POEM OF THE DAY BY JACKIE TREIBER

"Spa Psychic"

You will have a vision of your true love
in the fumes of toxic nail polish.
A child’s face will manifest
in a post-sauna mirage.
The glyph that eventually leads
you down a light path
will appear in a mud mask spread.
The pains of your future lost limb
will be transmuted in the hot rock
stone massage of now.
You are not your muscles--
but a cloud of impressions:
blue in the shade, violet when you lie
white when you’re being read.
No longer a Hanged Man--
spurred black boots on a wire
but a pre-life soldier
waiting in the hotsprings
of psychic disorder.


-Jackie Treiber

POEM OF THE DAY BY HARLEY ELLIOT

REPORT ON THE FOURTH

Alone in the house on
the fourth of july bang
one hundred and five all around

no shade the orioles bang and
sparrows droop panting in the trees
and the bang and the beer
marches bang bang from the refrigerator

a dripping line of bottles
along the living room floor
bang the policemen doze like sweating birds

one man bang bang one man
is arrested in drunken slow motion
while trying to get a bang

a drink of water from a
filling station air hose
bang on the fourth of july.

-Harley Elliott

POEM OF THE DAY BY JOSH RIZER

Vacupuncture

i wish i could remove things

in answer to this western solution

of adding things on,

this triple quarter pounder big mac of solutions and remedies,

this high fructose, blazing sodium seasoning 

used to spice up spoiled food for thought.

i wish deft and expert hands could move along your body, removing

gaffs, tridents, harpoons, rescue hooks,

all the leisters

that the tiny little people have lashed to you

to bring you down.

the acupuncture didn’t work after all,

not with the tools they used anyway,

the hypodermic needles,

the ballpoint pen tracheotomies,

the intubations,

all of it ghastly and invasive,

all of meant to

vaccinate you from the truth of yourself.

baggage?

you’ve got a luggage rack, pal.

i wish i could take that away instead of inventing more storage.

cross to bear?

buddy, your hauling all of latitude and longitude itself

and i wish i could remove that

instead of strutting it on some sick runway.

it would be great to scrape off the irritations

instead of adding meditations to cope with them.

basically we’re talking about subtracting illness

as opposed to adding medication, 

make sense?

what i’m getting at is that most of us don’t need

needles put in,

we need syringes pulled out,

the needles that crocheted the spaghetti of our brains

into some foreign tapestry.

imagine an expert coming along quietly,

painlessly removing 

the darts, 

the flechettes, 

the arrows,

the pikes,

the spears,

pulling off the bear traps,

slipping the thorns from your paw

and finally, with the help of several orderlies,

removing you from the life you have embedded yourself in

like an alabama tick.

it would be nice to apply that dentist’s vacuum

and withdraw all the slobber

from your cheeks,

the salivation from coveting greener grass.

it would be best if that

suction tube were applied,

withdrawing the thing that came to term in you

that you never came to terms with. 

the thing they shot you full of

when they fucked you.

in fact,
come to think of it,

it would be healthiest if

you just forgot you ever read this.

-Joshua Rizer

POEM OF THE DAY BY IRIS APPELQUIST

THE DOG

the dog was born
with three legs, which is
a lot better than
one of his legs
having been rent
from his body in
an accident or maiming.
there was no visible scar,
no missing patch of fur
to tell others that he
was once whole; once,
but no longer,
much like themselves.
he learned to walk, still…
even run, even hunt. his life
was just as busy as that
of any dog with
four legs.
he once saw a dog
with five legs—a stunted,
lame leg grown out of its
chest and he felt
a feeling that, for dogs,
is as close to pity
as i can describe.
after adolescence, he
could forget that
he was so obviously different
from other dogs, whose
differences would
require some investigation.
he took several mates
and begat many
children, none of whom shared
his defect. he had trouble
with dances and swimming.
he sometimes became irrational for seemingly
no reason.

-Iris Appelquist

POEM OF THE DAY BY ARTHUR SZE

Earthstar
Opening the screen door, you find a fat spider
poised at the threshold. When I swat it,

hundreds of tiny crawling spiders burst out.
What space in the mind bursts into waves

of wriggling light? As we round a bend,
a gibbous moon burnishes lava rocks and waves.

A wild boar steps into the road, and around
another bend, a mongoose darts across our headlights.

As spokes to a hub, the very far converges
to the very near. A row of Siberian irises

buds and blooms in the yard behind our bedroom.
A moth flutters against a screen and sets

off a light. I had no idea carded wool spun
into yarn could be dipped and oxidized into bliss.

Once, hunting for chanterelles in a meadow,
I flushed quail out of the brush. Now

you step on an unexpected earthstar, and it
bursts in a cloud of brown spores into June light.


-Arthur Sze

POEM(S) OF THE DAY BY JASON AMMERMAN

Gallows (long)


Hanging in the breeze
limp clothes on a clothesline
clean hoods over heads
cover their grimaces

Bodies at peace, swaying
Like ripe fruit on
a tree
in the open sun

Their lives poured out in passion
the consequences of actions lost
They followed uncontrolled desire
The prayers of the one day to be condemned are loud, long before the sentence.

Permanent fixation of muscle
The tent given up
hanging

Bloated
The blood starting to dry
The emotion is getting quiet

All the onlookers leave
It is quiet enough for the scared souls to creep out of their bodies

Spirits released the executed step out into the sunshine
Like a man yawning at waking and reluctantly stepping into the full day light.

They hover blinking
Bare skin newly naked

The noble host of the maker awaiting their arrival, shines upon them
The voice is of confidence and simple, noble kindness

"Clean linen for the back of the thief, long gown for the whore, and give the preacher pants."

"They are all welcome. Let us give them a home."



Gallows (Short)


Hanging in the breeze
limp clothes on a clothesline
clean hoods over heads
cover their grimaces
at peace, swaying
in the open sun

Permanent fixation of muscle
the tent given up
hanging

Spirits released
the executed step out
into the sunshine
Bare skin newly naked

The maker shines above them
his voice is of confidence
and simple noble kindness

"Clean linen for the back of the thief, long gown for the whore, and give the preacher pants."

"They are welcome. Make them at home."

 -Jason Ammerman

POEM OF THE DAY BY JACOB JOHANSON

A LUNAR OUTLOOK ON THE NEWS HOUR


every time i try to talk to the moon
about the news of the day
he just rolls his eyes
and reminisces about carson,
waits for me
to start talking about girls
because
having looked through enough windows
is convinced of his ideas
about what's really important anyway,
the moon wants a tuxedo
so he can crash weddings on his off nights
dancing with bridesmaids
and eating cake
the moon
couldn't care less about gun control
or the economy,
leaving those concerns
for the last burlesque dancer at armageddon
who he claims
was the first girl
that ever made him wish for a body
and a solid copy
of the karma sutra
the moon
just wants to have a good time,
maybe play a little poker
at the caesar's hotel in vegas
with baudelaire and dali
because he thinks it would be
one hell of an evening,
ending in the sort of poverty
he could tell his children about
the moon will point out
in utter despondency
the most action he ever gets
is when venus is aligned,
the damn tease,
leaving him with fantasies
of celestial collisions
and never-mind the aftermath,
he says
that sort of thinking
is what you get
from watching too much news,
gaining a taste for apathy
and a shortsighted viewpoint
the moon lays his head
on the the dawn
stretching,
reminds me
he'll be back tomorrow
and he expects
so will the rest of the mess.


-Jacob Johanson