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featured poets & artists

 

joshua michael stewart

joshua michael stewart is originally from sandusky, ohio, but has lived in western massachusetts for the past 14 years. his poems have been published in rattle, sanskrit, booglit, the south boston literary gazette, maelstrom and soon in wavelength and the unknown writer. www.authorsden.com/joshuamichaelstewart

 

Marriage and identity

Lying in bed next to each other in separate
rooms, judging the distance in years.

Two paper dolls with attaching hands
desperately wishing to tear away.

Petrified in the dark, wary of ripping
off our own arms.

 

Spork

after Charles Simic

Like the homeless man that bums
for quarters in front of the drugstore

its middle tooth is missing,
lost while prying off a bottle cap.

I don't think it's ever killed anyone,
but since it was replaced by inherited

silverware, and demoted to digging out
pebbles lodged in the tread of sneakers

I've waken in the night to diabolical
muttering coming from the junk drawer.

 

The lost painting of norman rockwell: american made, 1944

The old woman fox-trotting around the town fountain in the nude. Her white pubic hair mistaken for Walt Whitman. The policeman blowing a silver whistle. The mime-face crowd filling white space. Standing among them a middle-aged man, smoking a pipe. The two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels fucking at his feet.

 

Renga

pumpkins rot
on the front porch and forest
expose their innards

her breasts beautiful
the coroner's hands shake

old couple lie in bed
snow falls outside their window
the ticking of a clock

broken glass in kitchen sink
a woman crying in her soapy hands

clouds sludge over fields
a man crossing an icy stream
carrying his dead son

fishing vessels grow, the sun drowns
tired-eyed women on shore sigh

moon pours milk in lake
as our naked bodies
tangle and weave

peasants dance and pray for rain
fields along the road reek of urine

you're in a wild west flick
you've a horse named roxy
a gal called bullet

you're shot dead
even before the lights dim

 

The great entertainer

The movie theater's dark.
Except for the old man
slouching in the back row,
we have the place to ourselves.

You lean over, nibble
my ear and kiss my neck.
I slide my hand under
your blouse, over your bra.

On screen a bag lady's
eaten alive by a horde of rats.
I'm halfway down your jeans.
The old man's snoring.

Across town two kids throw
a sack of kittens down the sewer,
hop on their shiny bicycles,
and race to the ice cream shop.

In town square a faceless man ties
a noose for another faceless man.
The horse is slapped on the ass.
Death kicks at the air, sticks out its tongue.

If the crowd throw roses
Death will go home to a hot meal.
If they throw down their firstborn:
an encore, and night of cold leftovers.


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