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What is that reality that appears to me in dreams,
chock-full of misgivings and doubt. I counteract my fear of life
with my fears of slumber,
dust in my eyes and stiff as lumber.

In truth - I'm not stiffened
by fear,
by nausea,
post-pubescent sacrilege,
or all of the above.
I'm not up-kept,
grizzly with ennui;
I'm dizzy, confiding my loss.

I feel the lips that kiss
but can't be drawn: from mind,
stencil
paper
pen,
on sheets of thick
pale and
cellulose,
for the heart to mend.

My unsteady hand
is my fearful friend

A soft embrace
from a warm mind

Somber
and so full of Life
clung to by the scent of Death

Endowed
with an eternal promise and regret
from veins of plants
or the glow of stars.
Cold, mechanical debt.

(my heart, so full of...)

(my mind, so hot with...)

(my body, trembling in...)

I am gulf-like
a stream full of trees and glass
echoing a promise of shattering wind.

Will I be published
after my death,
asleep predating, a life conceived.
Will I live to see myself alone,
and to discover
that which I'm not?
Or will I stutter
and wallow a curse,
Up towards the sky,
Until the final verse.
On a boast
or chasing the Rail,
pale as dirt, and shallow still.

Will my true love abandon,  break, strain,
Burn away the wax,
or hurry to blame?

Omit my evils from the star-charts,
then just to vacate the void.
From the half-broken corridors of rocks,
nooks, crannies.
Carry laughter through the night
burn the effigy bowed-down,
before dawn's courageous,
ever-splaying light

Angels,
of Carlo and Marx,
plenty by noon
festoon,
again by day
thus replay,
Endeavor to infinity, fair child.
Remold the light by Day
and remold the Day
by Night.
I watch as you sleep
and over you roll.
You open your back like a blueprint to your soul.
Right up the center
there’s a staircase to your mind
with a door to your dreams
which I wish I could enter.
I sit and I stare at the map on your back
and my finger tips step
and slowly walk the line
up and down your stairs,
tracing my fingers along your spine
just to know it’s there.
For if it weren’t, I promise this,
I wouldn’t know what to do,
for it’s what’s holding you together
and I’m holding onto you.
The withering of leaves complete
   the grass withdrawn
      the plants to peat
         all waste away
            and the fauna
               for famished scrawn
                 flee the North
                    for wind that bites
                        the powdered ice
                           the Winter Dawn.

The hardy sparrow
   fast forsakes
      that gaudy vest
          which Summer makes
             he scurries home
                to cozy fir
                   and shies from flight
                      'til Spring awakes.
It's odd, but I hate winter.

--Ace
His teeth are crooked, bent and brown
   he grins with mirth, eyes pointing down
   his hollow head contains a thought
   friendly, yes but pleasant, not.

His whims, in fact, are quite alarming
   for what's on his mind is harming.

He wants to steal and take what's mine!

Alas! Why must Death be charming?
The death rate in America is still the same as every other country. One per person.

--Ace
 Feb 2013 Mary Elizabeth
Ugo
(the city had fought the fortnight before)
fire burned through the little skirts
and plastic lunch boxes
carrying the nourishment of our future
doctors and worldshakers—

                                 Future
tax paying Americans
And beacon of the nation.

Wide awake, in the thoughts of a light bulb,
(Where sidewalk stairs politic with the devil,)
A raindrop fell and whispered to the asphalt,
“Tell me what you know about happiness…”
And somewhere, in the middle of a pineapple parade,
A Pepsi can smiled and danced the night away with Nyquil labels.
S.H.E.S  
Vicki Soto
 Feb 2013 Mary Elizabeth
Ugo
I remember the morning Tuesday was invented—
how gleeful we sang across the streets—
forgetting that the day after tomorrow would be Thor’s day
and that one we didn’t own, too.

I remember the bathroom stalls, the sins of Leviticus
we survived
comforting our confusion with the indulgence that God too
love man, kind.

Let the purgatory full of half good men sing about their sins
with pride and laugh at the moons and stars for being without limbs
and tongues to protest their innocence and Idontgiveadamnisms;


For I remember being fed the tenets of heterosexual history in elementary school
yet wondering why queer gods are the ones named after the planets.
In the loving memory of David Kato Kisule (c. 1964 – January 26, 2011)
*If We Keep On Hiding Away, They Will Say We Are Not Here*
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