Dotted Line Dotted Line

Poetry Fall 2013    fiction    all issues

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Chris Joyner
Wrestlemania III
& other poems

Carey Russell
Visiting Hours
& other poems

Marc Pietrzykowski
Cabinet of Wonders
& other poems

Jonathan Travelstead
Prayer of the K-12
& other poems

Jennifer Lowers Warren
Our Daughter's Skin
& other poems

Jeff Burt
The Mapmaker's Legend
& other poems

Patricia Percival
Giving in to What If
& other poems

Toni Hanner
1960—Lanny
& other poems

Christopher Dulaney
Uncle
& other poems

Suzanne Burns
Window Shopping
& other poems

Katherine Smith
Mountain Lion
& other poems

Peter Kent
Surliness in the Green Mountains
& other poems

William Doreski
Gathering Sea Lavender
& other poems

Huso Liszt
Fresco, The Forlorn Virgin...
& other poems

Clifford Hill
How natural you are
& other poems

R. G. Evans
Dungeoness
& other poems

David Kann
Dead Reckoning
& other poems

Ricky Ray
The Music of As Is
& other poems

Tori Jane Quante
Creatio ex Materia
& other poems

G. L. Morrison
Baba Yaga
& other poems

Joe Freeman
In a Wood
& other poems

George Longenecker
Bear Lake
& other poems

Benjamin Dombroski
South of Paris
& other poems

Ryan Kerr
Pulp
& other poems

Josh Flaccavento
Glen Canyon Dam
& other poems
& other poems

Christine Stroud
Grandmother
& other poems

Abraham Moore
Inadvertent Landscape
& other poems

Chris Haug
Cow with Parasol
& other poems

Mariah Blankenship
Fiberglass Madonna
& other poems

Emily Hyland
The Hit
& other poems

Sam Pittman
Growth Memory
& other poems

Alex Linden
The Blues of In-Between
& other poems

Bobby Lynn Taylor
Lift
& other poems

D. Ellis Phelps
Five Poems

Alia Neaton
Cosmogony I
& other poems

Elisa Albo
Each Day More
& other poems

Noah B. Salamon
Sanctuary
& other poems

Jonathan Travelstead

Prayer of the K-12

Lord, let me start with one pull,

my bar shuddering in your calloused hand

as you ratchet my disc

to the scream that melts cast iron.

I pass through it, a ghost through rebar.

Chattery teeth, set on the floor and released.

On a house of cards, a tidal wave.

So much you have engineered, Lord.

I beg you let loose my chain

so with my carbide teeth

I can chew through the paper of this world.

My god! let me do what you made me to do,

and growl beneath your trigger finger.

Let me tear this place in two.



Prayer of the Maul

Let me sweep aside a factory wall, Lord,

cinder-blocks preventing passage

to an engine room scrolled in flame.

I am the grunt before thought.

My load is greater than your stamina,

and though I am your simplest machine

if you let yourself love too much

what is inside the mountain

I am sure to burst your colossal heart.

Even in my dreams

I am a juggernaut ready to destroy all things.

I pray only that you heft me

from that place between your shoulders.

Let me be the one chosen.


Jonathan Travelstead received his MFA at Southern Illinois University. He served in the Air Force National Guard for six years as a firefighter and currently works as a full-time firefighter for the city of Murphysboro. When not on duty, he backpacks twice each year in Central America and Europe, and works on an old dirt bike he hopes will get him to Peru in December.

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