as silent and holy as an empty church. a polished row of pews. you, moonin the sky, how do you do it? your one-handed gravityholding still the earth. astral magic trick, you newly christened old god. every family’s forgotten dance is a scar on your surface. memory like a bear trap. worldfodder magnet. wise old sledgehammeronce smashed through our o…

remember bodies at night how they glow how they bend into us like refracted lightthe memory of where a body was after it has left its phosphorescenceyou cocoon into the spaces around thingsfind yourself in auburn eyes and hazel skin the red that flows from youyou learn that aloneness is a softness a sky that pulls you throughyou see bodies as they …

yeah i’ve got a lighter. can fix your filter. give you honey stick secrets and light tight roll laughter when you call me blue dream like your favorite strain like your favorite character ramona you know the blue of your dreams? yeah they’re both pierced. few things hurt so good like a needle. addict in a cute way. smoker with a toothbrush. dreamer…

In the palm of my hand I harborFault lines, one-way streets,A famous bridge half-crossed andAnother I steered from the passenger’s seatWhile the driver smoked weedSuch honking dreams in the patchouli, Of frolicking unhindered, ofSlapping my feet in my Sunday shoesDown my aunt’s hardwood hallway.The earthquakes always come.I’ve cracked off into the …

A man in a powder blue suitoffered to tell me my futureon Olive Avenue. When I tried to say no, he said Baby, please,in a way that told me that he might know something thatI didn’t, so I held out my palm.I used to hold out the same palmon the playground for other girlsto read. They would tell me that I was destined to have five kidsand a loving hus…

I stay in bed til 2 then get up and open all the windows. Make coffee and walk aroundthe 5 x 10 space I call my living room. Turn my attention to the postcardsand photographs on the fridge. Stare hard at all that evidence. Whisper: See, there’s no reason to be lonely.Smoke one cigarette and then anotheron the steps out front. Begin to cry over my o…

I.I fall in love every time I fly.Leaving Dallas: the medical student wearing headphones and a full headscarf just to forget her be-planed predicament.Above Tucson: the sorority sister with the strawberry hair whose father is waiting at the baggage claim; they leave, arms over shoulders over arms.In Denver. The woman in security: her bright eyes co…

When are you going to move closer?The space aches between us.It invents its own language.The jagged edge of the ocean paints the sand dark,retreats into its own swollen urge, arcs forward to tease the shore with the inexorableinevitable that drives my hands into the unwritten darkto pull the tide of you over me.Drown me,roll me against you.Make me …

Sons blushed and became soft peaches in the hot backseats of cars, never even wanted the front seat. Or, I was the son, but it’s niceto be plural and grand and count the dandelions in right field as friends, which I picked in the ancient way of boys who’s fathers tried to metaphoricallylight fires under their asses, there I go again, I was the boy,…

When you’re out in the sticks - the woods are a fortress - sunlight stabs down at you in bright daggers - I bet no one told you how a canopy is like armor.I had a place in the woods where rules couldn’t touch me - little warrior boy with sticks beating up all the full grown men that ever left mama broken.On the ground with a jar of bugs - benevolen…

I feel as if I should tell youThat I have never yet, seen -A Beaver in the Wild/but have, for sure seen plenty things:-Too many a shrub and quail, -Elk drunk at the Waterfall, -Horses arrogant in the sun-So many a video of Fruit Bats gnawing on…Fruits.-So many dams Made by clawed hands, or less clawed hands.I still strong-arm the river at the diaph…

1. Trigger happy target 2. Archangel of the burnt and bruised 3. Newport ash on a papi store floor4. Pants way passed where his mama taught 5. It’s my car sir6. Ocean front scalp 7. Jesus in hiding 8. Unintentional vaudeville show 9. Fireflies in his palms 10. A friend’s blood 11. Tomorrow’s bedside prayer 12. Tonight’s prime time special 13. It’s …

Sometimes I wish I could stop you from talking when I hear the silly things you sayAlison, I know this world is killing youOh Alison, my aim is true - Elvis Costello, “Alison” I was named for a catcall strung out into three verses and a chorus Ballad drowning in mystery fansites say she’s a pretty stranger his eye caughtat the grocery store maybe a…

A few years ago a machine peaked into my head and found a section dead.Most likely from a lack of oxygen in utero, but really, that’s speculation – what’s done is doneand there’s no undoing it. Like when I was eighteen andsomeone pilfered the contents of my lingerie drawer.They took it all: the see-through, the satin, the blood-spotted cotton panti…

For Owen Steinmann (2016-2017)Sugars trickle from maples’ taut trunks, sappingsummer energy, the crystallized light of wanting to stay alive. But what melody the drops make a manfrom a pulpit always says as they leap out the spout, percuss the bucket’s galvanized bottom. Yes, such sweetvasculature and saccharine, this living always toward death. He…

I finally want to talk about it has taken me a decade more than most and all my wisdom teeth have fallen victim by now there is a draft buried beneath this you will never know of a pleasure of released dioxide and simile I don’t write because the block asks I do this out of an empathy for myself, a backlog of tears and this body knows that the deal…

…july.wilted cereal in a bowl / wedrown in brown boiling milk. the haze of sparklers and fire- works add to the deafening heat that drips intoaugust.caged in by smog,air smells of cigarettes and melted tar. surely this place is meant to ignite.september,when he arrives,he thinks this is a flat plain, where desert dirt covers everything like snowand…

The eyes have it: weight, such that they can’t even roll.This is one of those moments when I should probably listento my body but you know how it goes when someone talks too much for your taste (coffee, sir?). There’s lots of work to do today. There’s money to be had and even more easily lost like a sensible child to the pursuit of higher learning …

brilliant elixer fuck me upfuck me deadwhy doesacademia hate me i’m ready tosacrifice my bodyto a careersomething boring liketeaching teenagerswhy romeo and juliet did ordidn’t die make mygrandparents proudof me againi pour this into my glass andpour my glass intothe bathtub full ofrejection letters thatcall me ‘jessica’ instead of jessiethis is th…

I was on my back that morningstanding still & runninghalf-turned, fetal &spread eagle & curled up along the edgeof the hospital bedand the doctor says“It’s time,” & I already know becauseit has always beentime, time to push & sheis explaining to mehow to push, how to undulate you from my body& as she explainsI bring my chin to my chesteven though m…

Our hosts Logen Cure and I.S. Jones review their favs from our Winter 2018 issue!(Get caught up on Winter 2018 here: soundcloud.com/voicemailpoems/sets/voicemail-poems-fall-2017)This installment features poems by:Kirwyn Sutherlandhttps://soundcloud.com/voicemailpoems/taunts-to-the-klan-by-kirwyn-sutherlandzach blackwoodhttps://soundcloud.com/voicem…

Another storm has the neighbors' chickensall lumped together and subdued, soI can't hear them from my attic room.Rain has thrown itselffor days against the roof."What is the cruelest month?" people ask.Last year I watched a manput one poor frozen birdin a garbage bag at the end of winter;it had been stuck in a corner of the coop.That's what Spring …

End of the year gray. AnchorsWhere balloons should be, or: Could peace wait on the outerBank of sane. How in the holidayBuzz to say nothing for clear, that is:Give me back remembering,Its attendant costumed sting. The portraiture made overkillBy rain. No incoming. The quantumState the same. The slide to black,The self-quilled quell to loveThe heart…

i.In the other world, everything smells like cherries.Every phone call is the news of someone's death,and every cigarette is candy. In the other world, you tell me you do not love me every day, and ourbed is made from cedar trees. The horses run rider-less and frightened, chased by men with bottles forweapons and collarbones made of ice. The plains…

Part 1: UntitledIt was yesterday or something, when I heard the song playing in a store, askingdo I make myself a blessing to everyone I meet?I don't sing it to myself, exactly, but I do repeat it, metallic gyre, all the day long. In the at-home lab of an electrical engineer,I was surrounded by metallic gyres (not an industry term,)tiny spools of w…

The town knows about darkness, the slithered purple that comes on the land when rotation hides the sun.Something gathered, slow and heavy and electric, almost as though the town knows evil is coming, and its shape.From here we can't see spots on the sun. We know where the roads go and where, how the ground lies.The town has us because we know it, a…

we're crying in a costco parking lot fiending for that intimacy we once feltbecause every so often we lose it andthen i get depressed when i think you deserve much better sometimes i think i deserve better too most of the time it feels like i am already holding all the good that's out therelarge and fragile in my arms i hold on for dear lifethe wom…

the ammonite an index of suturesi got tired of cataloging themhermetically sealing little traumasafraid they'd get to know one another go boomlittle mother catastrophes insteadi smashed little rocks to bits in a ditcheach shard a memory released pressurefrom stomach the common burial groundthe cavity of accumulationeach little box coated in dust an…

He had created a type of 3d paint,was one of the first things he told us. As we followed him upstairs to his plantfilled apartment, we decided he was lying.It wasn't long until he told us about Mexico;kidnapped by cartels, held hostage for weeks,his father and grandfather were mercenariesin the French Foreign Legion.He introduced us to his three pa…

"when you see a mountain coming,get out of it's way."my uncle, six-two and oxentold me after clipping my wing.i learn at an early ageto be a black manis to see a black manand fear his size, momentum.to love a black man is to seehis shape and surrender.i lay myself downon his threshing floorsay uncle,and await apocalypseacross my arms. when two gods…

My mother calls them phases and maybethat's an accurate representation becausethey're lunar, edges of something, the kindof scrambling you do drunk in the dark.It's a lot of being drunk in the dark.I'm dying to discover myself and finallybe cool. I'm smoking. I'm smoking hot.I'm a smoking gun. I went out one nightand suffered through talking becaus…

All soldiers believe Charms in their MREs are foul luck, bad juju,more than just a dark talisman, a virtual death sentence.Patrols have been called off if some dirtbag privatestraight out of basictested fate by peeling open a pack of the generic Jolly Ranchers knockoffs that bring nothing but doom.Everyone on the FOB heard stories about how Charmsw…

my head is full of blood steamed like latte foampressing open the seams in my skull, burning through folds in my brain like a shot luge.my head is the generating station in the delaware river,developed into luxury condos with beds that fill the whole homes.my head is a smoking suite with smoke stains inthe corners of the ceilings and the ice cubes …

Klu klux what?I'm a suchA tool for America Hands scraped rawHammered deep into cottonFly up and it rains goldI'm a MidasBut was forced to turnInanimate objects into fortuneTo fields of green pickedOver and rottenI'm a supposedDead used problemBoth birth and demiseAllegedBetween trying to killAnd forgetting aboutI'ma question A poking to see if I wr…

sonnet for Trans Lifeline & February 2017& for KaiIt snowed last week & the clouds slept lower.I wonder where your body went without you,who unraveled it & what came falling from their mouths. I think of you; a weighted sky; dirt, loosening itself in welcome; what it is to bury: to deem ready to give back; to kill: to call a body just a body, to tu…

I set down my flaming sword long enough to stare intoa hunting trip photo at my Grandfather's memorial. It shows two men, and him between them ina dress and wig-hilarious joke (everyonelaughed), "abomination" an Unclescoffs casual-like now, tells story: "that's the ugliest womanI ever saw" man driving by says to man in passenger seat (everyone laug…

Our hosts Logen Cure and I.S. Jones review their favs from our Fall 2017 issue!(Get caught up on Fall 2017 here: https://soundcloud.com/voicemailpoems/sets/voicemail-poems-fall-2017)This installment features poems by Kimiko Hirota, Austin Beaton, and Kai River Blevins. Music by TrueKey. (@truekey).>> The deadline to submit to our Winter Issue is De…

I have spent a thousand yearspicking myself out of the middle of nowhereon an empty highway clutching fistfuls of fireflies to my eyes clawing poppy blossoms across a belly full of rabbits I dripped with peppercorns I saltedthe earth as if that would make the mud easier to swallow I buried the creatures with a pocket watch and a dead fish and mound…

The voice spills / Over the telephone / Time morphed into frequency / And back again / A compression of sentiment / Unraveled by longing / It says: ‘hiiiii’A conversation about nothing is spoken / The day’s errands / The planned social respite / A desire to lay roots too soon to build / Hidden within a sense of fear of the future / What lays beneat…

(after Jacqui Germain)Tells me that I’ve spent enough timeantagonizing him, corrupting his divinename, condemning the thinly veiled violencein his bones.He demands that I forgivehis unrelenting presence,forbids me from saying all that I’ve learnedabout him – like Man is the aftertaste of disgusted stares.or Man comes alive when hardened fist meets …

In the morning, I stood up, sticky and sweaty.I walked to the fridge with weight. I felt a stillness. This house has been quiet since you left.When you were gone I slept on your side of the bed and didn’t wake up once during the night. There could only be two reasons—1) Because your side is better than mine or 2) Because I sleep better when you are…

You said my name for the last timeThe night before you diedExhausted and terrified You lifted the oxygen mask from your mouthAnd said, hi jennThat was all you could musterSo much hung in the air left unsaid.Hi jenn, I’m sorry.Hi jenn, it wasn’t your fault.Hi jenn, I shouldn’t have kicked you out.Hi jenn, you are a disappointment.Hi jenn, you did ev…

When I came into this world they saidWelcome to the holy landThe world is in your palmJust as you fit into your mother'sGave me a name which slid off tonguesIn a way too harsh for the American voice andToo soft for the Dominican palateI grew up longing for the day whereMy name never sounded like an apologyUncommonly ChristianWhen I introduced mysel…

This time with Natives, not my old bougie choiceOf American Spirits. I took up nail polishIn Millennial Pink. I started mixing SangriaWith Coca-Cola.I went to work and dipped in and out of lives,Looked at grandchildren peering out from wallets;I touched the shoulder of a man who drinksElevated IPAs like he might die tomorrow.He might die tomorrow.H…

And it’s not only the dollar aisleor because you gave birth control to a couple ex-girlfriendsor how you fed me Lexapro,a pill Kanye West rapped aboutin a studio probably not farfrom a Rite Aid in Los Angeles.Not just that five bucksbuys me and a millionairethe same serotonin dropletsspreading under the part of the scalpsoft on a baby,a chemical th…

The pink skies and dry airThe blue tongues and dark secretssoften like chalk pastelson our fingerprintsRemember picking up pineconesdiscovering the city by bikesurprised by anythingwe could dig and buryNine p.m. is fadingThe steepest sand hillis still sinkingand your hair isn’t short anymoreMy teeth are straight and my tires are flatand your dog ha…

I have spent most of my life as a writer, spinning universes and microscope lenses,cosmic horrors, and hope.Intellectual treatise, statistical research, and internet rant.but despite this,and despite months of trying,I am shit at writing love poems. And you, you deserve love poemsbut convention and tradition offer me no councilI mean, I could promi…

Our hosts Logen Cure and I.S. Jones review their favs from our Summer 2017 issue!(Get caught up on Summer 2017 here: soundcloud.com/voicemailpoems/sets/voicemail-poems-summer-2017)This installment features poems by Mercedes Lucero, Daniel Barnum, and Bee Ulrich. Music by TrueKey. (@truekey).>> The deadline to submit to our Fall Issue is September 1…

This week’s poems:>> “The Scenic Rout” by Nicole Jean Turner>> “thank you for supporting your local counseling and psychological services” by Chelsea Sieg>> “In Which Rachel Changes the Oil” by Em Taylor>> “Afterwards” by EJ Schoenborn>> “We Named the Dog Indiana” by Skyler ReedHosted by Logen Cure!Thank you to our Patreon supporters!Please contrib…

This week’s poems:>> “the burning of knight von hohenberg with his servant before the walls of Zürich, for sodomy, 1482″ by Bee Ulrich>> “In a Dark Room, the Universe Was Calling Me” by Melissa Cerrillo>> “For My Grandmother, Who Kept His Last Name" by Chrissy Martin>> “Part Waters (Two of Cups)" by Daniel Barnum>> “Tankman" by Kyle LiangHosted by …