I won’t keep you in suspense. I was born and then at a strip club crying for those tender people whose children put in private the final touches on god. also there is a meal being prepared that you won’t be able to finish before you die. the preparer of that meal has a least favorite creature and believes hundreds of corpses were dragged from eden by animals that were trying to experience joy. save it when you can
the last of the robot’s short grief
~nearness~
we share
an invisible
drop of rain
but not
a wrist
(the grass
looks a little
lost
~farness~
seeing
a frog
makes frog
an orphan
have I
the poem
we wrote
rain
and the pulse
to god
a scar
Andrew Kozma‘s poems have appeared in Blackbird, Redactions, Subtropics, and Best American Poetry 2015. His book of poems, City of Regret, won the Zone 3 First Book Award, and his second book, Orphanotrophia, will be published by Cobalt Press in 2019.
~*
Song of the Shut-in
Winter banks itself with paper snow. The wind
puffs like a dying man, every step a struggle.
Trees like cardboard matches. Sky a veil
of worn tights. A lawn of toenail clippings.
My skin cracks and flakes, my teeth break
thin-skinned lips, and the fire flails its brittle limbs.
Summer burrows into the earth like a fever. A hand
to the cold window. My palm ghosts the glass.
*~
–
tattoo
the spider in my left eye
is also
on the kitchen
floor
of a house
that’s gone
–
lifelike
fog has a better
memory
than rain
–
grief
yes there is one
footstep
left
–
slight revision on the following private publications:
Animal Masks On the Floor of the Ocean, 114 pages, 10.00
poems, June 2019
can be purchased via paypal (bartsmock@gmail.com)
*
MOTHERLINGS, 52 pages, 4.00
poems, June 2019
can be purchased via paypal (bartsmock@gmail.com)
–
film
poison ivy
kept me
from the petting
zoo
–
broom
blood
out past
curfew
–
window
stop
kissing
your brothers
–
pill
but mom
even sleep
dissolves
–
–
frogsong
depression
decorates
a bird
–
miscarry
perhaps a deer
had stepped
on my wrist
–
osmosis
the son takes with him a knife into the bathroom and
–
church
entering the body after a stroke
–
sex
two
as if they fear
a third
–
angels
mystique
that surrounds
a small town
search party
–
chthonic
a prayer asking god to brush your teeth
–
hunger
my first
backpack
–
fraction
sadness
over something
deleted
–
I.
Glass Poetry is having a bundle sale on its chapbooks from its first three years.
a portion of all sales through the Glass store, from June 2019 through September 2019, will be donated to @RAICESTEXAS, in support of their mission to help separated families, detained families, unaccompanied minors, and others who are seeking asylum in the United States.
http://www.glass-poetry.com/store.html
know, that Glass Poetry puts out wonderful chapbooks and you should take their word as opposed to mine, but I have had words for some of them:
How to Cook a Ghost, Logan February:
https://isacoustic.com/2018/11/28/how-to-cook-a-ghost-poems-logan-february/
The Unbnd Verses, Kwame Opoku-Duku:
https://isacoustic.com/2018/11/05/the-unbnd-verses-poems-kwame-opoku-duku/
As If, Anna Meister:
https://isacoustic.com/2018/09/17/as-if-poems-anna-meister/
What Is Not Beautiful, Adeeba Shahid Talukder:
https://isacoustic.com/2018/06/21/what-is-not-beautiful-poems-adeeba-shahid-talukder/
Bad Anatomy, Hannah Cohen:
https://isacoustic.com/2018/05/25/bad-anatomy-poems-hannah-cohen/
ghost exhibit, Melissa Atkinson Mercer:
https://isacoustic.com/2018/04/17/ghost-exhibit-poems-melissa-atkinson-mercer/
also, Anthony Frame, editor of Glass, has a wonderful collection, Where Wind Meets Wing, here:
https://siblingrivalrypress.bigcartel.com/product/where-wind-meets-wing-by-anthony-frame
also of which I tried to say:
https://isacoustic.com/2018/06/08/where-wind-meets-wing-poems-anthony-frame/
~
II.
some recent reflections:
on Eve and All the Wrong Men, by Aviya Kushner:
http://www.drunkmonkeys.us/2017-posts/2018/06/01/100-word-reviews-eve-and-all-the-wrong-men-by-aviya-kushner
on Kill Class, by Nomi Stone:
http://isacoustic.com/2019/06/11/kill-class-poems-nomi-stone/
on As One Fire Consumes Another, by John Sibley Williams:
http://isacoustic.com/2019/06/09/as-one-fire-consumes-another-poems-john-sibley-williams/
on Emily As Sometimes The Forest Wants The Fire, by Darren C Demaree:
http://isacoustic.com/2019/06/05/emily-as-sometimes-the-forest-wants-the-fire-poems-darren-c-demaree/
~
III.
have some private (self) publications available below. am going to be doing this, more, rather than visibly self-publishing. I take up a certain amount of space. as such:
Animal Masks On the Floor of the Ocean, 114 pages, 10.00
poems, June 2019
can be purchased via paypal (bartsmock@gmail.com)
MOTHERLINGS, 52 pages, 4.00
poems, June 2019
can be purchased via paypal (bartsmock@gmail.com)
we died
in that dream
but continued
to understand.
I thought
sleeping
skin-to-skin
with my children
would cure
your fear
of flossing. every bomb
touches god.
I forgot
to be in pain.
kingsoftrain 