This month we offer the Buddha moon, stardust, bone-fields.
In October we:
swim
Submission guidelines can be found here.
love,
billy lezra
Editor-in-Chief
35,000 Feet Above in a Boeing 737
If that’s Mount Shasta,
the man in the seat next to yours said,
the glaciers have melted.
The sky burns orange
like the tip of your mother’s menthol cigarette.
Behind the smoke’s charcoal veil, the Buddha moon
scowls. We watch it disappear.
Robin Michel (she/her) grew up in a railroad town in Utah, earned a master’s degree in educational leadership from Mills College and now lives in San Francisco, California. Her work has appeared in Blue Mountain Review, Northampton Poetry Review, The MacGuffin, Sand Hill, Switchgrass Review, Sisyphus, Third Wednesday, and elsewhere.
Tipping Points
If you like ghost punches, AR-15s, & vanishing
doomsday hitchhikers, then you will like
graveyards growling with cats
& accordion facts posing
like contortionists.
If you like conspiracy theories that sprout
chin hairs overnight, then you will like
Sunday revival meetings that sugar
flapdoodles & firewalkers armed
with floating rubber duckie fortitude.
If you are malcontent with globalists who refuse
to see what’s flat, then you will like
snapdragon puppetry with fringe
fringing fringe that pitches
& rolls against the lighthouse
in the woods.
If you think moon landings have marinated
too long in subterfuge, then you will like
a frayed Abbey Road album cover
with a Paul is Dead t-shirt tucked
inside its cardboard sleeve.
If tin foil is your haberdashery and tribal reasoning
your Karaoke, then you will like
sort of’s to punctuate your circles
circling circles to the rhythm
of freeze—wait—reanimate.
If you like your arguments sipped with
burnt morning decaf, then you will like
keeping your grade school valentines
in your freezer right behind
a Spam casserole & a bag
of psilocybin mushrooms.
If you think He will be definitely coming & you’re thinking
of ways to unroof your home, then you will like
the friendly brethren who park
their racing-striped
turbo saucers
behind Walmart’s
loading dock.
If you think a shopping list you jotted down
in the middle of the night came through
a vibratory frequency, then you will like
moisturizing with WD-40
you’ll be purchasing today
along with jumper cables
commercial grade.
If you find yourself ripping off metal zippers
from your trousers & brass eyelets
from your shoes, then you’re rock-ribbed
& ready to be dipped
in stardust
by the scruff.
Rikki Santer’s poetry has received many honors including six Pushcart and three Ohioana and Ohio Poet book award nominations as well as a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her eleventh poetry collection, Stopover, which is in conversation with the original Twilight Zone series was recently published by Luchador Press. She is also a member of the teaching artist roster of the Ohio Arts Council, a vice president of the Ohio Poetry Association, and a member of the poetry troupe, Concrete Wink. Please contact her through her website: rikkisanter.com
PILLOW TALKS IN EXILE
Set: in a room rugged with tears and chain.
I palpate my lover’s wrist to feel the bling of blood
& the rumble of love.
What do you feel?
Love is a battlefield.
Love is a disaster.
Love is a fire.
Love is a bone-field.
How do you mean?
I see a boy—a flower, my country sees;
a fire,
a bone-field,
a disaster,
a battlefield.
The psalmist says we are some “god”,
the cop spells in reverse and sows
an acre of bullets on boys.
Do you know any exit from here?
some songs carry heaven in a voice,
some songs stagger the dancer
into a scenery of daggers
& this is no exception.
every sunset is a thanksgiving you are not an animal,
yet.
Is there any upshot to this song?
no one makes it out alive.
no one makes it out.
no one makes it.
no one makes.
no one.
no.
Ajani Samuel Victor, Frontier II, is a bl-ck writer and poet. He was the winner of the 2021 Prisoner of Love Poetry Contest, 1st runner-up of the 2021 Young Writer’s and Creatives Award (Poetry category), a Semi-finalist at the 2020 Jack Grapes Poetry Prize and he was shortlisted for the 2020 Kreative Diadem Annual Writing Contest. He is one of the contributors to the Spring-NG Afro-eros Anthology. His recent works are/forthcoming in Poetry Column-NND, Salamander Ink, Blue Marble Review, Snapdragon Journal, RIGOROUS, East French Press, EREMITE, The Shallow Tales Review, PRAXIS, Augment Review, and elsewhere. Say hi to him on Twitter @solvic16 and on Instagram @fab_du_solvic.
This month we offer the Buddha moon, stardust, bone-fields.
In October we:
swim
Submission guidelines can be found here.
love,
billy lezra
Editor-in-Chief
35,000 Feet Above in a Boeing 737
If that’s Mount Shasta,
the man in the seat next to yours said,
the glaciers have melted.
The sky burns orange
like the tip of your mother’s menthol cigarette.
Behind the smoke’s charcoal veil, the Buddha moon
scowls. We watch it disappear.
Robin Michel (she/her) grew up in a railroad town in Utah, earned a master’s degree in educational leadership from Mills College and now lives in San Francisco, California. Her work has appeared in Blue Mountain Review, Northampton Poetry Review, The MacGuffin, Sand Hill, Switchgrass Review, Sisyphus, Third Wednesday, and elsewhere.
Tipping Points
If you like ghost punches, AR-15s, & vanishing
doomsday hitchhikers, then you will like
graveyards growling with cats
& accordion facts posing
like contortionists.
If you like conspiracy theories that sprout
chin hairs overnight, then you will like
Sunday revival meetings that sugar
flapdoodles & firewalkers armed
with floating rubber duckie fortitude.
If you are malcontent with globalists who refuse
to see what’s flat, then you will like
snapdragon puppetry with fringe
fringing fringe that pitches
& rolls against the lighthouse
in the woods.
If you think moon landings have marinated
too long in subterfuge, then you will like
a frayed Abbey Road album cover
with a Paul is Dead t-shirt tucked
inside its cardboard sleeve.
If tin foil is your haberdashery and tribal reasoning
your Karaoke, then you will like
sort of’s to punctuate your circles
circling circles to the rhythm
of freeze—wait—reanimate.
If you like your arguments sipped with
burnt morning decaf, then you will like
keeping your grade school valentines
in your freezer right behind
a Spam casserole & a bag
of psilocybin mushrooms.
If you think He will be definitely coming & you’re thinking
of ways to unroof your home, then you will like
the friendly brethren who park
their racing-striped
turbo saucers
behind Walmart’s
loading dock.
If you think a shopping list you jotted down
in the middle of the night came through
a vibratory frequency, then you will like
moisturizing with WD-40
you’ll be purchasing today
along with jumper cables
commercial grade.
If you find yourself ripping off metal zippers
from your trousers & brass eyelets
from your shoes, then you’re rock-ribbed
& ready to be dipped
in stardust
by the scruff.
Rikki Santer’s poetry has received many honors including six Pushcart and three Ohioana and Ohio Poet book award nominations as well as a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her eleventh poetry collection, Stopover, which is in conversation with the original Twilight Zone series was recently published by Luchador Press. She is also a member of the teaching artist roster of the Ohio Arts Council, a vice president of the Ohio Poetry Association, and a member of the poetry troupe, Concrete Wink. Please contact her through her website: rikkisanter.com
PILLOW TALKS IN EXILE
Set: in a room rugged with tears and chain.
I palpate my lover’s wrist to feel the bling of blood
& the rumble of love.
What do you feel?
Love is a battlefield.
Love is a disaster.
Love is a fire.
Love is a bone-field.
How do you mean?
I see a boy—a flower, my country sees;
a fire,
a bone-field,
a disaster,
a battlefield.
The psalmist says we are some “god”,
the cop spells in reverse and sows
an acre of bullets on boys.
Do you know any exit from here?
some songs carry heaven in a voice,
some songs stagger the dancer
into a scenery of daggers
& this is no exception.
every sunset is a thanksgiving you are not an animal,
yet.
Is there any upshot to this song?
no one makes it out alive.
no one makes it out.
no one makes it.
no one makes.
no one.
no.
Ajani Samuel Victor, Frontier II, is a bl-ck writer and poet. He was the winner of the 2021 Prisoner of Love Poetry Contest, 1st runner-up of the 2021 Young Writer’s and Creatives Award (Poetry category), a Semi-finalist at the 2020 Jack Grapes Poetry Prize and he was shortlisted for the 2020 Kreative Diadem Annual Writing Contest. He is one of the contributors to the Spring-NG Afro-eros Anthology. His recent works are/forthcoming in Poetry Column-NND, Salamander Ink, Blue Marble Review, Snapdragon Journal, RIGOROUS, East French Press, EREMITE, The Shallow Tales Review, PRAXIS, Augment Review, and elsewhere. Say hi to him on Twitter @solvic16 and on Instagram @fab_du_solvic.
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