Curt Hopkins
The Burning City
New York, San Salvador and Buenos Aires
Are loud and ugly cities on the make.
In centuries tolerant of violence
They dedicate themselves to money.
Their new raw lands are prisoners of schemes
Whose beauty shines in icy cliffs and airplane engines.
Masters of the future, men and women with no names
Vouch for God’s collapse in blasting caps.
Helsinki, Rome and London, though,
Are captives of whispers, dreams
Hung in golden doorways on the air,
Ivory bees wings carved in drapery
Caving into light, soft roads and walls
Used to hands and feet, seducing stones
Spiked by the nap of time.
You cannot breathe in the burning city
The beautiful ideas which kill.
A Dream of New York
Here your rights are few and well-defined,
You have the right to silence and to die,
You have the right to call and cancel time.
You do not have the right to change your mind.
The gunfire of the blossoms on the branch
Decorates your tomb when night descends.
Only live. Until that box of light’s abandoned
You will not have to find your gauge again.
The marked moon is murdered every day
As pewter trumpets in the blood lament
But murder, as we know, is temporary
And someday even ending has to end.
Through worlds words rain down like broken glass
And from our several wounds our terrors pass.
House of War
Brother of the knife
Sister of the gun
The sky is dark with bats
And the bats are full of moons
And from a thousand thousand cracks
In cracked old leather coats
A thousand blue-white sheets of flame
Illuminate a thousand boats
Whose sails reach from cold black waves
To touch the stars that stud their masts.
The hands they lay upon your brows
Are hard as ice
Are harder than your names
Are hard as solid light.
The House of War is dark
That set you side by side
And launched you on the waters
And turned your breath to diamonds.
Brother of the knife
Sister of the gun
Turn your eyes away from life
Death is bright
Death is bright.
Bio:
Curt's poems, plays and essays have been published in 3:AM, Exquisite Corpse, BlazeVox, Cavafy Forum, Rhythm, Cirque, Perceptions, Gloom Cupboard, Full of Crow, Cavafy Archive, Good Foot, Bluelawn, SPSM&H, Dada, Catalyst, Big Talk and others. He has had plays produced at New City New Playwrights Festival in Seattle; Northwest Playwrights Festival in Eugene, Oregon; and Venue9, The Marsh and Doc's Clock in San Francisco, California (all in the U.S.). He is a founding member of The Big Time Poetry Theatre, Emergency Horse Magazine and the Committee to Protect Bloggers. Carl is currently the culture and technology writer at readwriteweb.com.
(author retains copyright)
New York, San Salvador and Buenos Aires
Are loud and ugly cities on the make.
In centuries tolerant of violence
They dedicate themselves to money.
Their new raw lands are prisoners of schemes
Whose beauty shines in icy cliffs and airplane engines.
Masters of the future, men and women with no names
Vouch for God’s collapse in blasting caps.
Helsinki, Rome and London, though,
Are captives of whispers, dreams
Hung in golden doorways on the air,
Ivory bees wings carved in drapery
Caving into light, soft roads and walls
Used to hands and feet, seducing stones
Spiked by the nap of time.
You cannot breathe in the burning city
The beautiful ideas which kill.
A Dream of New York
Here your rights are few and well-defined,
You have the right to silence and to die,
You have the right to call and cancel time.
You do not have the right to change your mind.
The gunfire of the blossoms on the branch
Decorates your tomb when night descends.
Only live. Until that box of light’s abandoned
You will not have to find your gauge again.
The marked moon is murdered every day
As pewter trumpets in the blood lament
But murder, as we know, is temporary
And someday even ending has to end.
Through worlds words rain down like broken glass
And from our several wounds our terrors pass.
House of War
Brother of the knife
Sister of the gun
The sky is dark with bats
And the bats are full of moons
And from a thousand thousand cracks
In cracked old leather coats
A thousand blue-white sheets of flame
Illuminate a thousand boats
Whose sails reach from cold black waves
To touch the stars that stud their masts.
The hands they lay upon your brows
Are hard as ice
Are harder than your names
Are hard as solid light.
The House of War is dark
That set you side by side
And launched you on the waters
And turned your breath to diamonds.
Brother of the knife
Sister of the gun
Turn your eyes away from life
Death is bright
Death is bright.
Bio:
Curt's poems, plays and essays have been published in 3:AM, Exquisite Corpse, BlazeVox, Cavafy Forum, Rhythm, Cirque, Perceptions, Gloom Cupboard, Full of Crow, Cavafy Archive, Good Foot, Bluelawn, SPSM&H, Dada, Catalyst, Big Talk and others. He has had plays produced at New City New Playwrights Festival in Seattle; Northwest Playwrights Festival in Eugene, Oregon; and Venue9, The Marsh and Doc's Clock in San Francisco, California (all in the U.S.). He is a founding member of The Big Time Poetry Theatre, Emergency Horse Magazine and the Committee to Protect Bloggers. Carl is currently the culture and technology writer at readwriteweb.com.
(author retains copyright)
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Kat Dixon
.
.
Out
“Where you folks headin’ to?” The man who could be any man leans
into the window just far enough to take full note of Milta’s red
hair and my flickering white skin. He has unseen guns
pressed up against his body; he is at once more American than we are.
Milta is a Cherokee name. Her ancestors had been marched west
to Oklahoma, where she was born after a few rounds
of intermixing with redheaded Scottish pioneers. She knows
how a story is constructed, knows too the pleasure in telling a lie.
Bio:
Kat Dixon is poetry editor of Divine Dirt Quarterly and author of four chapbooks, most recently DON'T GO FISH (Maverick Duck Press) and BIRDING (Thunderclap Press). She can be found online at katdixon.blogspot.com.
(author retains copyright)
.
Out
“Where you folks headin’ to?” The man who could be any man leans
into the window just far enough to take full note of Milta’s red
hair and my flickering white skin. He has unseen guns
pressed up against his body; he is at once more American than we are.
Milta is a Cherokee name. Her ancestors had been marched west
to Oklahoma, where she was born after a few rounds
of intermixing with redheaded Scottish pioneers. She knows
how a story is constructed, knows too the pleasure in telling a lie.
Bio:
Kat Dixon is poetry editor of Divine Dirt Quarterly and author of four chapbooks, most recently DON'T GO FISH (Maverick Duck Press) and BIRDING (Thunderclap Press). She can be found online at katdixon.blogspot.com.
(author retains copyright)
Return
Frances Drabick
.
.
The Streets Are Filled
Young children sink in the sagging corruption
of a bed. It is not a compromise. It is by force
they lay their head. A vile putridity thick
in their throats, tiny voices altered by adult
dominion that provoked their childhood out of them.
Their silty innocence is disturbed; young bodies
become a social study of trauma found submerged
in statistics. They are the corpus that continues to teach
the repetitious, repeat performance by man-not-so-kind.
Begin the search on a dark day near the dry rot
of depression in a damp cellar door. Peer deeply inside
to abhor mankind’s internal creatures
that cause us to cringe. Persist in this chilled risk
as the viper slips into your spine. Don’t fear. Think
of the children constricted in our world’s vast lands.
Reach in. Feel their fangs puncture your hand
or fail gravely again to save the innocence of humankind.
Rescue a child from the coil of guilt
and shame. Not theirs. Yank the young
from among the sly-ugly. From sordid stations beneath
our streets and at foul-heights deviants roam and comb
for the womb’s gift. Still. It hasn’t ended. In all places
they are faces of deceit. Press on to defeat them.
Venture into bleakest nights and into grayest days.
Search in our very homes and onward to Rome’s spires.
I cannot write of colorful birds today. I cannot
begin such a flight when so many songbirds
are nesting in places of fright and fear. They are
held captive in our blindness. Open eyes.
Gather them. Swoop them up. For too soon they grow
old and enter the death of their youth. Lift them up
to the humanity of truth: that someone cares
about this abysmal abuse of their flourishing feathers.
Bio:
Frances Drabick has poems published in Off the Coast in Maine; Editors Michael Brown & Valerie Lawson. Poems and essays published in national, state and local sources. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize in poetry in 2009. Retired from Human Services; lives in Maine.
(author retains copyright)
Return
.
The Streets Are Filled
Young children sink in the sagging corruption
of a bed. It is not a compromise. It is by force
they lay their head. A vile putridity thick
in their throats, tiny voices altered by adult
dominion that provoked their childhood out of them.
Their silty innocence is disturbed; young bodies
become a social study of trauma found submerged
in statistics. They are the corpus that continues to teach
the repetitious, repeat performance by man-not-so-kind.
Begin the search on a dark day near the dry rot
of depression in a damp cellar door. Peer deeply inside
to abhor mankind’s internal creatures
that cause us to cringe. Persist in this chilled risk
as the viper slips into your spine. Don’t fear. Think
of the children constricted in our world’s vast lands.
Reach in. Feel their fangs puncture your hand
or fail gravely again to save the innocence of humankind.
Rescue a child from the coil of guilt
and shame. Not theirs. Yank the young
from among the sly-ugly. From sordid stations beneath
our streets and at foul-heights deviants roam and comb
for the womb’s gift. Still. It hasn’t ended. In all places
they are faces of deceit. Press on to defeat them.
Venture into bleakest nights and into grayest days.
Search in our very homes and onward to Rome’s spires.
I cannot write of colorful birds today. I cannot
begin such a flight when so many songbirds
are nesting in places of fright and fear. They are
held captive in our blindness. Open eyes.
Gather them. Swoop them up. For too soon they grow
old and enter the death of their youth. Lift them up
to the humanity of truth: that someone cares
about this abysmal abuse of their flourishing feathers.
Bio:
Frances Drabick has poems published in Off the Coast in Maine; Editors Michael Brown & Valerie Lawson. Poems and essays published in national, state and local sources. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize in poetry in 2009. Retired from Human Services; lives in Maine.
(author retains copyright)
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