#finalpoems / [?]

Shadows

When our sun sets
we lose our shadow
and become mere dust,
soon to be scattered.
We become a faint memory that torments a loved one’s soul.

We are a mere chance happening in a certain spherical realm.

Some of us are famous,
some with disabilities,
most regular,
some an abomination–
a government that self-serves.

We wear our mask in the day,
hiding behind a façade of blissfulness and success.
But the moonlight unearths us,
reminding us that we are shipwrecked in a body.

We are an illusion existing for a moment in a certain spherical realm.

Our existence is a mere chance.
When our sun sets
we lose our shadow
and become mere dust,
soon to be scattered.

I am Coleen Everglades Lewis and I reside in Pembroke Pines, Florida. I am a poet, registered nurse and adjunct professor. I have fond memories of growing up in Jamaica and climbing trees, walking for hours, and watching the goats walk home by themselves close to sunset. In the Bahamas, where I also grew up, I have peaceful memories of walking to the beach after school and bathing in the warm beautiful seawater, under balmy blue skies. I also enjoyed climbing different trees, especially the tall coconut trees, sea grape trees and guinep trees.

#finalpoems / [?]

Rules of Engagement

This is how
you get him
to hate you:

speak.

Of welts, of weather
of money and mothers;
guileless, you dribble the barbs
that hook into the soft space
between his ribs
with cavity-ache, bruise-sweet

What he once thought sweet
turns bitter, your sapling
turns kindling
between you.

The more you speak
the more the words chafe
on abraded skin
until even a comment
ground clean of edges
sends him thrashing.

He loved your voice
once but now
you see the grimace
before the words ever vibrate
out of your collapsed throat,
like you’re coughing out
flies instead of asking
how his day went.

You spiderweb your words
between the pillars of your teeth
but when you grow lax
they buzz free and he
can’t help but break the hive
of your mouth.

To calm him
you must be an ornithologist
and study the exact manner
in which he nests his anger,
braiding the bloodwarm memories
of your mistakes around the cold of it,
a wreath of thorn and tinder.

Note the shape and contour
of it, cloistered
in the net of his tendons
brushing his lungs,
embraced by the soft things
he no longer shares with you.

The egg is stone,
like his fists,
crudely formed and
unyielding,
acidic when named.

This is how
you get him
to hit you:

have skin.

Wear it before him,
plain or glazed with pigment,
just wear it
without care.
Pump blood through the fields
of your flesh
carelessly
unadorned and catching like fire
on his magpie eye.

Bouquets of flowers become
bouquets of bone;
caress his gift
of knuckles with
a hemorrhage of your own, cradling
everything he can’t say
in the space between the wind up and
the bruise.

A flinch is
an invitation
to draw the amethyst
from your cheeks.

A scream
a request
to gentle your flesh
with rubies.

In the mirror,
you tilt your face
left and right, noting
all the colors his hands
can wring from you.

This is how
you get him
to kill you:

breathe.

Become unbearably
alive,
an insult of
an existence.

Breathe and watch
his rage crown
from beneath his skin,
a hatchling he calves newborn
everyday.

Breathe his fists,
stroke the snake
of blood from your temple,
let it coil
in your palm.

Smile.
Let the animal
exhaust himself knowing
the nature of
his defeat.

This is how
you he dies:

Sloane Leong is a mixed indigenous islander cartoonist, writer, and artist. She most well known for her indigenous sci-fi comic Prism Stalker and she has a new graphic novel called A Map to the Sun
forthcoming from First Second Books in 2020. She is currently living near Portland, Oregon.

#finalpoems / [?]

Nest

and then
holding each other
as if bird’s eggs

cradling
carrying on
as children

Jennifer Y. Montgomery is a poet, writer, visual artist, storyteller, attorney, and pie baker who lives in Connecticut with her daughter and two cats. She grew up in rural North Dakota but believes she has no discernible accent. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Quarterly, Red Weather, Haiku Journal, Failed Haiku, and several others. She believes that truth is stranger than fiction and authenticity is the highest art form.

#finalpoems / [?]

dracula imagines the potato

leaning on his bicycle’s handles dracula
has his questions                                            such as
                                                                                   who sorted the world into prey and predator

dracula lives
in the threat of a sunrise with his questions
after which he must sleep

a particular vampire routine
that is inefficient but beautiful
                                                 like the rising and setting of the moon

like grass growing through the pavement cracks
and exclamatory graffiti in the men’s room
                                                 turning the bike around dracula wonders

which are predator and which prey
together the two make a vague world of
the small and the larger

the clean scent of mist is
the sign to start heading home
arriving around 5am dracula goes up

to the 3rd floor                                               up
to the door of his apartment                                 lets himself in
his sleep will be peaceful
//

walking through the world dracula has his questions
leaves in the gutter smell rotten
the typewriter is slowly killing him

one word                                            at                                            a time
he knows
you don’t really get to predict your death
but you can read the warning signs

long ago the ants lifted any last remains of food in the apartment

gold twilight glitters outside
making a dusky gloam-light inside
and moons are more beautiful anyway

                                                 the filmmaker and the poet
                                                 know
                                                 there’s something sweet about moonlight

some of his friends are vampires too
a friend said
go so slow when hunting

that the world forgets you                                             he dreams
                                                                                                   of villages and mossy
                                                                                                   mountains and red

apples and the descent of the sun
into the treelike
//
riding a dark bike trail dracula has questions

what i wonder is why death
sometimes comes as a complete surprise
to the living                                               there is no answer

                                                      the bicycle’s left
handle was always sharp
with static

of each human dracula wonders
has its time come
                                                 dracula wonders why
                  in the world
jubilation survives the longest of any emotion
in the stairwell dracula hears his neighbors are talking
one bought a potato for dinner
shows a brown tuber to her partner

//

                                  in the
dark her corpse has a
totemic solidity                                               dracula imagines the potato

Jack Giaour‘s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Jelly Bucket, Broken Plate, and the Rio Grande Review, among other journals. He has an MFA from Chapman University in Southern California, and currently lives in Massachusetts.

#finalpoems / [?]

Hiding My Name in Plain Sight:
.              .An Acrostic (Sorta) Sonnet

My Name: in decades hence, searchable on
Ancestry, my hometown’s obituary archives.
Renamed twice by virtue of two husbands.
Yielding parallel lives, circuitous identities
All harnessed by my Mom-chosen Christian
Name. Exotic titles discarded for one
Never-known-to fail in our family, I could
Expect good luck. Rely on the future hope

How, they say, you’ll never completely die
As long as someone continues to say your
Name. Bless you, reminisce. Wavering now.
Not quite sure I want to hang around as
An ache, a loss, even a happy memory.
Names, like breath. Poof. A-ha-bsorbed.

Maryanne Hannan has published poems in numerous journals and anthologies. Her first book, Rocking like It’s All Intermezzo, is forthcoming from Resource Publications. A former Latin teacher, she lives in upstate New York. www.mhannan.com

#finalpoems / [?]

From the Small Beginning

It was yesterday
that I retrieved my soul at last,
moved by the placid persuasion of a psalm
reminding me of my rootedness
in the archives of heaven

In earlier times
life lay ahead, a rhythm of reciting tones,
a paced chant before all that somber news
and facing facts and the quiet homely work
of peacemaking for your sake

But this morning
I awoke a fading mendicant nun,
reading my own rich requiem Mass,
a celebration of my heart’s trove
and your constant love

Another heartbeat or two
and I’m a whisper in your ear,
just an old story of someone who birthed you
now melting into the great Forever,
leaving only our hallowed cord

From the beginning, Son
your spirit was our most profound joy,
a fresh poem finely etched in old gold,
holding fast to beauty and grace,
faithful to your own gentle spirit

Listen now, Son, to the voice in the wind.
. . . . .Listen, Son –
How love whooshes and swirls, encircles and fills,
echoing from the small Beginning ….
into the great Forever

A homebound writer, poet, and former columnist, Jamie Dedes‘ poetry has been featured in a number of venues. Dedes runs The Poet by Day (jamiededes.com), an info hub focusing on initiatives for peace, sustainability and social justice, she-poets, minority poets, and poets just finding their voices in maturity, and is also the editor of The BeZine (thebezine.com), a publication of The Bardo Group/Beguines, a virtual arts collective Dedes founded.

#finalpoems / [?]

Opens Dark

To be final is the step before being no more.
It is the death before death.
I feel some pressure in writing this.
Ah! I will describe this last moment here on my old brown sofa.
My dog snorts, finally tired and curled up toward the evening.
The white curtains look kind in their graceful knots.
My photos are always of children.
I didn’t write my book.
But no regrets.
My injured foot nestles into the dog’s paw.
I feel an uncommon sense of comfort.
The walls in my living room are white and textured.
There’s a mirror over the couch with open doors.
Here I am

The dog is healthy and young and has years to run and play.

Susan Prevost is a true river rat from New Orleans—the city that informs most of her writing and photography as well as a good chunk of her identity. She teaches ESL to refugees and writes poems and non-fiction. Susan is also a climate activist and fights the petrochemical industry in Cancer Alley on the river in South Louisiana.

#finalpoems / [?]

Here

I cannot live here.
Either my heart is in the past
or my mind is set on the future.
Even my body shakes and jitters
in between dimensions.

Here is where the happiness lies,
but happiness is not tangible.
So I keep racing towards the next best thing
I can pick up and fill me.

But nothing fills me,
and there is an incinerator
where my stomach should be.

And each newfound passion I race towards
starts off as a beautiful, warm fire
that quickly turns to ash.

Ashes of former loves,
jobs of the resigned,
empty homes with no occupants.
Here lies the soot of all my dreams,
burnt to a crisp before they were achieved.

Gabrielle Buckner is a tiny mountain mama and avid writer based out of Lakewood, Colorado. When she is not a nice pup, Buckner spends her free time reading, traveling, and trying to see over all the tall folks at concerts.

#finalpoems / [?]

Our ship was the rental apartment you never fully settle

into, learning to move in the dark around
its flaws: the low bruising

ceilings, the hollow walls, the after-
taste of recycled air. In the beginning, what did we know

of confinement? Evicted from our only home, we grew
hanging gardens in the air shaft, neo-meat

in the replicator, grew nosy about our neighbours’
water consumption. Erase purchasing

power and private schools, the only
social stratification left is views

of unshielded skies. It’s hard to avoid
the biblical in this flying coffin. 1000 mainly

strangers cramped in a donut town orbiting
the engine. The first death was an accident, a lost

child unstrapped in acceleration bled
out into boxed air. We mourned

with stricter curfews and a new kind
of funeral rite for the unburiable dead.

Nisa Malli is a writer and researcher, born in Winnipeg and currently living in Toronto. She holds a BFA in Writing from the University of Victoria and has completed residencies at the Banff Centre and Artscape Gibraltar Point. Her first chapbook, Remitting, is forthcoming from Baseline Press in Fall 2019.

#finalpoems / [?]

Bury Me in Westminster Abbey

Bury me in Westminster Abbey,
Lay me in Westminster Abbey,
No great work I put in;
No heroic work I put in;
I feel a bang of pain,
I feel a refrain from gain
O heal me, my Lord!
And stick my name on board.
I cried and cried like a lamp
In the last stage of burning,
Yet the world remained untouched!
Like the publishers of big houses,
Big were mine dreams some day
Small art they now,
No mine I wish, no bee line of followers,
I wish, nor those who wish autographs.
All I need a little house,
And a smiling face of her,
Who cares for all those
Sufferings, all those agonies;
Let the world blow their trumpet,
Let not them publish my pen,
Let not them nominate me for Nobel,
For noble is my thought.
And I pen for her, who
Cares for my feelings,
For my mourning,
I shall cry no more,
No more will I groan,
No more shall I shed
The dew on grass blade;
I shall live a life of Lords; a cord
No more can chain me
As I chained all my morrows
And I celebrate these moments
As this soul evaporates they say
‘He is no more’,
So fulfill this last desire:
Burry me in Westminster Abbey;
Lay me in Westminster Abbey…!

Ziaul Moid Khan, a native of a green countryside named Johri in North India, writes fiction, nonfiction and poetry with equal love and ease. His writing has recently featured in Onion River Review (April 2019), The Criterion (Feb. 2019), Foliate Oak Literary Magazine (Feb. 2019), The Coachella Review‘s blog (Feb. 2019), KAIROS Literary Magazine (Dec. 2018), and Blue Lake Review (Nov. 2018). He teaches English at Gudha International School, Junjhunu, Rajasthan. Zia edits his school magazine Sunshine. He likes to spend his spare time with his beautiful receptionist-wife, Khushboo Khan, and cute two-year-old son, Brahamand. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zia.m.khan.9

#finalpoems / [?]

Fleeting Testament

At least let me make my will in peace.
Dead real estate over-worked, over-priced,
Help yourself freely to all my prickly shards,
Or folds of my wrinkles still unplumbed.
Though freely offered, will you ever take,
The fragments of fragrance that floral joy gave?
If tangible, substantial, is all that you want,

Out-dated gadgets that I didn’t use,
To dear, squabbling heirs, I bequeath.
Unbought paint, that layered not my skin,
Fake smiles, or lashes that never got to bat,
If my stingy views you so despise,
With months spent moaning on your precious loss,
Why complain now? ’coz you can well afford,

Greased fast food vouchers I chose to forgo,
Discreet high heels bought, but decided not to wear.
Tempting lottery pools I chose to ignore,
All justified complaints didn’t bother to make,
All cheeky cars that couldn’t cut across,
All fake sugary smiles I didn’t point out
Petals of my memories to whom can I leave?

Gratuitously Gracious

All I resisted, bits of sugared grease,
Sterile smiles, were to coldness sacrificed.
Take your first pickings of misfortune’s cards,
Tunes in icy showers that were not hummed.
Trail after tears; get trapped in latticed lake?
Embark on experience, that was secluded cave,
My memory’s phantom you’ll have to haunt.

Stirred with regret, blues’ bitter juice,
Sipped with a petal of love’s lost wreath.
All the lost grease when my ego got thin.
Scraped by despair, my favourite door-mat.
My material peelings why fight to reprise,
Gleefully given to those with no sauce.
Why degrade granny when you fly abroad?

Flashy fake critics I preferred not to pare.
News sheets I didn’t iron, or fold just so.
Free perfume samples couldn’t bother to take,
All folks I didn’t tell how much they were a bore.
Wily women didn’t rebuff with make-up dross,
All strolls I didn’t take or walkabouts,
Mid dripping seconds that fall through time’s sieve.

Of Indian origin, Sultana Raza has a Master’s degree in English Literature. Her articles (on art, film, and humanitarian issues) have appeared in Flick Feast (UK), PopOptique (USA), Beyond Bree (an American MENSA newsletter), the Peter Roe Series (Tolkien Society UK), apertura, ensemble, Le Jeudi, Wort.lu, and paperjam in English and French. Raza’s poems have appeared in London Grip (UK), Literary Gazette (USA), Caduceus (Ed. Yale University, USA), Muse India, The New Verse News, and Catch and Release (Columbia’s online journal). Her fiction has received an honorable mention in Glimmer Train. Heaven’s Gate is due to be published in Entropy. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sultana.raza.7

#finalpoems / [?]

An Idea

I never planned for the end.

It came anyway.

And perhaps because I was not responsive, it came three times:
  .  Fire.
  .  Mudslide.
  .  Divorce.
And swiftly carried away all I had, loved, knew. But left me. . . to do what? With what?

Are these the stages of grief, and am I mourning myself; already gone yet still here?

I never planned for the end.
  .  It will come anyway.

  .  When it does, put my ashes in the sea: return me to Start: Water. Motion. Breathless. An idea.

Christina Gessler holds a PhD in American history. She specializes in the private writings of 19^th century American women, which mostly means she can read faded handwriting in a crumbling diary and piece together the story of a life that once was. Her poems have been published in Arrowheads, and Spectrum.

#finalpoems / [?]

LAST WORDS

i have a question

do you believe in god?

where is my clock?

LSD 100 micrograms I.M.

i got lost.

why that’s the last thing i’ll do!

consummatum est

fuck it
didn’t want to go
to heaven anyway

je me’en vais chercher
un grand peut-etre

it’s very beautiful
over there

tomorrow
i shall no longer be here

all for her

Euginia Tan is a Singaporean writer who writes poetry, creative non-fiction and plays. She enjoys cross-pollinating art into multidisciplinary platforms and reviving stories. Contact her at eugtan@hotmail.com.

#finalpoems / [?]

downfalls

we love the downfall.

we sail a thousand islands, knowing
our ships are capable of being swallowed by the ocean.
some of us see the lighthouse,
some of us die seeing the lighthouse.

we fly to the stars, knowing
our rockets are capable of being abandoned by gravity.
some of us reach the moon,
some of us die with the sun.

we give pieces of ourselves to others, knowing
our hearts are capable of being broken by everyone.
some of us receive happiness,
some of us die despite happiness.

we are doomed to love downfalls,
but maybe we love the climb to the brink
more than the freefall.

Benita J Rosalind is a creative soul based in New York from Jakarta, Indonesia. She penned her first poem in December 2015 and now, shares her work with her small but dear to heart audience at @GirlCriesWolf on Instagram. Her collection of creative work can be viewed at her website: http://benitajrosalind.com.