On:

the symphony of bugs buzzing around our brightbodies. the spray acrid as gasoline over our arms,legs, torsos, faces scrunched like zipper spokes. the wind hesitating before reaching to touchthe leaves, our hair sticky with sweat beinglifted briefly before settling again. a reflection telescope takes time to temperature adjust.nothing to doContinue Reading

On:

As a child, my favorite summertime souvenir wasNot seashells or sand crabs butThe tar that stuck to my salty feetLike a sailor’s tattoosAnd I’d dance upon the web-like shadow ofThe water treatment plantThat I mistook as part of the refineryIn hopes of staining myself permanently My efforts were no matchContinue Reading

On:

Mostly land and wind here.Barns, silos, woodframe housesfloat on a sea of plowed fields.It’s the last of winter,not quite spring. A storm’s blown in tonight,gusts slashing the house, crashingthe dead aspen onto the dairy shed roof.Thunder rattles the loose sashin the kitchen window.Lightning rips tears in the black sky-plain above.OutContinue Reading

On:

a found poem, after Giannina Braschi Madmen fear no moon, fear no fire. Burns of flesh are poetry. Madmen’s wounds are poetry. Salt is for fish, salt is for death, the poem is not among the dead. Remember, but don’t write it. sleepwalker among cats, thief among dogs, man amongContinue Reading

On:

Who are these determined apes, who endurethe cries of cracked bones and vertigo,which precede the treetops?Treetops where these apes reach and graspand check their fingertips to see if maybethey’d grazed the halo.They don’t yet realize, yet still they reach—unapologetically— up toward the twinkle which precedes the dawn “Daniel J. Nickolas”Continue Reading

On:

We should fear the ocean. Something we know without being told. Enter extremity: A shifting massEasily knocking us to the sandWith such obviousUnrestrainablePower. I almost died in the ocean once But breath broke through The suffering void And aspiring skin Touched the shore again. Since that haunted eveningThe sea andContinue Reading

On:

Ornate cloud of sharp angle-rife tube and clamp scaffoldBlurs domeLike a JPEG-formatted digital photograph,Heavy compression reducing the natural colour gradations and surface detailsTo illegible posterized scriptNot even the Catalan architect Gaudi could read;Vertical standards like ribs of a corset to bind up the sides of the Capitol Dome,Reinforced horizontallyBy rightContinue Reading

On:

It sat precisely balanced atop a high concrete curb along the roadside, this perfect loaf of sliced white bread. How astonishing is that? Such an improbable, yet ordinary, place for such a commonplace thing as a loaf of bread.  But this was no ordinary, run-of-the-mill white bread. It was thatContinue Reading

On:

Only in that sunless realm between asleep and awakeWill I find you, the shell of my former self, crumpled andLifeless, huddled in the darkest corner, two tattered wingsSprouting from shriveled flesh, cracked and splinteredLike the decaying skin of a porcelain doll left forgotten. I watch as you gracefully unfurl thoseContinue Reading

On:

Carolyn Adams’ poetry and art have appeared in Steam Ticket, Cimarron Review, Evening Street Review, Dissident Voice, and Blueline Magazine, among others. Having authored four chapbooks, her full-length volume is forthcoming from Fernwood Press. She has been twice nominated for both Best of the Net and a Pushcart prize. SheContinue Reading