where is the river :: a poetry experiment

Elizabeth Savage :: Five poems Joel Bettridge :: Two poems Kendall Hoeft :: Two poems Sophia Tempest Parsons :: Six poems Lori Groff :: Inside a time grisaille M.W. Jaeggle :: Two poems

CANDLES For Phyllis Webb I. That there’s a difference between the limit of desire and desire exhausting itself, that one can wait long enough for the warmth found in the reticence of a garden, that it’s okay to be as gentle as peach fuzz, bamboo yarn, a secret, that privacy itself can be a bright lodestone, that separation is a bruise taking the time to feel and forgive its shape, that there is a cadence to failure that unfolds a brilliant shade of blue, that of all the demands that present as being, I’m happily fleeting, becoming a child of cloud. II. Patience is an answer found in grief: a knowing that evades intension, that fickle second skeleton. What is left of me tries to take after you. I breathe in the space between the moth and the candle, where the warmth of the other tenders the dust of the flame. III. I’m not floating across Fulford Harbour avoiding the wake of the ferry, nor am I watching the cobalt water turn dove grey. I’m not ...

panic button woke up happy- early to work for once looked at cakes, carousels in windows thought about rings, your cum, my face I don’t know what happened all of the sudden I had this gnawing feeling that God is very small by noon, texting you: hello Hello? I need you I want you to beat me up hello I know I’m being crazy I’m trying not to be please pick up stress last night          my teeth fell out of my face I told my boyfriend and he said that it’s common          it just means I’m insecure     afraid of losing                         and I mean I am      and I talk about it all the time but how does he know that     how does everyone know that paros I have a personality disorder, so I don’t have ...

Inside a chant I compose a body a continuation chime graft mountain graft gold shadows sparking landscape tick nighthinging blue heavy scree smell above it along its different centers I graft energy between the knead of fingertips, new tones out breath above it. Lori Groff is an artist and poet. Her current practice includes painting, drawing, collage, glitched "self posits," and writing. She is always considering how orientation is amendable and continuous.

Second Confirmation Like white rain like I get cold chills when I think your name like a bruised tongue like crunching the chalky crumbles of my noes like the right path needs a breeze man and I’m confused about what makes it right like so much of that gospel truth is shattered like I’m not sure movement can save like all I can do is fall into his arms like Hot Air Balloon I. A peeping hole surrounded by Japanese newspaper allows me to peek with a focused eye I see my body, shockingly large. II. Sometimes I want to be normal, but mostly I wish freedom didn’t make heads twirl and lips yap. My eye lids impulsively fingered like an Albert Oehlen painting   causing mind jam, “Are you in a play, dear?” I am more than anyone, except Bowie. If you’re a Rockstar you’re allowed to wear face paint. III. Orange blossoms cleanse the pallet of degeneration. IV. Shoot your arrow arms. Rise ‘cause you’re filled by fire. Float over water-thoughts. Just becaus...

Solstice Healed like ice seals the pond Skin cells wall the wound Halting ripples—Sound closed down What’s still is well—Earth moves round Epiphany Sleep may stir deepest doubt Today my little son Collected on our Trinity & dreaming walked among & rose in Jasmine to his chest First winter night, the longest yet— Preoccupied with Paradise Quiet Game (ladies & gentlemen) never decide to speak with a full mind Inmate A hotel is a body it chooses how we see & floor to floor assigns a safe— & safety— for a fee Superior People rarely uncap but some cannot withhold— although restrained, they pop & bubble, all honesty & offerings— each writhes at insincerity yet reliably will knot your tie & lace your shoes then stuff your mouth with solitude    Elizabeth Savage is a professor of English at Fairmont State University and poetry editor for Kestrel: A Journal of Literature & Art . New cri...

He Looks Up from His Scratches He looks up from his scratches sees the Sun knows it doesn’t matter knows it’s removed from an earth he hasn’t cracked either,                     knows it’s a sign for something he doesn’t see in a symbolic order scratches away Slip of Sediment   slip of sediment push a landsnail past a migrating Lime tree —what that trails under a shuffle of heavens feet— runs runs runs Joel Bettridge is the author of four books of poetry, Ligatures (Dos Madres 2019), The Public Life of Chemistry (The Cultural Society 2018), Presocratic Blues (Chax 2009), and That Abrupt Here (The Cultural Society 2007), as well two critical studies, Avant-Garde Pieties: Aesthetics, Race, and the Renewal of Innovative Poetics (Routledge 2018) and Reading as Belief: Language Writing, Poetics, Faith (Palgrave 2009). He co-edited, with Eri...