LIBERA ME   I.   Pain resur­faced, exit­ing out of my arms. In the dream was the face of your father but not my father. In that way I knew he had tak­en you with him. Music, a tor­tu­ous path. There­fore grief is ascribed to the body. A force fluc­tu­at­ing over time. We believe that when aban­doned, every […]

  ORPHEUS RESTORED. PART TWO.   To write this poem I had to get drunk and also high because it was so scary and I need­ed to take leave of my sens­es a lit­tle and also I had some ice tea.  I am prob­a­bly ignor­ing some red flags as I’m being sucked into the black hole of lov­ing you. You taught me […]

  ATTACHED TO THE SWAN COMES THE WATER   i. Are you will­ing to wake me with your baby? To trust I won’t cut your lus­cious bangs as you rest?  My two chil­dren we send to the school best fit­ting per­son­al­i­ties of orange sheets, news­pa­pers smeared with cof­fee & glit­ter-recy­­cling. Tin cans emp­tied of black-eyed peas & […]

  WHITE SPACE (PDF FEATURE) Next→ Jim­mie Cumbie lives on the north side of Chica­go. His poems have appeared in The Spoon Riv­er Poet­ry Review, The CavenKer­ry Press, Swink, The Edi­son Review, and Spout among others.

FRONTAL A mis­quote dilates ghost-red and hat-black the Krem­lin of impulse. On the spiky chance the thighs are real I am their appetite for polyandry, Dada, booze and spaghet­ti, the unsee­able apart­ments in a dream of hall­ways.         CRIB Soupy riv­er of alt-sex as is mocked by ter­rap­ins and pan­golins and melan­choly aye-ayes drawn by […]

  NOT NOW NOR NEVER   Not that you can hold us to it but then               E‑roads didn’t exist until recent­ly. Our fin­ger­nails feel Veneered on our fin­gers, sinewy and locked, our hearts await­ing              Erup­tions of light shoot­ing out of our heads: Rags for the rag traders. Who’s been gath­er­ing up              Neo­phytes and acolytes, teach­ing them a few things […]

  SACRAMENT That win­ter, I prac­ticed say­ing good­bye to you slid­ing a fin­ger inside myself Plac­ing it—knuckle crease to fingertip—down the cen­ter of my tongue. I want­ed to know myself—know the woman you might have known. Not sweet As I would have liked. A chem­i­cal qual­i­ty I might have asked you about, lat­er. That room with […]

THE LESSER SYSTEMS               On this day when the clocks fol­low the con­cen­tric               tem­po of a top and the verb to be               has worn off its cos­tume so the tongue can pick a place […]

  Iuno Eigh­­teenth-cen­­tu­ry Vien­na in win­ter, cart­ing and car­riage hors­es steam­ing under their blan­kets, Stephansdom’s bells clean on the hour, ice floe on the fast Danube, the dry heat of ceram­ic stoves, their exhaust a brown inver­sion lay­er between the city and moon Tonight, here, the Leipzig Quar­tet per­forms Mozart’s C Major, K. 465, Dis­so­nance, as […]

SHARES (Har­lan Coun­ty, USA) In the long descent,/ darkness/ the one true com­pass. The world is not one; there are worlds with­in worlds/ what we know of the world of light is less than the weight of a soul slip­ping from an earth-pressed body. We have lost many a word/ lost many a word/ & […]

CURRENTS Stay, says the moon­light to the snail I would if I could, says its trail glis­ten­ing. Beat it, says the lake to the eels. Will do, say the eels, into wave­form of voic­es of fish­er­man grum­bling. Don’t cry, says the nest to the lake. I’m not, says the lake weep­ing Sty­ro­foam. Gid­dyap, says the horse in its bones. Tallyho! […]

REVENANTS Hair hen­naed to a mar­tial tease, left arm and leg dead weight, brain seared by errant surgery and strokes you man­gle social niceties, harangue off key, laugh late at jokes old friends find inap­pro­pri­ate. Your gar­den flour­ish­es and sours untend­ed, ram­pant in neglect. Rose arbors buck­le under thorns; the Women’s Club no longer tours. Couch pocked with […]

  YOUR STORY dear old friend are you angry why won’t you write me beloved teacher is what I called you in my mind mild morn­ing cal­i­for­nia depress­ing light uncer­tain­ly stand­ing between the rooms I ask myself why such anger I walk down­town busy wor­ry­ing all day I feel I am sure a man is hold­ing an impor­tant gera­ni­um in a sto­ry you are […]

WINTER BRANCHES AS TERMINAL SYMPTOMS Black crayons blind­ly scrib­bling, iden­ti­cal name dia­­mond-etched in the blue mir­ror of oxy­gen; glass branch con­duct­ing, wav­ing at you and only you. Win­dow win­dow in the wall, what’s that cross­ing the sky with­out sound? Lone bomber with plen­ty of fuel but no coun­try to return to. So, a few of the not so meek sheep […]

  ELEVATOR INVENTION … Lan­guage-learn­er fear­ful of error as to pro­nounce the Amer­i­cans as part­way back from the dead devoid of the pri­ma­ry sources, phrase in semi­cir­cle, who could tell by the hand­work, lever left by the glass-piece, radi­ance by flex­i­ble curve and grom­met. Safebox at the stroke of twelve, and in the Geor­gian corridors […]

  CHILD Step one: Obtain a new­ly born human baby. Step two: Every morn­ing tell it it is mag­nif­i­cent. Every night tell it it is an abom­i­na­tion. Repeat this process every day until the child moves out of your house. Step three: Pro­ceed with the usu­al child-things: love, uni­forms, etc. Step four: The full sum of all […]

DITTY the fal­cons had come in March along with high water it did not want to be spring what­ev­er it had been the water was not leav­ing but the fal­cons were here and every turn of wing said die to a pigeon the cold earth and its lay­er had to give up to sun but snow of an April night made any change […]

  WRACK ZONE It’s the ocean sound­ing out a pan­ic I oth­er­wise could­n’t pro­nounce. Ouro­boric vow­el fixed to a low sky’s loop of vari­able white. • Decayed rope of bull-head kelp dis­tends from tide- tamped sand. Mind mir­rors that sur­face, shape, at the moment I imag­ine if I thought far enough I’d leave my face. RECEIPT Wall streaked of soot of moths crushed months ago […]

  INVASION Strides the war­rior forth from a GameStop, bear­ing a blast shield with a bla­zon gules; its cod­ed con­stel­la­tions, bul­let-peened, embed the absent mean­ing of the war. The event escapes, but Kry­on­MYnuTs rules: 30 kills: 4 deaths and no air strikes inter­vened. The kill-cam’s slow-mo cap­tures every death, cre­ates an image of pur­pose as […]

REPORT FROM BEHIND THE CASTLE To deal with the King, one must go behind the cur­tain in the castle—for the best inter­est of every­thing offi­cial. This way the peo­ple won’t notice. So much. They will not care to notice. Am I about to mar­ry to the King? There are ladies here. Ladies mount­ing one another. […]