Poetry Summer 2022 fiction all issues
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Joanne Monte
Departure
& other poems
Holly York
Still When I Reach for the Leash
& other poems
Anne Marie Wells
Catholicism Still Lingers in a Concrete Poem
& other poems
D.T. Christensen
Coded Language
& other poems
Laura Faith
Ungodly
& other poems
Abigail F. Taylor
Winter in Choctaw
& other poems
Natalie LaFrance-Slack
Peace
& other poems
Nicole Sellino
iii. moving, an interruption
& other poems
Gilaine Fiezmont
In Memoriam / Day of the Dead
& other poems
Sheri Flowers Anderson
On Being A Widow
& other poems
RJ Gryder
Felling
& other poems
William S. Barnes
to hatch
& other poems
Suzannah Van Gelder
Idolatry
& other poems
Sam Bible-Sullivan
The Dying Worker’s Soliloquy
& other poems
Hills Snyder
Eclipse (July 4, 2020)
& other poems
Lauren Fulton
Birth Marks
& other poems
David Sloan
Prostrate
& other poems
Nancy Kangas
Dry Dock Cranes of Brooklyn Navy Yard
& other poems
Noreen Graf
In Attendance
& other poems
Jim Bohen
Nothing Tea
& other poems
Thomas Baranski
Let us name him dread and look forward
& other poems
Sam Bible-Sullivan
The Vengeful Worker’s Soliloquy
None of us expected to live.
All of us drowning in our own mucus
we just wanted to have their lives
in our hands for the first time.
Most of the bastards had left
gone to their bunkers
or liquified themselves.
Classic money bullshit
preferring to live as a fragment
rather than risk confronting
the humanity they’d consumed like sunflower seeds
couldn’t risk us shells coming back to cut their gums.
Those are the fucks I wanted to put between my molars
and crack open real slow, until my tongue
could scoop out all the meat.
Bet that shit would’ve tasted
like gold flakes on vanilla ice cream.
But you work with what you find
and we found an S class sinner
some silicon tech tyrant
living in some little prick McMansion.
We actually wore ski masks when we broke in;
the comfort of cliches dies hard.
We found him sleeping
face pale, eyes purple, sick as the rest of us.
We almost stopped then; he looked like a boy waiting
for his mom to place a damp cloth on his feverish forehead.
But June didn’t get to ease her son’s fever,
his brain boiled while June worked to keep their house.
She came home to her dead child after a 12 hour shift.
So we pulled the piece of shit
out of bed, tied him to a chair
doused him in gas and spit
and lit him on fire.
We weren’t sure he couldn’t pay his way out of hell
so we guaranteed he burned.
Trying to Recall the Name of a Skull
everyday you’re here amidst the moss-stone
sunbleached white against green cushions
I think I saw a painting like that once
I knew what a painting was once
I knew who you were once
I know you had eyes
green grey blue amber orange apple
new day new eyes
fill up those sunken grottos with gems
you had a gap tooth
but now you have teeth gaps
or have you grown teeth to fill your gaps
I tried to put stones in those teeny holes
but picking up is tricky
I tried to pick you up
but you just got wet
sweaty bones
you sweat in the mornings
unless you’re letting someone else try to hold you
are you two timing me
I guess you can’t cheat since I don’t know your name
is it peter
piper
pec
pepper
sally
shelly
seashore
I don’t think seashore’s a name
but we went there once
you were scared of the seagulls
and my parents
but the seagulls didn’t care you drove a 2005 camry
I didn’t either
we found a swing to sit on and we watched
the sky get sunkissed like our cheeks
then you put your head on my lap
and I played with your hair
until the seagulls squawked with the stars
Two rats battle over the last piece
of flesh on my bones.
They could split it,
set a table with a red, checkered
cloth, some candles, a bottle of vino,
have some smooth accordion
serenading the background, pretend
they’re Lady and the Tramp;
I wonder who’d play the Tramp.
One’s clawed the other’s eye out now,
and the one with the soupy eye,
desperate, disoriented,
has chomped down on its own tail, giving
the eye clawer time to skitter away, my flesh
in its mouth, and soupy eye notices none of this,
just keeps taking bites out of itself,
whole chunks between its jaws,
blood on its maw and seeping from its socket
and rear, gasping out distressed squeaks
between chews of its own meat
until it finally collapses,
its side jumping up and down
and up and down and up and down,
then nothing,
a new pet to keep my carcass company.
I always thought at the end of the world
us paycheckers would be soupy eye,
and the investors would be eye clawer,
but when the end arrived,
they were the two rats,
and we were the piece of flesh.
I was around a bonfire when it hit me that I’m alive during a possible plague.
I was drunker than a lush on judgement day
and another blunt was gettin rolled beside me,
so skunky scents rose above the smoke,
and when those scents were lit between my lips,
I found myself intrigued by all the burning,
the layers of it fractaling,
and me inhaling every bit.
We smoked the blunt until it was slight singe,
and I watched as the fire was doused,
as the oxygen gulping flames were drowned
into simmering embers, embering simmers,
centered amidst sinners,
lightbearers thrust out of heaven,
tiny stones of lost potential.
The Dying Worker’s Soliloquy
I’m not brittle
let’s get rid of that early
there’s just emptiness
in my ribs
not that i’ve
not known
empty
I had my blank spots,
under construction,
what mom used to say,
“We all stay being
built until the day
we’re not.”
I’m not brittle
there’s just no more building.
did I have more plans?
yes
am I angry I’ve been robbed?
yes
but I don’t feel tired
anymore and the soles of my feet
aren’t dry and my shoulders
are just shoulders now.
I did deserve more than this.
Some part of the world owed me something.
But I was never
a loan shark, and debts
are never settled with counting
fingers
it all just goes to the dirt
and grows as soft slicing grass
Sam Bible-Sullivan
first began writing poetry at 12. This initial interest grew to be a passion which led him to study poetry writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His poems have appeared in Atlantis Magazine, Charles Carter Magazine, and, an anthology of North Carolina’s Best Emerging Poets. He is also a playwright and has written two full-length plays which have received stage readings. He’s currently based out of Raleigh, NC.