Nicholas De Marino

chanting down Samhain
bare prayers and skin
strip spirit’s veil
    — Mme. Belle

sweaty hands transmit
Morse code and hot readings
    — M. Belle

poker faces
frowning through
stale dairy air
    — Mr. Gall

ectoplasmic message:
buy more cheesecloth
    — Mrs. Wheeler

sunken seats
cradle ghostly curves
stiff as a board
    — Mr. Wheeler

candles flicker
so does patience
    — Dr. Gall

*

table rattles
as dropped pens tattle
footsie below
    — M. Belle

she toes an inseam
capillaries swell
    — Dr. Gall

croissant moon scatters
light crumbs
on dark fabric
    — Mme. Belle

buckles and buttons strain
against tapas and vino
    — Mr. Gall

colliding forces
her orbs on the table
oh so tacky
    — Mrs. Wheeler

a glimpse of woman’s virtue
through deep-cast fishnet
    — Mr. Wheeler

legs cross
lovers double-cross
pheromone harvest
    — M. Belle

earthly apparitions
bound not by vow or ether
    — Dr. Gall

*

parlor games plied
by silver tongues
and spectral phallus
    — M. Belle

stoking and stroking
spirited affections
    — Mr. Wheeler

night bloom peels
perfume laces nostrils
plants peddle must
    — Mme. Belle

taut nerves and skin strain
as clockwork keeps time
    — Mr. Gall

sonar or later
empty skulls echo
childish adultery
    — Dr. Gall

spirits yawn unroused
by desperate hands
    — Mrs. Wheeler

 

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NICHOLAS DE MARINO is a neurodivergent writer and poet. He’s got several writing credits, degrees, and accolades that have nothing to do with cats, plus some that do. Read more at nicholasdemarino.com.

William Bonfiglio

In cell after cell, he captures again 
the gothic arch-barns in muted hues,
the correction houses near Göttingen.

Eight rows of two panels, a line, and then
another row of three panels, askew: 
in cell after cell, he captures again.

Before, he wove warp and weft like a wren.
These slivers were barely combed when fed through
the correction houses near Göttingen.

Not once does he vary his scale or lens,
but holds his perspective, a hostage view.
In cell after cell he captures again

a world that gives nothing to violent men,
for their welfare and ours remanded to  
the correction houses near Göttingen.

For what could it be if not violence when,
filling one sheet, he commences anew:
in cell after cell, he captures again
the correction houses near Göttingen.

 

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WILLIAM BONFIGLIO’s poetry has been awarded a Pearl Hogrefe Grant in Creative Writing Recognition Award, the Julia Fonville Smithson Memorial Prize, and has appeared in Gulf Coast, New Letters, PRISM international, and elsewhere. This is from a series of poems responding to visual art created by institutionalized patients and collected by German physician Hans Prinzhorn in the early 20th century. Prinzhorn designated such works “Artistry of the Mentally Ill.”