Three Poems – Jeff Burt
Thursday, May 25, 2017 13:08 — 0 Comments
Sunflower I wanted you to know that I have read your rants, the scrawled graphite on torn pieces of newspaper, seen you pawing through loose papers like a bear over blueberries, your life in two soiled duffel bags dragged like cloth dolls, jotted demented phrases disconnected from each other and reality, euphoric exclamations about finding shoes at the bottom of your legs, socks to boot, these miniature ragged texts your Van Gogh self-portrait pouring out of an old dirty backpack. While others post on sites offering intimacy to a thousand connected friends you pin your scrap and scribbles on public […]
Jason Whitmarsh’s ‘The Histories’ out Friday
Monday, April 17, 2017 14:34 — 0 Comments
Jason Whitmarsh has been a Monarch favorite since the magazine’s first days. We just think he’s a swell guy. But, perhaps more importantly, we really dig his poetry. Check out this short one from his new book, The Histories, set to be released at Open Books in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood Friday (April 21) at 7 pm: HISTORY OF LOSS I keep having to count my brothers and sisters, now: M. and I. are one and two, C. and H. are three and four. And who is five? Oh, she was five. And who is six? Oh, I am six. […]
Five Poems – Derek Graf
Sunday, April 2, 2017 12:03 — 1 Comment
IF ANYONE ASKS Drive, he said, pushing his dry fingers inside me, if anyone asks we went for a drive. My uncle ashes his cigarette on a dinner plate, pulls his wallet out of last night’s jeans. Every day I tell myself I will not become him. Drive, he said, throwing my blood-stained shorts in the trash, if anyone asks we went for a drive. LINED UP I remember the row of dolls’ heads lined up on a shelf above a radio he played the whole time. I close my eyes, remember this in a dream, maybe, or […]
Plums at Night – Natalie Crick
Tuesday, March 7, 2017 12:04 — 0 Comments
The night is plum-dark. Horses hang in the depths of sleep, Haunches gleaming blue-black as Dripping dusky fruit, Skin enticing touch, Misted by the press of my thumb. I want to bite right down To the hard grooved core, Flesh dense as Blood in lungs, Pulse of the heart Throbbing to be licked, Thirst and murmur and desire Rolling the tongue as the Horse’s eyes Turn to their whites in Fright. Wide and open as a cage In the belly of the night, Asking: ‘Do I dare?’
Two Poems – Jeff Ewing
Tuesday, March 7, 2017 11:59 — 1 Comment
Reintroducing the Wolf There’s no moon tonight to dress the lawn or drape the low bed, the only light the clock fallen from the nightstand. Outside, the street bucks the sidewalk’s bank, a transformer hums. What stirs an unquiet mind from its preoccupations? The wolf enters panting, muscles tensing under the sheets. A tentative half- snarl culled from base pairs breaks from my throat as I lope through waist-high grass. Birds without number hurtle above me, cragged wind keens from my north, blue as inlaid ice. How sweet the loosed blood, how blinding the heat sweeping from the backs of […]
The Attic – Matt Dennison
Tuesday, March 7, 2017 11:52 — 5 Comments
In his workshop my landlord tells me about Poland during the war and those who refused shelter, who turned away as the trains chuffed past night and day and of the soldiers who searched the carpentry shop he and his younger brother had struggled for years to establish— how they slid like snakes into everything they owned until they discovered his best wood, hidden in the attic under rags, and how, laughing, they tossed the boards into the snow, thanked him as they loaded their truck and then torched the building. He set up another shop, without his brother, and […]
Two Poems – Shannon Connor Winward
Friday, January 13, 2017 12:36 — 0 Comments
Getting Wet The first time I tasted sweet plum wine was like kissing a girl with a candy tongue deep between her satin sheets The first time I kissed a girl was like sliding into a black velvet dress that perfectly mirrored my curves and lengths The first time I wore a black velvet dress was like hearing my mother invoke me (shiver-clear as seven-up and gin in a glass in smoky room) but not by the name I was given The first time I took a name of my own choosing I thought I was deep like the baby […]
The Elevator and the Pants – Thomas Pescatore
Friday, September 23, 2016 10:25 — 0 Comments
standing in the elevator. There were three of us there. I was standing in the right corner back against the fold we were all wearing pants. After we passed the second floor the two other people huddled close. whispering but I could hear them. “See he has pants on,” one said. we all had pants on. “do you see?” one said. “Yes.” the other said. Their backs were turned to me. I looked down at my pants. ‘I am wearing pants,’ I thought. The elevator doors would not open. How many floors had gone down. ‘They’re wearing pants, too.” I […]
Three Poems – Buff Whitman-Bradley
Friday, August 19, 2016 9:52 — 0 Comments
The cat comes back I have been told by many That an important part Of recovering from cancer Is a positive attitude. Visualize yourself cancer-free And living many more years They tell me Which I most certainly do Each time the pussycat of dread comes Stealing into my consciousness On its furtive little feet To leap up onto the table Knock over the punch bowl And ruin my party. I visualize like mad – Myself as a jaunty octogenarian Hiking in the woods with my kids and grandkids, Swapping harrowing treatment tales With other survivors, Growing older and older with […]
Two Poems – Carrie Conners
Thursday, August 4, 2016 12:23 — 2 Comments
Sex Ed After my mom declared You’re just showing off when I asked at 12 years old if my bras had shrunk in the dryer I started going lingerie shopping with my former babysitter. On break from college, she’d pick me up in The Banana, her decomposing Volkswagen Rabbit—one day the turn signal wand snapped off in her hand at a Stop sign by the old Fostoria factory—and she’d drive us to the Stone & Thomas in Wheeling with my mom’s credit card in my pocket. As our thighs fused to the black vinyl seats in the summer heat, she’d […]
What am I?
Bioluminescent eye
That sees by the shine
Of its own light. Lies
Blind me. I am the seventh human sense
And my stepchild,
Consequence;
Scientists can't find me.
Januswise I make us men;
Glamour
Was my image then—
Remind me:
The awful fall up off all fours
From the forest
To the hours…
Tick, Tock: Divine me.
-- Richard Kenney
