Today’s choice
Previous poems
Matthew F. Amati
Hands Said To Head
Hands said to Head
look what you’ve made me do
it’s not me, Head said, talk to
Heart, that guy’s sick, Heart
said whoa buddy, I take cues from
Gut, whence all appetites bloom
Gut growled, said nothing.
Head said rumor is Gut’s got
a second brain down there, cooking up
God knows what. when they brought the cuffs
it was Hands that got shackled tight.
do the dirty work, it’s your mud to wash off.
Matthew F. Amati was born in Chicago but was asked to leave shortly afterwards. Over 50 of his poems and stories have appeared in Flash Fiction Online, Clockwise Cat, Oddball Magazine and elsewhere. Much of his work is collected at www.mattamati.com
Julie Stevens for Mental Health Awareness Week
Are these the words you want me to say
about how my day became a raging river
crashing through my bones?
Fianna Russell Dodwell for Mental Health Awareness Week
I’ll tell you a bedtime story . . .
William Manning for Mental Health Awareness Week
My room is infested with bedbugs
I’m covered in bites, not love bites
Anna Brook
I want to borrow gods
(as Adrienne does,
though she knew better)
their sad logic
their templates
Nigel King
Turn the mud. Bo Peep’s head tumbles out,
wide-eyed, mouth a little open.
Mohsen Hosseinkhani translated by Tahereh Forsat Safai
Men are the color of soil
Women are sitting on the ashes
Stephen Komarnyckyj
you are the shadow slipping through the mirror
Jo Farrant
We’re stuck on a scene, frozen, like the ice cubes I begged Mum to get with the little flowers in them. Like taking a test in the school gym but your knees are so big they’re banging into the desk.
Douglas K Currier
Afternoon hangs in the air, and the birds leave.
Frogs begin to talk to each other, and the heat congeals.