hana

needle always points
this way, not the other way
life, straight and simple

tapping glass facade
with a time-worn forefinger
for something has changed

north has gone astray
besotted with fragrant air
cherry blossom front

thread follows needle
pilgrims wander to the east
archipelago

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

crosscurrent of spring

i’m sorry i shouted at you
i had no right (you told me darkly)
i sailed my disgrace through the reef of shame
but hadn’t we kissed at the blushing jetty?
was that just another tidal skeeting?

another day with nothing inside
yet hope still dabbed behind each ear
i’ve seen mermaids depart for other shores before
speaking wakes of dismantled devotion
i hope we prove to be the exception

once more in our summer of discontent
again we list sadly into fall apart
to become a sail’s wintry afterthought
but didn’t our lungs evolve for screaming
for when choppy waters beset us?

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

life and death in khánh hòa

the cereal killer died as he’d lived
slaying bowls at a time with cold precision
of course, it wasn’t his decision
it was an early childhood trauma
(as is usual with these kinds of people)
he’d build mounds of corn flakes like a steeple
’til mother beat him for playing with his food
so he grew to hate milk and processed grain
carried all his life this exquisite pain
he thus learned to be an agronomist
well actually, he poisoned the earth
from corner to corner, along its girth
and he tied the cows’ tails in bundles
so they mooed and lost their milk
then life from that point went smooth as silk
until one fateful day in vietnam
he thought he saw a bowl floating in the cream storage vat
but it was his boss’s wife in an oriental rice hat
having a soak, if you please, to nourish her skin
not realising this, he moved in for the kill…
then her voice sounded, agonised and shrill
then the boss busted into the barn with a big gun
boom! boom! then blood flowed like red cordial through a sieve
that stupid cereal killer died as he’d lived

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // Carpe Diem by Madison Julius Cawein

Blow high, blow low!
No longer borrow
Care of tomorrow:
Take joy of life, and let care go!

by MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN (1865-1914)
Public Domain Poetry

GUEST POST // Let Me Fall by Tara Caribou

help [me] overcome
\\myself//
reach }}inside{{
pull me
_out_
let me ~run~ my fingers
down. your. throat.
I want to
________f
_________a
__________ll
into the **magic** of
your •eyes•
while I +ride+ you
into |o|b|l|i|v|i|o|n|

by TARA CARIBOU
© All rights reserved 2017-2020