kingsoftrain

Cathryn Shea is the author of three poetry chapbooks, most recently “It’s Raining Lullabies” (Dancing Girl Press, 2017) and the micro chapbook “My Heart is a Salt Mirror Like Salar de Uyuni” (Rinky Dink Press, 2018). Her poetry has been nominated for Sundress Publication’s Best of the Net 2017 and recently appears in Tar River Poetry, Gargoyle, Permafrost, Rust + Moth, Tinderbox, and elsewhere. She resides in Fairfax, California. See http://www.cathrynshea.com and @cathy_shea on Twitter.

~*~

Surrounded at Pyramid Lake

Ghost horse mad-galloping in greasewood,
Eugene Angel’s soul escapes a petrified pillar of salt,
ascends the eroded cliffs above the Truckee.
Painted Paiute kicked his bones off their sacred tufa.

This is where sun-poisoned miners
drunk on whiskey and lack of sleep
raped two Paiute girls
igniting the Battle of Pyramid Lake.

A century after hordes of Comstock miners died out,
here come tech people on their way
to Burning…

thru July 9th, Lulu is offering 10% off all print books AND free mail shipping (or 50% off ground) with coupon code of BOOKSHIP18

poetry collections, mine, self-published, are here: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/acolyteroad

some older poems:

[tautologies]

an infant with still hands is said to be fingerpainting in hell. a man who wears a hat to bed is said to give god hair. a boy who strings up dead rabbits left and right is said to be fighting a toothache. a girl who punches herself in the nose is said to be a plain woman who on roller skates entered a strange traffic of hearse and horse as two of her mother’s footsteps.

[first appeared]

father kicks me under the table
for biting
early.

a ghost hears thunder.

[notes to abuser]

I have had to tell time using only repetition. there is a tattoo I want on a body I don’t…

Rebecca Kokitus is a part time resident of Media, PA just outside Philadelphia, and a part time resident of a small town in rural Schuylkill County, PA. She is an aspiring poet and is currently an undergraduate in the writing program at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. She has recent work in Moonchild Magazine, Rising Phoenix Review, and Rose Quartz Journal, among other places. She tweets at @rxbxcca_anna.

/

moon

my only caller is the
nightfall, loosening and growing heavier
on my chest like a drunken lover dozing
mid-sex.

I tend to wish upon the moon
instead of the stars, because she knows me
like she knows her craters.

(star)dust bunny stirring in the sky,
she gazes down at me, that cold stare—
one eye open in sleep.
I am a shadow turned inside out.

*previously published in Spider Mirror Journal

/

Nadia Wolnisty is the submissions editor of ThimbleLitMag.com. Her work has appeared in Spry, Apogee, Spry, McNeese Review, Paper & Ink, and others. She has two chapbooks from Cringe-Worthy Poetry Collective and Finishing Line Press and a full-length from Spartan. Her third chapbook is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press.

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Poem for My Fiancé

We assume the bones come first.
Houses, yes, but people too.
For houses, it is true enough. Have you
ever seen one being built? First, scaffolding
like rib cage without curve. Then,
pipes like intestines, and then insulation
like muscles and fat. It arrives in easy phases.

Humans, though, are mostly tissues first,
growing without clear delineation. My lungs
came in about twenty-eight years ago,
breathing amniotic fluid. Sheer willful
blob and then hardness. I want to love
you with all I was first, before rigidity
set in–nothing but rush and gasps that go
on…

Amy Soricelli has been in the field of career education and staffing for over 30 years. A lifelong Bronx resident, she has been published in Grub Street, Camelsaloon, Versewrights, The Starving Artist, Picayune Press, Deadsnakes, Corvus review, Deadbeats, Cantos, Poetrybay, The Blue Hour Magazine, Empty Mirror, Turbulence magazine, Bloodsugar Poetry, Little Rose magazine, The Caper Journal, CrossBronx, Long Island Quarterly, Blind Vigil Review, Isacoustic, Poetry Pacific, Underfoot, as well as several anthologies. Nominated for Sundress Publications “the best of the net” award 6/13, and recipient of Grace A. Croff Memorial Award for Poetry, Herbert H. Lehman College, 1975

*

Sail Me Away

Boats in the Bronx sometimes lay on the land sideways,
half-asleep with their hands curled underneath.
Off in the corner of the backyard, they can often be found
up against a shed,
caught in the space between the tireless bike
and forgotten hula hoop.
A few times…

Kristin Garth is a poet from Pensacola and a sonnet stalker.  Her sonnets have stalked magazines like Five: 2: One, Glass, Anti-Heroin Chic, Occulum, Drunk Monkeys, Luna Luna, TERSE. Journal and many more.  Her chapbook Pink Plastic House is available from Maverick Duck Press, and she has two forthcoming: Pensacola Girls (Bone & Ink Press, Sept 2018) and Shakespeare for Sociopaths (The Hedgehog Poetry Press Jan 2019).  Follow her on Twitter:  @lolaandjolie

~*~

Daphne, Dolly, Darlene

An education, dressing room, Behind
the Wheel on sonic boom — Depeche Mode and
debauchery. First practice lap dance grind,
acquire some strategy. Between thighs tan,
against small breasts, a whispered wisdom she
bequests: “Your fake real name? Mine is
Darlene,” simple believability
behind Dolly, obscene. An alias
men anticipate. To make bank, you must
extrapolate. Secrets sell. You should be
prepared. G-stringed guru, but do you trust
“for-real” name reveal, lap dance lust?…

Kat Giordano is a poet and crybaby from Pennsylvania. She is one of two co-editors of Philosophical Idiot. Her debut full-length poetry collection, The Poet Confronts Bukowski’s Ghost, is currently available through Amazon, and her work has appeared in OCCULUM, CLASH Magazine, Ghost City Review, the Cincinnati Review, and others, as well as a variety of manic, late-night Facebook messages. She tweets @giordkat and shamelessly sells herself at katgiordano.com

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CONSIDERED LOST

I’ve been thinking a lot about the story you told me
about the cat you had growing up, how one day
you let it outside like usual but it never came home
and eventually you had to give up looking.

you said a month or so later, you went exploring
in the woods with your friend and found its body
curled-up next to some kind of animal hole
that looked like it, too, had been abandoned.

you never…