Today’s choice
Previous poems
Richard Stimac
Leadbelt
Trends of lead, silver, copper, and zinc
vein the middle of Missouri. Precious
or base, the DNR holds dominion.
For centuries, Missouri lead fed the muzzles
of European wars, then American,
then world. Across the river, in Alton,
where a mob hung the abolitionist Lovejoy,
Winchester Ammunition carries
this earthly past into a too-human future.
Empire gave way to republic, like a plot of land
called by a different name because of forms
filed with the recorder of deeds.
In time, new mines bored into the rock.
Others closed and flooded with weep
from the smooth-hewn longwalls.
Today, one mine, so aptly named Bonne Terre,
is the world’s largest underground lake.
Scuba divers flutter like chthonic nymphs
through rooms filled with the rusted bodies
of machines, like rotted carcasses
of Leviathans, reminders even gods die.
Richard Stimac has published a poetry book Bricolage (Spartan Press), two poetry chapbooks, and one flash fiction chapbook. In his work, Richard explores time and memory through the landscape and humanscape of the St. Louis region.
Karan Chambers
Stripping the Carcass Stripping meat from the leftover chicken turns my stomach – separating sagging skin from gristle; detaching spinal column from shrivelled vertebrae and bleach-white bone. But I was taught by my mother not to be wasteful, as...
Steve Perfect
Two close voices 1 If I remember when the full moon rose while sunlight still warmed the evening’s outline from below I don’t picture you in the scene but understand that you were everywhere each closing bud each bird settling to roost each...
Salil Chaturvedi
Parched sparrow Does it ever happen to you? A sparrow appears in your dreams Beak open, mouth parched Waterless desperation in its eyes Night after night of a parched sparrow You wake up one morning with nothing on your mind except the memory of some dry...
Jacob Mckibbin
Noticeable The greatest quality of the only person who has ever noticed me is that they think that I’m noticeable. In school everything that made me noticeable made me a target: the birthmark on my face that everyone in my class gave a different...
J V Birch
J V Birch lives in Adelaide. Her poems have been anthologised, exhibited and published in Australia, the UK, Canada and the US. She has three chapbooks with Ginninderra Press and a full-length collection, more than here.
Peter Daniels
The Key of Dreams That’s not René Magritte with his apple on his hat not holding a pipe. While he’s not there, he’s been dispensing French words chalked in a clear cursive hand, because words make good pictures. He’s no fool and in his sober...
Susanne Lansman
People in glass houses A woman couldn’t make up her mind what character she wanted to be in her story. One moment she wanted to be kind and good the next she wanted to be distant and thoughtless unable to see or hear anything clearly. If she...
Cliff Yates
Science Remember, Sir, when I blocked the sink with paper towels and turned on the tap and you noticed only when it poured over the side and splashed on the floor and you swore, ran over, pulled up your sleeve and plunged in your arm up to the...
Alex Josephy
For a Journey to the Forest in Time of Snow Purse, dirk, night-cap, kerchief, shoeing-horn, buget, and shoes; Spear, nails, hood, halter, sadle-cloth, spurs, hat, withy horse-comb; Bow, arrow, sword, buckler, horn, brush, gloves, string, and thy...