Holly Day- A Poem

The Burning Sun

There is nowhere left to run. Behind you, smoke billows black and foul
Hot enough to melt lead, turn flesh to liquid, more smoke. The air itself glows red
Burns like the red eyes of a Hollywood-set tiki statute, moves in visible
Currents against the gray starless night, thin wisps of fire in the dark.
This is where even vampires come to die, to burn in agonizing freedom
The confines of flesh shaken, immortality sloughed, denied

In a single sunburst of pure nuclear flame, hot as the heart of a star
Burn shadows of Nosferatu silhouettes into concrete bunker walls
Claws curled and extended in frightening final black-caped profiles, specters
In a cemetery, never to be visited. Buildings loom, dark, glassless, baked
To diamond-hard perfection by the billowing clouds of fire, stand
In empty memoriam to
The final infantile thrashings, the last shadow dance
Of a doomed precocious race.




Short bio: Holly Day is a housewife and mother of two living in Minneapolis,
Minnesota who teaches needlepoint classes in the Minneapolis school
district. Her poetry has recently appeared in The Worcester Review, Broken
Pencil, and Slipstream, and she is a recent recipient of the Sam Ragan
Poetry Prize from Barton College. Her book publications include Music
Composition for Dummies, Guitar-All-in-One for Dummies, Notenlesen für
Dummies Das Pocketbuch, and Music Theory for Dummies, which has recently
been translated into French, Dutch, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, and
German. Her novel, "The Trouble With Clare," is due out from Hydra
Publications in 2013.
 

Korliss Sewer- A Poem

Day 37

It smells dead.  The room has the scent of a mouse that fell between the walls during the remodel.  It’s gone from a stench to a scent:  I guess that means it’s getting better?  Even on a Saturday, I hear the workers pounding boards above me; dislodging more mice to stink within the drywall.  With one piece of toast, one egg, and warm mint tea, I begin my day with a mouse carcass behind my breakfast nook. 

I read an article about future Martian colonies, and how it will take 1,000 years to cultivate the planet only to have the median equatorial temperature being 40 degrees.  As I smell the mouse and sip tea, deep down within the article I read the Earth is dying (in small print, mind you).  They say that life on Mars will be self-limiting: 

Korliss Sewer enjoys writing about off-beat topics while watching off-beat people doing off-beat things.

Publishing credits include:  BlazeVOX, SubtleTea, Orange Room Review, amongst a few others.

Anita McQueen- A Poem

END OF THE WORLD

Many here
crowded in collapsed rooms.

Mind cells.

My hair stringy and wet for the moment
before sighing.

Too many times.

I am too young to feel this old.
My name hidden between my eyes.

The young men gone.

That one loved me.
That one didn't.

All became soldiers.

Digging graves underneath buckled sidewalks.
An old man keeps me warm.

That is all he can do.  I don't want anymore....

 (Published in "Aphelion" March 2011)

Anita McQueen runs the streets at night, feeling the wind against her face, and long shadows on her back. 

Her poetry has appeared in A Handful Of Stones, Amaranthine Muses, Aphelion, blackdahlia, The Camel Saloon, Catapult To Mars, Deuce Coupe, Downer Magazine, Indigo Rising Magazine, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Literary Burlesque, Mad Swirl, MediaVirus Magazine, ppigpenn, Pond Ripples, The Rainbow Rose, Raven Images, The Scarlet Sound, The Second Hump, Subliminal Interiors, Visceral Uterus, and Yes, Poetry.