May New Moon Special
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Krill Phenomenology
Terry Trowbridge |
Unremarkable redirected light:
commonplace prisms such as the feathery organs on the bodies of krill, legions of chromatic peasants refracting flares dappled through whitecaps and mirrored by plankton, bright enough to outshine bioluminescent languages in the epipelagic daylight; at least until the horizon scatters dusk’s acute angle. Unremarkable light: that light which is seen, but seen by the creatures who redefine sentience. Cognizant? Yes, but perhaps pointlessly so. They swim, but have no control to overpower the currents, swept along, incapable of stillness, incapable of choice. Fluttering mindfully at one with the brine, all is arbitrary. Under these conditions: thought has no purpose either in planning or the present tense. Only two domains are certain – one is pure abstraction, the other is the light. The abstract we cannot know unless the featherlike flutters communicate those thoughts The light we cannot know until we see it from the krill’s perspective, light through water, light through body, the philosophies of being a prism adrift. |
May Full Moon Special
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May Flowers
James Cepheus |
April Showers really bring
Big May Flowers Bright and Blooming Welcoming May begins a brand-new start run towards it with an open heart forget the clouds forget the rain know now nothing will be the same |
April New Moon Special
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April Showers
James Cepheus |
April Showers bring
Stormy nights And windy days Don't work too hard It will fail anyway April Showers Soak the soul Wreck my life And soil the world Yes, April Showers are hard, I know I know You think stop and think You're broken and low But the rain will stop The clouds will part The sun will shine You will get a new start Maybe now you're guessing What April Showers really bring... |
March New Moon Special
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Blades of Grass
Hailey James |
I was a kid that had a lot of allergies / I couldn’t go swimming because the chlorine / Most fruits were off limits / Don’t get me started on nuts / And then there was grass / I was allergic to grass / Whenever I was in contact with it my skin would blister up / Almost immediately / So I wouldn’t touch the grass / I would look at it / I would smell it / I would linger above it / Standing on the sidewalk / There weren’t many things that I wanted to do / That I was told I couldn’t / I never wanted to play with knives / Or run with scissors / I never wanted to stand on tables / Or walk around naked / I never wanted to drink coffee / Or climb on bookshelves / But I really wanted to lay in the grass / So instead, I would lay on the concrete and watch the little blades / As they danced in the wind
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March Full Moon Special
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Lily Pads
A. L. Celdon |
A frog hops
From pad to pad Like a ballerina dancing Across the pond Life is like that frog Born beneath the surface Blind to life And light Slowly springing to the exterior To jump and jump And run and run And forever moving Until we slip from the lily pad And sink again |
February New Moon Special
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Sentience
Emily Moon |
A noun and a verb walk into a bar
seeking an object. Adjectives and adverbs mill around, anxious thoughts of Choose me! visible on their expressive faces. Particles orbit in a cloud of uhs, try to fit in. Nouns gossip in groups about the verbs conjugating in the back room. Punctuation marks sit in dark booths, long necks and shot glasses on the table. We wonder if they'll stagger to their proper places after they finish their drinks. A cute object with a killer smile and fabulous hair struts in. Heads turn to watch them swagger to the bar, lift a cowboy boot to the brass rail, hook a thumb on a belt loop of their tight jeans, and turn to survey the crowd. The noun tilts their head, levels a flirtatious smile, says Hellooo there, beautiful. Everyone pretends they are not watching. The punctuation marks -- order another round. |
January New Moon Special
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Parasite
Harriet Sanders |
Oh, hey, it's you,
Again. Yeah, I missed you too, I guess. Not really, I don't have have time. No, I'm sorry. I don't think so. I told you: I'm busy. Listen, I should probably go. Hey, it's me! Again! I missed you! A lot. Could you come see me Later today? What about tomorrow, are you free? Not even For just a while? But I was... I was only... Okay, I get it. Goodbye. |
January Full Moon Special
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Cacophony
Les Epstein |
One damned flake descends
From a hasty spoonful Scraping my wind pipe Into atonal fits All through tooth brushing Its jagged edge Now long gone to who knows where Nags me on In hack and sneeze-- Tears in waves-- I’m my own Vaudeville Making a highway merge Between oil tankers Bolting out of the Blue Ridge Into our bowl shaped city And I reaching school halls Enter a shaken cubist work “Oppressed Hacker Descends a Staircase” Then yak and yak about Massachusetts bards With fourteen fourteen-year-olds Honking, blowing, picking at nasal nuisance All engaged in Transcendental wheezing Group debris to Thoreau. |
December New Moon Special
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The Howling Wolf
Tai Timmerman |
Self-isolation and loneliness on the grounds of nature
while your jaw is muzzled shut The truth spoke to you Hiked on cliffs to reach out the echos of self-doubt Everybody hears, but not everybody listens. Treacherous traumas open the tundra of old wounds through your fur coat freezing your playfulness and freedom Melt the boundaries created through the moon phases as the sparkly sun protects your instincts. Yelped and stood to reach the Statue of Unity waiting to be understood by Coeus. |
December Full Moon Special
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The Dream of Monstrousness
Naomi Thiers |
In the dream of monstrousness, I can’t tell
which are my frayed nerve endings, which your probe jabbing; borders of who-is-what, who-does-what dissolve. In this dream, you tell me you watched me when I thought I was alone, saw me pull cats out of the TV screen, cuddle and talk baby talk to them, then put one in my mouth as if to eat it. I know this can’t have happened, but your face is serious. Yet you’re not disgusted; I amuse you. We swim through what is real, what imagined like waving sea plants; their leaves brush our bodies in the murky water, confusing us in the dream of monstrousness--and we are both monstrous. And all this dance is, is two sodden people trying to be close, to know each other, to connect-- only connect! And we keep trying, upside-down blind through the wavery borders, we keep reaching. There are bright fish and cats down here. |
November New Moon Special
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Shepherd
Alexander Etheridge |
Shepherd of slow granite
all night your flock of stars rove over dark houses and empty roads
Shepherd of ancient glass
glinting in dusklight Wanderer in fields of your otherlife memory It was scar tissue and fire that unspelled your name the day you were born the day you died Now your silence stretches into everything
Nomad of snow
hail and freezing rain the night you died you led your wayward flock over black hills and apple trees as you were born into another mind on a path of its own never-dying its own forever
Yours is the cycle of
desire and loneliness Yet your stars never know hunger as they wheel through God’s great shadow Your endless stars follow you anywhere sentinels of a perishing world
Old listener
bring your herd of blue-white fires back into warm skies over a wintery people out there in lonely paradise of nothing left too late and always gone
Constant walker
with one prayer left there’s an October creek running by orchards leading away through its thicket of dreams to the half-moon valley where your stars sleep at last |
November Full Moon Special
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Heavy
Jessie Juniper |
It's dark outside
And inside Like an endless And open void and yet It's so heavy It's still And stiff And blisteringly cold And angrily painful and It's so so heavy It's quiet And eerie Like nothing could ever possibly be But yet It's so so heavy It's empty Open and distance Far away and intangible But It's so so heavy I'm dark inside I'm still And I'm quiet And I'm empty and yet all the same I'm so so heavy |
October New Moon Special
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Moonlight Man
Braden Hofeling |
In your open palm, I am
waking. Here the sun opens and closes fast as an eyelid. I am neither here nor there in the dark, an uncoupled quark undiscovered. The tree rattles against the autumn air, frigid in its attempt to be let in. I hover, watching the wind wake you, pull you fast from your trips through starlight. You brew another chamomile tea and clutch Teddy. On the streets a mariner whistles a tune to fog covered light posts, casting twisted shadows like morbid faces. Is he a captain? Or just another lost soul. Thoughts can only go so far before reaching Neverland before washing up on the shores to stand in line -ticket counter- for the funeral pyre. Monsters endlessly The world blinks and shudders from a dreamer on the precipice of dream-death, something bitter, something pleasant - like rotten strawberries hidden away deep in the field. Bodies sprouting the sweetest corn- I board the first train home, but it is raining handrails slick I can’t quite close my fist around it before drifting. |
October Full Moon Special
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Socializing
Alivia Knight |
I haven’t always been so awkward
Or maybe I’ve always been this awkward Or maybe we’ve all just gotten awkward But I swear I just asked for a muffin And she’s looking at me like I have something in my teeth Did I ask for it wrong Does she want to be my friend Did she say something to me I’m sorry? I like your shirt Oh, thank you, I like your hair Was I supposed to say something else I’m leaving I wish I had more friends |
September New Moon Special
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to watch
Salma Mohamed |
to watch the pain of words
cut through you like a blade sharp and cutthroat it becomes 'painful' to watch socializing becomes a mission something i wish to do but to watch it unfold something i cannot do to watch others, do what you cannot do the fear of being "cringe" or "loud" so i just watch to watch is comfort even from a distance your place is still here even when you're watching |
September Full Moon Special
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Laundry
abbigail |
i am a wrinkled shirt
and you are in dire need of clean attire. i sit crumpled in your hands, creased and waiting. but you bag me up like dirty laundry and throw me over your shoulders. rinse my flesh of this stick and sweat, slick my hair to my temples with your soft hands, freshly washed in lavender hand soap. set me straight, unravel my folds, iron out my stiff limbs, so that i might hold you with my warmth. for five minutes you’re pulling me close, arms wrapped tightly around my torso, unwilling to let go. as if a shirt can move on its own. i let my heat dissipate into your skin, and though i grow cold you let me stay close to you. i enjoy this moment, for it is just a moment until i become laundry again. |
August New Moon Special
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Thursday
Megan Lolley |
On Thursday, I was holding a cup of coffee.
Little tongues of heat swept through my palms, and steam curled past my lips. Not that I was cold, but that human hands need warmth, and after you left it started to rain. The drops settled into my coffee like tears. “Don’t you think the raindrops look like tears?” You’re foolish, thinking you know the rain. You sit and sip your hot coffee folding and unfolding your cold palms. Human hands need warmth. “That coffee burned my lips.” When you cried at night, I kissed your lips so they wouldn’t need to explain the tears, and I remedied your sobs with warmth. I told you we needed to talk over coffee. You said nothing, but covered my palms with yours. It had started to rain. On Tuesday, you sat outside in the rain, and I sat inside to watch you. I remember—your lips are blue. Why don’t I move? My palms are sweating, and there are tears dripping down my cheeks—numb. I pick up my cup of coffee and throw it against the wall. I am appalled by warmth. “Don’t you know that human hands need warmth?” Wednesday screamed a scream that curdled the rain. We didn’t drink coffee that morning. I wished you would open your lips, but you said nothing. Behind the bedroom door there were tears. The pills slumped into your palms. They didn’t cover your palms with their white sheet—I thought human hands needed warmth. I can’t cry—my tears After I left the rain, I found nine little pills forgotten by your lips, and now they laugh at me through this rain-colored cup of coffee. It’s Friday, and this cup of cold coffee is still between my palms. My lips never brought you warmth, but I hope you’ll tell me if raindrops are really tears. |