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.
Hongwei Bao
Night Market When the night curtain falls, the crowd start to assemble as if drawn by magnets, as if answering a scared call. Neon lights go up along the narrow pavements, illuminating the concentrating faces of food-sellers. Under boiling noodle...
Michael Shann
Early March, after weeks of rain:
between a young oak’s leggy roots,
a cushion of dun, desiccated leaves.
Darren Deeks
You have been burgled.
While you were out with the dog,
a burglar made best use of that
yawning kitchen keyhole to spook
through tracelessly
Rachel Lewis
I step through missing bricks.
Green graves cluster
on a rise under a yew…
Kexin Huang
She came growling at me like a wolf,
muttering moonlight out of her throat
Joe Crocker
Hold a rule beside her measured look.
Precisely fix the time it took
to meet and break away.
David Adger
being unnatural
he fixes his sight past the fields
of bere and oat and the woods
of birch, his goat-eyes watch
two worlds at once
NJ Hynes
It was so quiet she could hear her hair grow,
heartbeat stretch across measures, nails twist
into mobius strips . . .
Steph Morris
from another picture swiped a nice cyan
tore the lemon horrors off it
and slapped it straight
in this picture . . .