Tuesday poem #529 : Michael Betancourt : Graphism Panorama in Grey

Michael Betancourt’s typographical asemic poetry has been published by Red Fox Press, Post–Asemic Press, and nOIR:Z, as well as in Die Lerre Mitte, To Call magazine, aurapoesiavisual, and Utsanga.it. More information is available online at michaelbetancourt.com

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #528 : Kyla Houbolt : How to Live in a Cartoon

 

 

You're three dogs in a trench coat;
I'm seventeen cats in a pair of
skinny jeans. When we walk down
the avenue it becomes a boulevard.
The street lamps all bow as we pass
and some of them even get loose
and follow us. You pick up a piece
of litter from the street and it turns
out to be a hundred dollar bill.
I am unimpressed, because yesterday
I found three large gold nuggets
in the storm grate. We walk into
our favorite cafe and all the candles
light themselves. I lean over and
light my cigarette from the flame.
You pull out your tiny notebook
in which we are plotting our revenge.
Our whispers appear above our heads
as tiny dots inside thought bubbles.
I reach up and puncture the bubbles
as an extra precaution. Then
we turn the page.

 

 

 

Kyla Houbolt, relocated to an island in the PNW, is still writing weird stuff. You can find some of it on her linktree, here: https://linktr.ee/luaz_poet where you can also find ordering info for her two chapbooks, Dawn's Fool at Ice Floe Press, and Tuned at CCCP Chapbooks. The chapbooks, Surviving Death and But Then I Thought, are forthcoming from Broken Spine Arts and above/ground Press, respectively. She also has a full length manuscript currently seeking a publisher. Kyla is on Twitter @luaz_poet.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

 

Tuesday poem #527 : Jessica Gigot : Joy

 

after Ross Gay

 

For me it’s the bouquet
of over-the top, dinner plate
dahlias versus tulips,
a flakey bite of thick apple pie,
not the canned sauce. The old plum
finally bears fruit again after
years of hack. Lovage
overwhelms the herb bed,
new strawberry plantlets
creep over the edge,
cling to the weed cloth,
find fresh terrain for their tiny roots.
The brazen rhubarb always
takes up more space than she
is allotted and I love,
in the early spring, how she
unfurls her grand green body
and simply does not care.

 

 

 

Jessica Gigot is a poet, farmer, and coach. She lives on a little sheep farm in the Skagit Valley. Her second book of poems, Feeding Hour (Wandering Aengus Press, 2020), won a Nautilus Award and was a finalist for the 2021 Washington State Book Award. Jessica’s writing and reviews appear in several publications, such as Orion, The New York Times, The Seattle Times, Ecotone, Terrain.org, Gastronomica, Crab Creek Review, and Poetry Northwest. She is currently a poetry editor for The Hopper. Her memoir, A Little Bit of Land, was published by Oregon State University Press in September 2022.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #526 : Adam Katz : À charge de revanche

for Michel Simard

 

 

predisp. to soothe
in a state of potent.
needless course correction

.         .         .         .         .         .

a significant transformation
that, maybe just because it’s
a transformation, also affects
a stricture that has its own,
independent likes and dislikes.

.         .         .         .         .         .

exhausting also exhausts rejuvenation
like that I can still hardly believe
predictably reenvisioning balance

.         .         .         .         .         .

your instructions are to cultivate
an easy and familiar competence
in hunting for information in recognition

the values of a place
          come to characterize
points of interest
          that are happening nearby

 

 

 

Adam Katz is a poet-scholar, fiction writer, English instructor, and editor living on Gitxsan territory in northwest BC. He recently edited an issue of G U E S T [a journal of guest editors].

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #525 : Peter Myers : Coverage

 

 

found a seat at the memory gate weaving sounds together I mean fingers (mine) sometimes doing sounds though at times just gestures or gloss ice on the idea of snow plucking out samples one by one during Sherwin-Williams visitation hours a document of the body’s weakness an archive of the body’s frequency if you’re here to lose your music don’t worry it was gone before dusk or its likeness made a misprision of certainty sure I remember those guys overtly rude amidst the willows perhaps weeping or was that a projection of the beauty I see in others that I claim I’ll never possess though granted an eternity no less limited than the one I have already so are you happy mom are you happier dad aster rover beaches doodads rivermouth bird of information a wing can bend but can never break a dog can bark a sun can give its light to those who will betray it (me) when the night (you) crushes the mind’s template with its boots teeth headcrown forces external to those visions proper to the temple that burns up the back of your head’s inverted idea of Earth thwarting ribbons floaties & other portraits of mirth left out in the rain for like twelve years so that when you say “fire” in twelve seconds all that’s left is what I was too late to say to only show weakness when it’s too late to do so

 

 

 

 

Peter Myers is a poet living in New York. His recent poems have appeared in Fence, Hot Pink Mag, jubilat, and Nomaterialism. He has written essays and reviews for Annulet, Full Stop, and Chicago Review. A chapbook is forthcoming from above/ground press.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan