MAYDAY

Bike/Building
by Devon Balwit

Contributed By:

electric, my frame

casement, sill, pedestal, pillar
static,
a geometry of holding up

blue, my color intermediate,
as of sky or sea on a sunny day

concrete cloaked rebar,
wrought iron,
brick against brick

set your crotch on me
work me to a furious pedal

ink-stained sky
pierced by chimney and spire—
dwellings’ exhausted exhalation

my irregular polygons
pump lust

regularity in infinite regress,
stolid,
cautious aspiration

careen,
tilt,
bounce

bored windows refuse to open,
finished
with human striving

park me, panting,

against the nearest fence

 

 

Return to table of contents for Issue 12 Winter 2018.

You May Also Enjoy Reading...

  • Tesserae
    by Hedy Habra

    When I close my eyes   I see the child in me hug the hour hand   licked by the flame of memory emerging   in stark darkness   a faint light filters   through cracks a half-open door…

  • Girondinsville
    by Nick Conrad

    Metered sunshine. Wind rationed, and rain. A heaven for incrementalists, with chaos always just around the corner. Is it any wonder that he had grown too fond of night, of the ruined castles that lined…

  • Inheritance
    by Amy Sawyer

    His untucked shirt hid his belt missing a loop or two. His morning beer kicked in early. My uncle drove six of us in the back of a station wagon. No seatbelts, confident in the…

  • Reclining Figures
    by Donna Pucciani

    Henry Moore (1898-1986) He must have watched women from afar, stretched on blankets in the park, taking the sun on the beach, lounging with coffee and a newspaper, their bodies undulating like the West Riding.…

Filed Under: Poetry

Further Reading

THE BIG HALE-BOPP by Paula Carter

Going out to see the Great Hale-Bopp Comet in Sam’s old jeep, out past the trailer park on Highway 6.  We cut in on one of those gravel roads that punctuate each square mile from here to Saint Louis—pulling over and turning off the lights.  The fields are black, but the sky is indigo and […]

GNOMIC SAVIORS: EDITORS ON EDITING – HOW CAN LIT MAGS INCREASE READERSHIP?

Okla Elliott: Since one of my goals for doing this editors forum is to promote literary journals and hopefully garner subscriptions for the journals involved here and others, could you discuss what you think editors and writers could be doing to increase readership of literary journals?  For example, one tactic I’ve used is to require workshop […]