it up]
they mumble to themselves
or each other
while they scratch them
their phone conversations
are insane
like today it was only her
i sat two seats away
she fiddled with an
old junk phone
it rang and she answered it
hello
hello
hello
hello
each time her tone was
more confused and irritated
a question to the void
i wondered how it
would be to
live like that
two stops before
the train station
she made a call
every thing she said
was a loud confused question
lynn
hello
lynn
i'm almost dere
where d'ya
where d'ya wanna ta meet me
i'm on da bus
almost ta hahvahd
da seventie-tree
at da station
what
what
yur goin in an out
yur goin
i'm almost at da tunnel
where
where
mmm
ah
da dunkins
da dunkins
mmm
by da trains
da dunkins by da trains
downstayahs
okay
i'll be dere
da dunkins by da trains
a few min
i'm going down da tunnel now
i'll be right dere
yeh
bye
yeh
oink-ok
bye
when i got off the bus
i had to get away from her
as fast as i could
while waiting to pay my fare
in the station by the trains
i looked over at the dunkins
lynn was there
dirty blond hair
pulled back
in a tight ponytail
with matching grey
baggy sweatpants and shirt
and immaculate white sneakers

Poetic Stalkings

By Dick B. Roman

To the reader. We at Panic Down the

Well are happy to have a flagship poetlike Dr. Roman. Only a highly labile mind and libido could adapt poetry in such a modern response to what is appropriate in pan-gender interactions.

All must lay prone in the decay of thought,

and the entropy of warm buttocks.

Stepping like a horse

over a three-bar gate,

the disease held deep within,

in check with a latex aura.

Never shedding chitinous armor

no jingling clink about avian ankles,

to reveal a soft ruddy undercore.

Always feeling vile and enveined.

Neither spreading the legs to expose

nor falling within a hidden chamber,

some outer vestibule.

Fearing the neural splatter that would

stain the white bed-sheet of the mind.

World on fire, smoking, sporidial,

seed-sack broken, sown in the wind.

There are few flowers as fair, amongst

Purpled, poisoned ivies

Your locks would level any waters

I would your form to eclipse the sun

through my bedroom window

in your naked gait,

fresh off the savanna.

All birds are startled 'cepting the one

gorged and lazy who wishes

to be devoured by such a

creature that lays lowly

with no baseness

Your perspirate body would

shimmer like cool waters,

like a dozing pond that shivers

in hot breezes.

For a time you are transfixing

as a rosette window of 
stained glass,

a turning wheel of Nature that rolls

over more than my toes,

giving such things as faith

a recourse, causing me for a still time

(while you sit there in study)

to sketch you in words, though

even the air about you is electric and

adamant.

Hammering my head, now a dull chisel,

the only thing I strike are chords of

disdain and remorse

as you raise your apheliotropic flanks

off your seat and bend out on to the street.

You can make on choke on nothing

as I would say, but enterprise as most are

concerned, but these things die as you

shadow the light

through the door

for a second in real time,

but an etenity in

mine.

 

To E.D. [Ernest Dowson, d. 1900; transcribed (and spell-checked) from a cocktail napkin— ed.]

In consumption

Your words are better than tounges

Crosst lips bought at any cost.

May I never see your docks at dusk;

Or you to view Maeve’s eyes at close

As they all are out here at the perimeter.

For your many hands won at Killarney

Are squandered at the price of a few

Scratch tickets, cheap voddy, and imported smokes.

Your mantel is heavy as a lung collapsing in

Jubilee.

 

I have not touched you in months.

Your form pale, taut with blue lines
And rigid-back; ever-spriraling.

Looking over you, into you,

Opaque, not yet creased,

Dry humors sucking stain

From my stylus.

This moment is freeze-frame,

Tableaux. All else is tuned out

But you. Lack of silver and sugar

Mean naught, but to fill you slow

And frantic, each stroke more

Profane than the first look, so wry,

Upon your smooth bareness.

This line the last I have emptied

My cartridge, but still

Turn to another.

Lyrical Snares

by Charlotte Praecox-Regina
to the reader: Dr. Roman was adamant that we include the work of his paramour, Ms. Regina. Though we first harboured doubts, a lively and and rather insinuating conversation with the French chanteuse convinced us of her penetrating literary depth. We are proud to present her here.

I was new born dead
when you found me,
Blue veined alabastered,
Body thin as kindling,
With no Eulogy, you
lay me upon a linen
slab and loved
me like an autopsy.
The moment. swung
like a pendant  'gainst
my still chest.
Your thunderous roar
echoes through my empty cavity.
Your grip fills me
with the heat I lack.
How you laboured,
How you travailed.
With my deaf ears
You need not say thanks.

When I was a little girl
I would whirl like a dervish.
Spin so fast the world would blast off
In electric white
And I would finally be alone and
Subterranean.
I whirled myself warm on cold winter
Mornings at the bus stop with 
Legs too long
And sweater too small.
When my cycle came down like a
Whip at the
Town pool I whirled in my first 
Two-piece.
When my brother and his grubby
Friends would
Hoot like apes in their treefort I would
Make
Them ascend with the blood pulsing,
Ring in my ears until
My mother would punish me for
Lifting my skirt which had flown up
Like a tilt-a-whirl
I’d rather be a spinster.



In which is there more discomfort:
My silence, or your revelous
cacophony;
My quietude remains amidst your
joyous sounds,
Your face twisted in frenetic zeal,
Embracing friends you pretend to
Have missed.
But not the unknown. You are not a
plumber or spelunker. 
You are cattle mooing
And cavorting, far less civilized than
You'd like. I to like to cavort,
But it is on the pallet, in a hay
Stack. On a checkered blanket,
In a grassy grove 
Or a graveyard.
My joy comes from a oneness, not a
multitude.
Not many, nor a mass. Never have
I seen so many bored faces amongst
What you'd call, if you knew the
Word
Euphony. How joy is silent. pulling
The ear of a smiling face whose
Eyes lock mine like a loving raptor. 
It is not the bestial beating of bodies.
but
A reach that touches. A pucker
Received
And eyes that shine like stars in
My silent room.



Sister Autumnal,
You of equal night,
How you blush in the
weary hour of your fading
And lighted touches,
Which push us beneath
Quilted bed clothes
Embroidered with
Maples, oaks and elms.
With lips stained 
by blackberries, and your
Nape smelling of greened
Apples you bring me
Deeper to embrace you in
Your dark slumber.

Well of Grubs— Preface to the first issue of "Panic Down Well"

Beelzebub— from Dictionaire Infernal, Jacques Auguste
Simon Collin de Plancy; 1818

To the reader: This preface to the first issuing of Panic Down the Well was penned by one of our contributing editors, on the night prior to his deportation.

The ground breaks wide and there is a full-fractal fall into a larval cistern. Pupils become constricted shining no light upon the back of a hollow skull. The visage is incandescent in panic sweat. An August desert sun rolls on by in apogee. These chitins are repulsive. Their society is sonic, constant mechanical hysteria, like the groans of metal seething suddenly, atomically. This noise is their pogrom against thought. Eons of evolution are unraveled and the primate is revealed. All gods are destroyed with cries for the tit. Living far beyond the real of time, there is a short, bright tracking beam that is burst asunder— in an instant. It shines across a prehistoric horizon, and is witnessed by a man with a malted brain, who knows he will soon be dead, and the hunt drums pound. All visions fly away in the vapors of breath on an autumn night. Blue smoke curls into a halo, about an eggshell bead, in oily despondency. All things remain foreign, expatriated, and half-caste. Porcelain figurines in the moonshine doing a candle-dance. There is no grandeur in the naked trying to affect a firm grip upon the shuddering shaft of Light. All is lost amongst heady perfumes and fine linens, used only to conceal a deformity in the human condition, an aberration that shackles us each alone, to a great stone jutting out of a wine-dark sea, beneath an azure sky.

The third eye turns hazyy upon construction, yellowed and half-lidded.

The Drunken Bike

To the Reader: A janitor at
36 Bromfield St. found this bit of prose scratched into the wall of a bathroom stall, and felt it would be of some interest. It was apparently signed only by the moniker "52".

The Dawn storms Dusk, too soon,
staining the curtains with the blood
of a New Day.
Never the Earlyborne, I unfold
myself from bed like an old map
with destinations obscured
in the creases.
Sirens, horns, alarms play like
drunken, Arabic fiddles as the
world wakes with a perpetuate
hangover, yelling catcalls
and profanity.
The bare bulb overhead is a full moon
reflection on the North Atlantic
in my coffee cup.
At the basin, dragging the dull edge
of the Republic crosst my chin, my
throat is crimson as the Morn.
I strap the vestment of my vocation
across my back, unstable my
well-oiled pony from the ceiling,
run my hand up a still, slumbering form,
from leg to lumbar (to the coo of a
window ledge bound mourning dove).
Door latch, downstairs, out on the streets
without a key, now in the shambling
euphony of commerce. Dropped off the
curb, slipped into traffic, I call out into the
static, am dispatched, and the profession,
immediately employed with the
invention of the Word, sits lightly
on my shoulders, like a witch's familiar.
Through veins, arteries, corpuscular, like
hemoglobin, I deliver tidings of the number,
the tort, prayers of complaint, the bottom line,
the red tape, beneath a sky as grey as
other launderings strung out to dry.
By noon I am rich as a dog, and
gobbling a chunk of soft cheese,
and a tin of fish, between a loaf of bread,
the sky breaks blue wide, and
my head is peeled like a Sputnik-sized
orange, too easy.
Revitalized, I am pound and crank
within their rage and fume.
Perspirate agony precurses the
the endorphic uprising, red and sonic
pulse in my jaw, ascension in
chrome and glass, redbrick
and puddingstone.

Yet on the granite and asphalt
everything is concrete,
as I whistle to turtledoves,
and whisper "Hey kitty-cat,"
to the clip of heels and
curling red mouths that fold into
the flips of horses' manes,
and are eclipsed
in truck rumblings.
But not to fear little bird, for
stories of cupboards bare
except for jars of sugar and honeypots to be
ladled out with silver spoons,
crookt and scorcht, are rumors that hold no air
under pressure, and I am no more
impressed by their storms that
come and go too soon and too easy.
I have dined on pigeon shit and
broken glass, defied the idiot factor
tenfold; metal yields quickly to my
skinny, sweaty frame, tight as a
long bow, but this city has raptors
that uncover all bones and cache I
stash like the rat I am, and they'd pull
me up to a high roost, save for the fact
that I know all the shortcuts in this place
where there is no such thing as almost,
and asphalt does weird things to the
skin, which it has, and I will bear these
scars as badges of intent and not privilege.
And this is shown by the Sun, who
beats me in her transit, 'cept her
proud flesh is broken all over the
sheet of the Blue Hills, and mine
is merely matted 'gainst black wool,
but no matter, for the race, so sweet,
stains my rusty mouth, so that I
must chase it down curbside and
crotch-level, with an oily moon-cratered
slice and a cheapsuck brew, whose
vessel echoes down the ally in the
empty rattle of Autumn's gusts.
The ember of the snipe I flick
is in tribute to my victor's course.
As I mount, a silent chain speeds
me away from from the words
scratched into fast curing cement:
"Though over-caution is not
a virtue, it is one fool-hardy in
Temperance, with no faith at all
in Luck, that forms and forces all action,
until it cross-threads in follow-through."

Posted on The Haiku Wednesday Fiasco: Memorial group for Leah Kane

The Haiku Wednesday Fiasco



as I restructure
I understand less but am
gripped by others' Grace

♥

I remember the
lost I was finding in you
just being near me


♥


death by one thousand
bites an ecstascy of one
revealed by hindsight


♥


lice cough loudly now
jack of the harpsicord in
the loop of the hanged


♥


fly gets what he wants
in time butterfly flits on
nowhere maggot wins


♥


always the bagman
cardoor slams squeals sidewalk strange
street light dims rain begins


♥


to hold back today
is to slash and curse the waves
who soon bring Wednesday



♥



studying only
I swat a fly buzzing then
see love passing by


♥


the Earth bears the weight
the whole Cosmos grinding down
so you won't suffer


♥


you are unfolding
like a mandala to me
and am left longing


♥


overcome greatness
and be the Fool of the World
idiot mystic love


♥


see you and quicken
Presence of the Mystery
learn to be mortal


♥


Karma is a flirt
slaps your ass when not looking
old game Cosmic tag


♥



triumphant footfalls
horses' hooves cats' paw paddings
Nature's gait is yours


♥


selling of my heart
fake gold watches on street corner
losing self-respect



♥


simple passerby
your presence is a sparking
sets my world aflame

I introduced my Anima to my Shadow Aspect; now they are sleeping together behind my back

You are my sucking wound,
My sweet oubliette
(my little place of hiding),
For you to turn to ash in my lap,
A rarefied immolation.
How engulfing your arms,
Your legs of smoked ham,
so sweet— done to a turn,
how consuming.
Prone, your eyes are wells,
And I brink to fall
Padding through holes
Enmeshed in webs
Of candied pitfalls
And your trappings.
Your whiskied throat
Sings fine victory atop me,
And your ballast seeks to
Sink me back down deep
Into you.

♣

Even then I would
sit down on the curb
cracking wind-fallen
acorns open between
crooked teeth and spit
the shells in the
gutter which was
swept in autumn.
Did I look up
even in spring
to see the limbs
twisted in vernal dance?
Could I see them apart from
the dangling of leaves
like earrings on stretcht lobes?
Could I see then how they would
embrace me like they would when I was
drunk and sick on the lawn?
No, even then I saw them
shed with all vanity,
delivered to the passing
of the seasons,
their fancies and their patience.
So, I became used to being curbside
picking at sweet discarded meats.

♣

Far down here in the rag & bone shop,
poison nitre drips down from some
unknown ceiling and it is thee who
moans as the foundation settles upon the chest.
Here we are occupied in the vocation of
sputter and fume and less concerned by the
trivialities of clutter and gloom,
unfortunate byproducts which damn us
here apart from those we've already forgot about,
but no matter for there is much work here
so far under where filth grows beneath the boot.
Maggots cease to thrive and fungi falter,
for here the gravity is so heavy eyelids fall
but sleep cannot come. The mellowed air
that falls down shafts and passes for a breeze
hits the lung like that of a surfacing free-diver's
first breath over and again, but you and me
friend, we labor where light cannot escape the
source and who knew the silence of dead air
could be so distracting and unwelcome,
but we are so focused staring at the
little patch of void tattooed on each others
forehead. These things matter little in the
evaporation of thought, for who could not
fix a gaze on a more lovely sight than a blemish
from which not even black can flee much like
you and me.

♣

I come at night, for as she sang;
"The moon has nothing to be sad about".
I come to see you drop lazy stars from your
opened mouth, crosst your lip, and hang in
your hair like servitors, as your lifted hip
and thigh bone become the cosmos.
To see you blow smoke-rings of cirrus
clouds filled with violet & abandon,
as you lay to become the verdant range
that makes the valley.
But the bracken that breaks beneath
my boot cracks out like hell-to-open,
and there is nothing but axes and bone
to cleave the air with which you hide
your face.

♣

She whom Lilith bore to Adam on his first
day in the garden, one of thousands, would
jump up on gangly brown legs to pluck
fruit, always missing, asking snakes for
ten fingers.
She who would tickle Onan's ear with
tongues and affected pleadings for her
want and wanton.
She who reduced Solomon to a boy,
wrenching wizened whiskers which
dropped from his bald face into her lap.
She, Theodora's consort and bondsmaid,
how the Empress blushed yet yielded like
pale grass to flame.
She whom Papal Courts would douse and
fire, yet could not quench nor kindle.
She with aquiline nose, showing expatriate
Frenchmen, couriers of the wood, how hares
would leap between her legs to be crushed
by ochre thighs.
She, giving haven under a thatched roof to
Brits and Austrians on a folly,
an emissary of deepest peace,
in Bonaparte's madness.
She, who over a glass of ginger beer,
for a nickel touches the knee of a lonely dirty
dog-face, so he may raise Ol' Glory,
long may she wave.
But she, form seemingly so liquid or
wrapped in rice paper, cannot be
emptied as a bottle or ashed in a tray,
she is pungent vapors and plumes of smoke
that can drift out of doors, as well as in them,
and is more likely to stain the air, like it was
clothing, with wafting scent that leaves
none too quick.

Ripping off the Belle of Amherst after hearing on NPR that Hemingway shot himself because he could no longer write

For Mercy is a passion presst,
Beyond the fleeting gale.
She waltzes like a girl distresst,
Puking in a pale.

And, Liberty with lock so small,
Afore the fingers long,
Which prattle at a broken gate,
With ventricle in song.

Invocation of an One-legged Afghani Bike Messenger Too High to Get Home

I humbly implore thee Persian overseer
Máh, twister of months,
Why are you so to our dear cousin Luna?
You encourage her to fullness
And drop her like a coin into darkness.
You are obviously an angel for no man
Would wax a woman so, to let
Her wane alone in the night.
Don't you know how many, commands,
Curses, contracts, cocks & cunts have 
Been mouthed in supplication, in her presence,
In her honor, in her dull and unwinking glory?
I ask then sir, please take a gentle hand to my fair mistress,
And turn her to a whole form to shine
Through the gauzy night, and lay bare
The flesh of the Earth, so I may travel
Safely to my pallet beneath a window into
which her arms do fall and lick.

For my "Rehab Sweetie": too bad I wasted this on someone else

Once we were high as the moon,
Now after the Fall, tripping from
Dim star to darkness, arms out-
Stretcht, fingers grazing, grasping
Never plucking from the stellar vineyards.
Your body is the yew that bends &
Sways in the breezes of Nocturne
But never topples. It has been hewn
and shaped by drunken gardeners,
Crackt by frost, and scorcht
By the August, but
Mai's gentle kisses and
The embraces of fogs,
And lovers' tumblings
At your roots, give a
Gentle grace to the young rake
That leans against you,
Dreaming up through your
Boughs.

From "Lyrical Snares"

By Charlotte Praecox Regina

After dappled upon a golden bed,
& pillowed by the dusky hills.
Still now browned, and glowing,
Covered by Daylight's coppered lips.
They have left quite the outshine
To the pale and even Sister, who,
In the wheel of Her transit, sweeps
The shattered sixty seconds of a Sun
Beam through occlusion, like the
Shards of a sugared coffee cup, to
The curb.

Mooncalf

By Dr. Dick B. Roman

So even now I am the mooncalf,
Hatched from a leathered sack,
With Chernobyl distinction.
They tried to drown me in the
Love Canal, because of my
Prehensile sixth fingers which
Coil around your knees like tongues,
To make you open and twitch
Like a cuckoo clock, every AM
First-thing. Trumpeting the dawn
In birdsong. May you coo like a pup,
As I come to suckle on your toes and
Earlobes, like Romulus on the
Seventh Hill. These are things that
Are your guise, that I must
Disimpact prior to procedure.
Stripped and flicked
With language, darting like the bait
Of an angler fish. Knotted pinings
Are nothing now, this pulpy smell,
So ancient on the stove before the
Dinner bell. In this hunger there is
No time for grace.