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Acuff, Gale |
Ahern, Edward |
Allen, R. A. |
Alleyne, Chris |
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Arnold, Sandra |
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Baber, Bill |
Baird, Meg |
Baker, J. D. |
Balaz, Joe |
Barker, Adelaide |
Barker, Tom |
Barnett, Brian |
Barry, Tina |
Bartlett, Daniel C. |
Bates, Greta T. |
Bayly, Karen |
Beckman, Paul |
Bellani, Arnaav |
Berriozabal, Luis Cuauhtemoc |
Beveridge, Robert |
Blakey, James |
Booth, Brenton |
Bracken, Michael |
Burke, Wayne F. |
Burnwell, Otto |
Campbell, J. J. |
Cancel, Charlie |
Capshaw, Ron |
Carr, Steve |
Carrabis, Joseph |
Cartwright, Steve |
Centorbi, David Calogero |
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Christensen, Jan |
Clifton, Gary |
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Costello, Bruce |
Coverly, Harris |
Crist, Kenneth James |
Cumming, Scott |
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Davis, Michael D. |
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De Neve, M. A. |
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Dorman, Roy |
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Dunham, T. Fox |
Ebel, Pamela |
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Fortier, M. L. |
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Kirchner, Craig |
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Larsen, Ted R. |
Le Due, Richard |
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Full, From the Grave by Craig Kirchner The limo,
gray leather seats, typical soft ride seemed to be driving itself. A cool, hushed
feeling of finality and freedom at about 50 per, willing without manipulating, despite
the new rain, the driver barely touching the wheel. Occasionally
rubbing the small container in his right pant pocket, Colton ponders Coppola’s
Count crossing the ocean, with his boxes of native soil, the ship on autopilot,
sailing itself to the new land, the next red light. An Altoids tin,
what’s that, three Tbsps. maybe? Alyson sitting next to Colton in her
full-length Victorian and black lipstick, tells him she saw him spoon the dirt
and that she collects clipped nails in a glass case. She keeps it in her room, and frequently
contributes, its major characteristic of course, it is dead, cut from life. Colton’s canister speaks in unfamiliar tones, never feels quite
the same each time he touches it. Only an hour old, it has become the charm, his luck piece,
the heirloom he’ll never lose, the collection he never had, the never handed-off
inheritance that evolves against his leg, and subtly intimates it will eventually grow
something if given a chance, perhaps help with his sleep. not even Baudelaire by Craig Kirchner I’m sitting with The Flowers of
Evil, in my favorite chair, best cognac, a small
reading-lamp the only light in an otherwise, dark room. Early evening
relaxation— this is as good as it gets. Back from a jog, you silently appear, hip-cocked
in the doorway, dirty blonde shook forward, framing
Lopez lips in an incredible ensemble of white
cotton panties and gym socks. I tilt the
shade like a spotlight, thinking maybe a little bump & grind, instead,
you drop to your knees— your reality
more intense than one could possibly write— ever so
lewdly crawls across the Persian rug, gives even
the goldfish gooseflesh, and a hard-on. No one
could make you up, not even Baudelaire.
Dream
Doctor by Craig Kirchner Silence
between the bedclothes on a quiet
afternoon, has a rose reverence, a
calming pace, a new tranquility,
defined by space. The bed is sturdy, four
legs solid on the floor, mega-stones
set just so by Ancients, pushed under
the window with a view of the lake. The geese like June Taylor dancers all turn at once, choreographed in Vs, and me pondering nefarious formations, to a deep lazy sleep. Grasping
pointlessly at reeds and mud as
the lake drains through an hourglass funnel, falling
to dust, dirt, and deep dimensions
below the bed, where worker ants are sticking to the plan, stacking symmetrically, motivated to give time space and space time in a prime meridian castle for their Queen. The
Dream Interpreter arrives with a clipboard, measuring
latitude and longitude, describing
taste as color, intuition as liquid and
pain in geometric shapes. REM eyes dot anew tunnels of archeology and Druids. Geese and Jurassic antennae stay busy, anticipating his monthly visit, through circles of pink quilt, mounds, sneezes, and Stonehenge.
Neon
poem by Craig
Kirchner Throw away
your mascara, mousse and underwear. Wear these lines for a week, just
one week, not a long time. Let
the words mold your face, drape
your shoulders, your delicate breasts. Let the lyric infuse your dreams, scent your pillows, press
your thighs with invisible weight. At the
end of the week if these Emperor’s clothes are your neon poem, call me. I’ll be here on hold, won’t
have eaten but won’t rewrite. You
are new ink that will not dry.
Evening alone by Craig Kirchner It was a third-floor apartment, with patio doors off the living room to a porch
looking out onto a 4-lane, busy
with traffic, Moravia Road. Evening’s gray was giving an edge, to the exiting
orange-glow of the day that
was leaving through those doors, at about the same pace the Sunshine Acid I’d put
on my tongue a half hour ago, was
coming-on. In harmony
with this transition I
left the lights off, a bit anxious, synapses popping behind wet eyes, that when the total dark of night controlled
the room I would be peaking
in its grasp. This tic was
replaced by a
dawning sense of warm euphoria as the room settled into a soft humid glow and Eleanor
Rigby’s scraping bows of violins were
totally liquid within me. I was as alone with its pulsing, as Father Mackenzie
and
the other lonely people. The darkness,
now part of my psyche, gave
a nocturnal life to the walls, blooming with energy, textured like
fog— even
the nap of my flannel pants was quivering with a warmth, and life of
its own. I opened the
curtains, as
the beige street globes came on, adding color and definition to the traffic
that flowed down
roads connecting the parking lot below, to the planet, trailers of
headlights branching out in
all directions to everything. Turning back to the sofa I felt a squash under foot, as the large-leafed
fern let
out a howl of psychedelic mishap, bleeding green ooze under my now heavy, traumatized
Cole Haan suedes.
Larry, Moe, and me by Craig
Kirchner Panhandlers in Ocean City awaiting draft
physicals on Ninth Street— never really owing what we didn’t
have, and
what else is there. Attic rooms on Third St., cold shower stall
in the yard, 2x4’s of worn white paint
and body odor. We stole cigarettes from Ding Bell’s and wine money
from pocketbooks. Moe surfed the big board, never tilted
pinball and cheated at cards. Tuesdays Larry shagged the landlady. She lived on
the first floor and had a TV. We watched Sirhan and Westmoreland while her tits
bounced. She had a freckled throat, and feverish flush— her sofa smelled
of coconut and cum. Mondays and Wednesdays I’d meet
Muriel after her shift at Phillips Crab House. She was slightly plump, with underaged baby fat, peachy locomotive skin and long straight blonde hair full of August sun. She loved dry-humping, and smelled like piecrust and Old Bay. Thursdays
the Steakhouse had all you could eat. Weekends
were parties in the dunes. We
were barefoot and free, like
wind-tossed kites above the beach, indifferent,
invincible but
fragile if touched, denying
such wreckage falling to the sand, the
summer was ours and
there really was nothing else.
Craig Kirchner is
retired and thinks of poetry as hobo art. He loves storytelling
and the aesthetics of the paper and pen. He has had
two poems nominated for the Pushcart, and has a book of poetry, Roomful of
Navels. He houses 500 books in his office and about 400 poems in a folder on a laptop.
These words tend to keep him straight. After
a writing hiatus he was recently published in Poetry
Quarterly, Decadent Review, New World Writing,
Neologism, The Light Ekphrastic, Unlikely Stories, Wild Violet, Last Stanza, Unbroken,
W-Poesis, The Globe Review, Skinny, Your Impossible Voice, Fairfield Scribes, Spillwords,
WitCraft, Bombfire, Ink in Thirds, Ginosko, Last Leaves, Literary Heist,
Blotter, Quail Bell , Ariel Chart, Lit Shark, Gas, Teach-Write, and has work forthcoming
in Cape, Scars, Yellow Mama, Rundelania, Flora Fiction, Young Ravens, Loud Coffee
Press, Versification,
Vine Leaf Press, Edge of Humanity and the Journal of Expressive Writing.
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