Marcus Slease

ROMAN RUINS

(special thanks Philip Whalen)

a hand in the bush

is worth two in the pocket

reared on nuts

brushed by a horseʼs tail

that cold clean temple

thunder descends from mount Asama

the lemon tree is heavy

all the fuses are blown

colder and colder

the sun also shines

a tarnished candle stick

other things are perfected underground

onions and parsnips and diamonds

letʼs have those

Marcus Slease was born in Portadown, N. Ireland in 1974. He has published widely in North America and Europe in such magazines as: La Granada, Cleaves, Octopus, Conduit, Diagram, Hayden's Ferry Review, Forklift Ohio, Columbia Poetry Review, Talisman, and Past Simple. His latest collections are: from Smashing Time (miPOesias Chapbook 2012), Hello Tiny Bird Brain(Knives Forks and Spoons 2011), Balloons (Deadwood Press 2011), and Godzenie (Blazevox 2009). Currently, he lives in London and teaches travel writing and ESL at Richmond American University. He blogs at Never Mind the Beasts: www.marcusslease.blogspot.com.

Sophia Dahlin

SPAWN OF MYSELF

I am Sophia Nonesuch Paragon.

So it befell.

I go to sleep with bare arms on—

Am unbeleagured by the sun

(My windows sleep with curtains on)

I don’t expect a gun

Nor does the gun expect a Nonpareil.

No neighbour knows my fridge.

None ken my morning smell.

I take my tea with oxygen.

I take my bear with tarragon.

Nor fear the orphanage.

Born from a hexagon—

Doomed like a hermit to her shell—

I undilute the woods of hermitage.

I am Sophia Nonesuch Paragon;

of What, I Cannot Tell.

Sophia Dahlin is a poet who lives in Oakland. She has a chapbook, Come On, and a website, www.mightierthans.wordpress.com. You can find her work in Vanitas this spring and Eleven Eleven this summer.

Laura Theobald [Part Two]

CLUTCH

we drove to a space

a long clearing
where the towers
could be seen
busily
all-reaching
up
in white glory

across in gloom
ready.

that was all.

traffic slowed mightily
in the wake.
for a moment
all
together
held.

for a moment
so ready
to be crushed.

Laura Theobald is a recent graduate in literature and creative writing from the University of Tampa. She currently works various jobs and lives in Atlanta. Her works have appeared on plain china, Glass Mountain, Quilt, movingpoems.com, and most recently in a collaborative piece titled "these sentences are not a poem" in Typo Magazine.

Laura Theobald

THE RIVER NORTH


you can’t imagine 
dying 
for a cause.
nothing is pure.

when i began 
to follow the river 
north

everywhere 
i looked she 
picked up her bags
looking 
north.

the synchronicity, she said
looking.

yes, i said.

Laura Theobald is a recent graduate in literature and creative writing from the University of Tampa. She currently works various jobs and lives in Atlanta. Her works have appeared on plain china, Glass Mountain, Quilt, movingpoems.com, and most recently in a collaborative piece titled "these sentences are not a poem" in Typo Magazine.