Friday, March 1, 2024

MANIFESTING MARTYRDOM, Estajoka

 
Now look to the Western Wall and mourn

Now mourn your warm rejection
Adjacent Golgotha

Break bread with the ancients 
In self-imposed exile

On the all-hallows eve of the election year crisis
Make reign ballistic strength of self-sabotage

And sacrifice more followers in the name of
Another forsaken false prophet

And you’ve sacrificed common fucking sense and fracking logic

Because across the left of your position pond
Novus Ordum Seclorum 
And Ingsoc are losing profits

…highly unacceptable in the social decorum of concomitant capitalistic endeavors…

Fracking un-fucking-believible
God damn near impossible 

Short of prayer to launch a kinet
ic campaign
Crossing oceans
Crossing continents with asymmetric sticks and stones

Define the metric
Criterion for Success
And you’ve established the entire State of Gaza
As just another suicide vest…



Estajoka is a Revolutionary Bum of the Generation GWOT. Raised on GI Joe, He-Man, and corn syrup, Estajoka’s primary source of cognitive dissonance stems from the uncertainty concerning his true identity as a Generation X or a Millennial. In his 20’s Estajoka cut teeth in the industry or war as an executor of shit Boomer policies, in peacekeeping, combat, and humanitarian operations. In return, he was forced to sacrifice a life of peace, to endure the harsh realities, largely isolated to Warfighters, Veterans, and their loved ones. His goal in bringing these works to light is to increase the volume of the silent majority whose stories need to be told.


ALIGNMENT PROCESS, Will Davis

 
There is a time lapse of my eyes
Where I slept in perhaps—
An event like stalagmites
burgeoning at seams that was
In a dark that eats voices.
 
There was that was,
a drowsy calculus that only allows
a slip of tongue or lavender,
a rustle of a blanket, remnants
of scent-smears like deodorant.
 
Rustle of blanket, remains of body
warmth , I thought assassins had arrived
for every bird and creaking branch, unless
silence is a new growth, growling
gently along the elevated limbs.
 
All that light, winding its way
against the final body I have
Grown silent watching at the leisurely
pacings of my heart against doors.



Will (he/they) is a nurse, poem scribbler and solitaire enthusiast living in their native bluegrass. Author of chapbook Starter Pistol, Opening Prayer with Alien Buddha Press. @ByThisWillAlone across platforms.


Monday, February 26, 2024

Two Poems, Adam Cornford

 Psalm of The Flower


The flower grown to to its full height wears a mountain like a lethal skirt

The flower enters dark doorways trembling and spilling beaks of moonlight

The flower drifts through enormous abandoned houses pursued by little girls

The flower hides within rings of mirrors until reflected sunlight turns it into a dragon

The flower seldom walks without a system to follow as it pollinates the maps

What savage agent enables the flower to roll like a wheel through the forest?






Traffic: A Sonnet

Cloud ocean surrounding a slow swirl of cities
Sunlight reaches below the clouds to brush my eyelids
Staircases rise and fall, pistons in a house machine
Tiny wooden shutters open and close inside the heart
Green bees argue surrounding the brain of lavender
About the rococo flowering of the fingers in air
And the machinery of dragonflies and clover
A shell-river of yellow taxis advances to fill all space
Women in red face to face press their palms together
As hollow windows echo each other in the sunset
Whatever am I doing here at the Swan Exchange?
Doors slam open into more doors faster and faster
Marching across the shiny mosaic moonrise
Silence is its own train pulling into the terminus






Adam Cornford, born in England, was Chair of the Poetics Program at New College of California in San Francisco 1987-2008. He has published 4 full-length poetry collections, most recently LALIA (Chax Press 2021) as well as a book-length collaboration with the printer and book artist Peter Koch, LIBER IGNIS (2014) and numerous chapbooks. Often described as a neosurrealist and known as a poet of science and science fiction, he is currently at work on METROPOLYTA, a long narrative poem (or novel in verse) built out of Fritz Lang's 1927 silent science-fiction masterpiece METROPOLIS. The poem's protagonist is the MaschinenMensch or gynoid robot who plays a central role in the film.

Urban Punks in Cahokia, Mitchell Pluto


Putting butter in your coffee has its limits.

I bid adieu to my B vitamin steak. I will miss you.

Picture a world without milk.

Ice cream melting rapidly, just like time.

Urban punks in Cahokia, rocking our Superphones.

You know how important we are with screens and phones.

Those epic malls and convenient centers of Valhalla uploaded to the Grand Central Terminal internet.

Brace yourself for Temu. It’s got it all. Soon it will be too much.

Wars of value, relevance, and delivering discarded items.

All this didn’t last as long as the Milky way.

The soil’s health is not being discussed on Facebook Reels.

Just like space explorers, microplastics are on a mission through the vastness of our environment.

When you think about it, everyone is basically a hibakusha.

Every brain harbors scenarios that resemble Katsushika Hokusai’s, The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife.

A fantasy that fearlessly blurs the lines of reality without consent or limits.

Reality endured a ruthless assault, as if every influencer was squeezing, biting, and sucking it dry.

I always mix up the economy and the stock market like it’s a cocktail shaker.

As of now, it’s not a historical drama that you can binge-watch on a streaming platform.

The Roman Empire comes beautifully close, if you’re interested. Yes, beautifully like bigly.

Mississippians and the Buzzard Cult were hip to the limited series.

I’m pretty sure Edgar Cayce was talking about a computer when he said the word crystal. But I’m still not sure.

It was like time was playing tricks on us, with the present and past all jumbled together.

The memories undergo slight alterations as we recall them.

While amnesia happens a lot, some folks say they can remember past lives at Göbekli Tepe.

A flowing line between garbage and newness. Art with a bold line that separates primate from the software enhancer.

There's this commercial that keeps popping up on my screen about immortality.

I'm thinking about moving my memory to a younger clone. This trend is really catching on.

Don’t stress, actual stars shine brighter than any confinement.






Putting butter in your coffee has its limits.

I bid adieu to my B vitamin steak. I will miss you.

Picture a world without milk.

Ice cream melting rapidly, just like time.

Urban punks in Cahokia, rocking our Superphones.

You know how important we are with screens and phones.

Those epic malls and convenient centers of Valhalla uploaded to the Grand Central Terminal internet.

Brace yourself for Temu. It’s got it all. Soon it will be too much.

Wars of value, relevance, and delivering discarded items.

All this didn’t last as long as the Milky way.

The soil’s health is not being discussed on Facebook Reels.

Just like space explorers, microplastics are on a mission through the vastness of our environment.

When you think about it, everyone is basically a hibakusha.

Every brain harbors scenarios that resemble Katsushika Hokusai’s, The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife.

A fantasy that fearlessly blurs the lines of reality without consent or limits.

Reality endured a ruthless assault, as if every influencer was squeezing, biting, and sucking it dry.

I always mix up the economy and the stock market like it’s a cocktail shaker.

As of now, it’s not a historical drama that you can binge-watch on a streaming platform.

The Roman Empire comes beautifully close, if you’re interested. Yes, beautifully like bigly.

Mississippians and the Buzzard Cult were hip to the limited series.

I’m pretty sure Edgar Cayce was talking about a computer when he said the word crystal. But I’m still not sure.

It was like time was playing tricks on us, with the present and past all jumbled together.

The memories undergo slight alterations as we recall them.

While amnesia happens a lot, some folks say they can remember past lives at Göbekli Tepe.

A flowing line between garbage and newness. Art with a bold line that separates primate from the software enhancer.

There's this commercial that keeps popping up on my screen about immortality.

I'm thinking about moving my memory to a younger clone. This trend is really catching on.

Don’t stress, actual stars shine brighter than any confinement.





Putting butter in your coffee has its limits.

I bid adieu to my B vitamin steak. I will miss you.

Picture a world without milk.

Ice cream melting rapidly, just like time.

Urban punks in Cahokia, rocking our Superphones.

You know how important we are with screens and phones.

Those epic malls and convenient centers of Valhalla uploaded to the Grand Central Terminal internet.

Brace yourself for Temu. It’s got it all. Soon it will be too much.

Wars of value, relevance, and delivering discarded items.

All this didn’t last as long as the Milky way.

The soil’s health is not being discussed on Facebook Reels.

Just like space explorers, microplastics are on a mission through the vastness of our environment.

When you think about it, everyone is basically a hibakusha.

Every brain harbors scenarios that resemble Katsushika Hokusai’s, The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife.

A fantasy that fearlessly blurs the lines of reality without consent or limits.

Reality endured a ruthless assault, as if every influencer was squeezing, biting, and sucking it dry.

I always mix up the economy and the stock market like it’s a cocktail shaker.

As of now, it’s not a historical drama that you can binge-watch on a streaming platform.

The Roman Empire comes beautifully close, if you’re interested. Yes, beautifully like bigly.

Mississippians and the Buzzard Cult were hip to the limited series.

I’m pretty sure Edgar Cayce was talking about a computer when he said the word crystal. But I’m still not sure.

It was like time was playing tricks on us, with the present and past all jumbled together.

The memories undergo slight alterations as we recall them.

While amnesia happens a lot, some folks say they can remember past lives at Göbekli Tepe.

A flowing line between garbage and newness. Art with a bold line that separates primate from the software enhancer.

There's this commercial that keeps popping up on my screen about immortality.

I'm thinking about moving my memory to a younger clone. This trend is really catching on.

Don’t stress, actual stars shine brighter than any confinement.

Three poems from Apophenic Epiphanies, Steve Carll

 the word is celebrate again

tufted fuzzy with foreshortened awe
a fantasized emblem for stargazing tenterhooks

open your disheveled community so
a makeshift paradigm can sleep its way to the top
5/16/2021



 

glory bee and hallelujah honey
a frontline occupancy terrifies the odalisque rep

mainstay cave-in vocalist opens nostalgic interpretation chambers
after advising salutary mobster refreshments
a pop-top fiddler-crab hermitage would envy

eckankar welcome ceremony takes note
of the western brain hemisphere
a selection of fine irrelevancies

a turnip’s alternative
poetics of gesture--or was it gestation?--
overhang the gas station of pleasure
5/17/2021
 




gallant intrusion into sacred space
the automorph weaves selfing-words

that leave attention invisibly invited
the arrangement to flower relentless

concentric rings of concentrate-forms
apply mystery to organic infrastructure
5/22/2021




Steve Carll lives with his family in Arcata, California. His third full-length poetry collection, Hypnopompic Diaries (Books One and Two) is forthcoming in 2024 from Alien Buddha Press. Earlier books include Tracheal Centrifuge (Factory School, 2006), Tao Drops, I Change (with Bill Marsh, Subpress, 2004), and several chapbooks. His work has recently appeared in SurVision, First Literary Review – East, and Reap Thrill. From 1988-1998, he edited the literary journal Antenym. Performance video of most of his poetry from 1991 to the present can be found at https://www.youtube.com/@stevecarll/videos.

AWE, Heller Levinson

 

AWE

 

                                   toggle-lode

 

                                    amethyst

 

                                    flabbergast

 

 

                             (                                               )

 

                   (             :             )

 

                                                                   (      ;      )

                                    (

                                                        )

 

 

 

willingly jut upon with no small canister earthly delights – lying there –

upon transition  imminent infarction where helms melt heaps spoil

traducement a thoroughfare bending eaves in the ewe of traction all

ears

 

Saturday, February 10, 2024

Anvil Tongue's February 2024 Publishing Initiative

 



Greetings & Salutations,

Since we do not have a full, or any, publication schedule for this month of February 2024. We wanted to try something a bit different.  


The scoop is this: We want to hear from you! Please post a poem of your own in the comments of this post. Towards the end of this month, on February 25th, we will publish what you all have posted in the comments section here on the website, as Anvil Tongue's February 2024 online edition. 


No submissions. No themes. No gatekeeping. Please just use your best discretion as to what you want to post/publish. More than one poem is okay too, but please do not post more than 3 poems. 


*If you have poems or work scheduled for March 2024 with Anvil Tongue, you are certainly welcome to participate in our Publishing Initiative here, but please do not post  anything from your already green lit manuscript for March. Thanks.


Thank you & we look forward to reading your work!

Warmly,

The Anvil Tongue Cosmic Council