RealPoetik

WE GATHER AT NIGHT


We have spent
the day collecting

like mercury.
Our shiny

beaded pool,
our independent

gauge. I am only
every adjective I can’t

think of and still
you are well-fitted

from bone to skin.
It is menacing

to acquire fences,
to drive down

from the mountain
day after day.



WE GATHER AT NIGHT


Under the
ammunition

of the red room
I am unwrinkling

gallantry with
a blindfold.

You are
forcing the hatch

and bounding
the floor in rubber.

The idea of us
is my palm

held up parallel
to my face.



Jackie Clark is editor-in-chief of LIT magazine. She is also the series editor ofPoets off Poetry at Coldfront. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming from Word for/Word, Sixth Finch, and Fou, among other places. Her chapbook Office Work is forthcoming from Greying Ghost Press. She blogs occasionally at No Help for That.

Zachary Schomburg is the author of The Man Suit (Black Ocean 2007), Scary, No Scary (Black Ocean 2009), a dvd of poem-films, Little Blind Thing (Poor Claudia 2010), and several small press chapbooks. You might run into him in your town sometime.

[The dumb dog comes home]


I had by noon
gone down
to the bank

‘Fool’ I thought
she could count
me out
of my hands

my face at least
will be
my own
I thought

I will
know me
by the mouth
that feeds her



Magdalena Zurawski's novel The Bruise won the 2008 Lambda Award for lesbian debut fiction. Currently she is working on a manuscript of poems. She lives in Durham, NC.

LoFi Naturalism


A clotted conversation
In the municipal park
Under clarifying rain.
Our intentions were stellar;
The production was ultra
Low budget (coffee and gum);
The words were plain, part rehearsed,
And said unbeautifully.
The feelings engendered were
Severe and unexpected.



Daniel Lin has poems in the current issues of Octopus , Sink Review and Notre Dame Review. He edits the NYC-based small press, Love Among the Ruins, which publishes an online journal and poetry chapbooks.