Namit V. Shah
The very land of landfill lords
is alive;
A crude creature in itself,
The sizzling scrap and smoke
its skin
and the bubbling browny broth
its blood.
The landfill lords,
a hundred half living
dead dreaming skeletons,
churn and churn
and split apart
by the great crude
creature’s heavy heart.
The landfill lords
own everything
left unowned,
and digging by
their destined graves
still search
for something shiny
in their worldfuls of dirt.
NAMIT V. SHAH, from Ahmedabad, India, has been writing poetry almost five years now. Some of his poems have been featured on online poetry sites such as ‘PoetrySoup’ and ‘HelloPoetry.’ His poems apply an acerbic approach towards expression and exude a certain sense of brevity, all the while remaining visually engaging.
Deborah P Kolodji
insomnia
those fierce Martian
winds
planted trees
in the surface dome
forest bathing
unbridled drones
the year of the horse
nebula
DEBORAH P KOLODJI moderates the Southern California Haiku Study Group and is the former president of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. She has published 4 chapbooks of poetry, over 1000 poems, and has appeared in several anthologies, including “Aftershocks: Poetry of Recovery,” The Red Moon Anthology, the Rhysling Anthology, Dwarf Stars, and A New Resonance 4. She has published several short stories and a memoir appears in Chicken Soup for the Dieter’s Soul. Her first full-length book of haiku and senryu, “Highway of Sleeping Towns,” from Shabda Press won a distinguished book award from The Haiku Foundation.
AR Dugan
Time and tide he thought. The cycle of life.
Ending in this, the last twilight.
Before the silence of death.
He perceived in this a micro-universe, complete.
— Philip K. Dick
I want more life, fucker.
— the android Roy Batty in Blade Runner (1982)
Ask: When did the word please / become our weakness? / Say: In every declaration I see sacrifice. / Ask: On how many altars must I open? / Say: I need the response to my call — / I love you. / Ask: Is the lie you told me empathy? / Say: Take two in the morning for your trouble. / Ask: Where’s the floating red cross that fills my vessel? / Say: Life is like a cell / phone battery — a little less each charge. / Ask: When I feel the weight of it all, / will you find the brim and overflow me? Say: My fullness is yours now. / Call me Capacity. / Ask: Why does every offering find us here? / Say: The light that burns twice as bright, / burns half as long. / Ask: Do tears count? Do thoughts? / Say: Speak my name like a good machine. Join me. / Ask: When is the expiration date? / How much time? / Say: The knowing another loss / itself. Ask: In the end, / will your depletion be enough to bring me back?
AR DUGAN is the author of the chapbook Call / Response (Finishing Line Press, 2019) and has an MFA in creative writing from Emerson College. His poetry can be seen or is forthcoming in a number of literary magazines and reviews, recently in Barrow Street. He has read poetry for Ploughshares and taught literature and writing at Emerson College and Wheaton College. He lives and works in Boston.
