JOHN BRADLEY'S PLANETARY SWAY ~

 

Instructions on How to Assemble

Your Diagnostic Potato

After I inflated the car and watched it float over the

meadow, I heard a hissing in my left foot.

                                        *

Then the streetlight buried its face in a blanket of moths.

                                         *

Unable to find a spare bed, he spread out on a slice of

bread, pulling the leaf of wilted lettuce over him.

                                           *

That minute has been following me for three days.

                                           *

Once you've unloaded my voice into your speech program,

I can assure you that we'll become the best of friends.

                                            *

Hair will tolerate nearly anything— except atonal weather.

                                            *

He would often talk to his money.  At the vending machine,

before he slid his dollar bill into the slot he'd say, Reggie want

to take a little ride?

                                            *

For some unknown reason, Van Gogh never painted a

portrait of his kidney.

                                            *

Even as we chatted, we could hear our teeth aging faster

than our words.

                                            *

Should you find me slumped and shrinking, please plug my

body-unit into the nearest electric outlet.

                                            *

I speak crooked not because I fear the straight razor, but for

all the mangled shapes left along the oral highway.

                                            *

The instruction manual for assembling the diagnostic potato

said nothing about how to blind its eyes.

                                            *

List my accomplishments now, before the night lays its eggs

in the seam on my coat.

____________________________________

John Bradley

Planetary Sway

Aphorisms for the

Everyday Emergency

Bottlecap Press 2026

Photo by Jana Brubaker

JAKE SKEETS ~

 

If the End of the World

through an open window

smoke settling in the leaves

like a bell ringing

Coming Across A Horned Toad

when I saw a horned toad

watch wildfire on juniper corpse

its eyes mattered pitched

and smoldered open

its name echoed small blood

a room full of breathing

a fire-caught voice

the body is a river is a body

horizon shrouded suddenly

tongue carried into mountain

into memory veined dusk bone spur

a moon trail touch-lit

another cathedral

another paint coat cracking

another

another

I have a tin can for sky

settled in open prisms

prisms between storm

and a god

I still see clouds still

over valley dirt afternoons

in December

when evening turns a dark shore

everything tall

through the pinons

I take note

because it comes back

comes lunar becomes

ash altered in spilled morning

because bloom

because white trees

because rope soot

a river's winded teeth

placid silver

and ankle-deep

under baptized skies

of black dirt

I hear morning

shell blue

and there a horned toad

its skin its flat time

its spine its arrowhead

pollen on its back

or is it sleet rain

braiding along

a dense prayer

I carry morning

_______________________

Jake Skeets

Horses

Milkweed Editions 2026

ICIHKO AIBA: LUMINESCENT CREATURES ~

 

    2025

AMELIA ROSSELLI ~

 

IN THE NORDIC

palm grove of deconsecrated churches,

forced laughter

the city in the palm,

charred life

YOU CAN'T WITHSTAND this winter

modestly

that innocent mud

and with shoes in hand

and naked you cross

that square,

traveling across squares.

LERMON HILL: IMPECCABLE

solitude! imbued with light

I am tonight: not dark

the green estate or ecstatic

the violet march towards

vendetta . . .

THE YOUNG, THEIR roses

akin to you: the young

their roses, akin

to me: the young, their

faults, akin to ours

YOUR WHITE HANDS

forgiving complaints of the poor

or forcing complaints

I play mute bells.

ROSES TIDIED UP

forgettable loneliness

meticulous farmer

best in the world

recognizing yourself as a tank

of covert nullity

spent crushing

death solitude

all the more valuable

if thinly I'm marble.

I'VE REMOVED EACH light

downplayed your spring

his combing his hair.

That indifferent land

and where are you,

born with science.

Seeing myself written on the walls

I crossed the islet.

OUT OF TUNE life,

it blows itself out

hope is plucked

hard to piece itself together

wants nothing to do with it

thoughts are oval then, or opaque.

ONCE THE GOAL is achieved

little refuge in my candid sky

splendid unused sun

our life shivering

with borrowed dismay

if he doesn't speed up I'll compete.

______________________________________

Amelia Rosselli

Document

translated from the Italian by

Roberta Antognini & Deborah Woodard

World Poetry, 2025

ROBBIE ROBERTSON'S INSOMNIA ~

 

_____________________________________

Many of the usual suspects show forth and are treated with

Robbie camaraderie — although Robertson's sweet-talk

doesn't move an inch with Hells Angel Sweet William

(Bill Fritsch) and lover of poet Lenore Kandel and a

somewhat troubadour of two wheels himself, who isn't

taking kindly learning that his poem has been withdrawn

from a tribute reading during the concert film "The Last Waltz,"

whereas both fellow San Fransisco laureates 

Lawrence Ferlinghetti & Michael McClure

remain on board. If you are interested, 

you can dig up on-line the full reading

by Sweet William, and later in Robertson's book

find out just why Fritsch is dragging his leg across

the stage to the microphone. For more of Sweet

William, see the Maysles brothers film "Gimme

Shelter" where the Angel, once again,

captivates the stage.

[BA]

    Crown 2026

    R E A D   M E

TALL DWARFS TONIGHT ~

 

TOM McGUANE ~

 

Nov 25, 2022 Mill House Podcast

ELLEN BURSTYN ~

 

E L L E N   B U R S T Y N

       Riverhead Books, 2006

LARRY McMURTRY ~

 

R E A D   M E

    Mariner 

    2026