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 Dec 2024
Nat Lipstadt
this semi-seemingly sad refrain~reflection, more truth than
one can even understand,
for my physical self slowly
disappearing, diminishing
though no visible pieces
as of yet,
gone missing

few of you have come to visit me
in NYC, so you cannot be sure of
anything you’ve been told, for the
great liar claims,
the internet bleeds
disinformation,
believe this
if nothing
else

for I’ve been a dream from my very
naissance, a vision imaginable by
those who contemplate my whereabouts,
my visages, we bemused, while
you imbibe, tongue |taste
mes
written bouche amusante

well,
if you want them pieces & parts,
poems in the fleshes,
seek outa one eyed guy patched
by a rivered walk path,
see a troubadour on his soap box
amusing the real peoples
who pause to reflect
cause
them
give respect to his peculiarities,
listen to his truths bout
himself and them
selves too

if you can’t camp this far,
then believe in your dreams
cause my come and go,
fly out the window
and have reached as far as
the Phillipines, New Zealand &
the Land of Oz

I’m their break from the news,
indeed call me ‘the new news,’
which so cool, makes us laugh,
cause there ain’t no much new
by this foolish OG, ‘cept for the
rhythm of and blues, I spin, the rhymes
that they fet/met/net me with dollar bills,
loose change and half used joints in lieu of cash-is-trash

So I dream, they dream,
together we scheme,
each of us composing,
in separate and equal
prepositions preposterous
and share all who to be heard,
especially those who wish to also
have their dreams be
seen
 Dec 2024
Carlo C Gomez
~
I felt a funeral
between the timid breaths
of ruination, we plucked
to death the melancholic florals
called time flowers,
translucent growths
with crystal hearts,
gifted them to someone else's children,
placed them around the waist
of everyone else's wives.

When plucked,
that crystal core dissolves,
emitting the light trapped within.
perpetual splendor or
the endless cycles of death?
do the normal rules
of chronology apply?

Look now! here comes
the great unwashed riot,
we live in an age of visual saturation,
where tragedy and beautiful
distractions crowd in on all sides,
clamoring for our attention.

Perhaps the dystopian premise
is part of a fiendish plan,
becoming the backdrop
to a fluttering cornucopia
of florals, each outfit paraded
in the beginning of May,
a blooming display of finery
hiding a complex
network of roots –
sponsorship deals,
brand calculations,
dedicated craftsmanship,
exposure opportunities
– beneath its pretty skirts.

~
 Dec 2024
Evan Stephens
Dear A------,

I remember you at my sister's wedding,
you had hands of wild river,

& clouded beach was in your hair -
I was halfway through a sober year

sitting in a rattan bastille chair
watching the sea fashions,

my ear full of jailbreak children -
but I was thinking of night shapes,

things transformed by the dark -
I thought of your recipe: lost keys,

waning crescents, streetlamp breezes -
how strange and free I felt right then,

evening's cousin dressed to the nines
under trees bent to ferocious shade.

Then years passed: another marriage
disappeared into ribcage landslides

& mind riots, jobs were just smoke,
then it was Halloween and I was 44

& I was in New Orleans.
I wondered if you claimed it

the way I once claimed DC -
ambushed by a lost heart

that crept up into me in the suburbs
until only the city crux felt safe,

surrounded by new people
who might be doctors or hangmen.

I missed you that Halloween night,
though I ate in the corner

of your restaurant before I was blinded
by the rain bustle and whisked back

into a hotel window. I missed you also
the next night on Frenchman Street,

& in Storyville and Tremé where I wandered
throughout the runny yolk mornings -

who's to know if you'd even recognize me,
they've been hard years since Ocean City;

until I see you next I'll leave this letter
like a sip of liquor kept in promise

of stories shared in a plank-barred dive
on Toulouse or Tchoupitoulas Street.

Yours, Evan
 Dec 2024
Kurt Philip Behm
Is the Oracle wise
the Buddha fat
or the Great
Niagara wet
Description wanes
where titan’s reign
as words are left
to falter
And blow upwind
against the grain
in messages
— sublime

(The New Room: December, 2024)
 Dec 2024
Todd Sommerville
Die hard the poet's heart
Dashed with great fury against the wall.

Cursing to the heavens,
for sense of it all.

To see the beauty in the blood
 as it drips thick droplets from the blade.

To see, same said beauty, 
from a child's tears upon the grave.

Curse to the heavens.
Dash my heart against the wall.

And **** my poet eyes,
for the beauties seen in all.
Sometimes it feels we see things we shouldn't
or write things we shouldn't write
but would we still be poets if we did that?
Should we still be poets if we did that?
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