Flightless Limbs

Even for a Piscean, she was precarious,
reeling from caramel blond to raspberry red
in the blink of a hot blue star.

Wracked with anticipatory grief,  
as frozen as February daffodils,
she appeals to the dark-eyed junco
battling its bay window reflection
with wildcat ammunition.

Interactive silence becomes her misplaced language,
cosmetic sunrays splintered 
on the uncombed lawn.

There are always less and less colors 
to wear to baptisms anymore.

—Submitted on 10/04/2022

Megan Denese Mealor is the author of the poetry collections Bipolar Lexicon (Unsolicited Press, 2018), Blatherskite (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, 2019), and A Mourning Dove’s Wishbone (Cyberwit, 2022). Her poems and photographs have appeared in journals including  Brazos River Review, Across the Margin, Typehouse Magazine, The Disappointed Housewife, The Wise Owl, and The Writing Disorder. Mealor lives in Jacksonville, Fla., with her husband, son, and three rescue cats. 

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered for publication.

Visit our Kickstarter for A MONTH OF SOMEDAY, the debut chapbook by Gerald Wagoner. 

Mud Music

In the swelter
of the delta,
on the river sides,
by the pools, by the ponds—
mud music.
Frog croaks and bongs—
mud music.
Murmuring mosquitoes— 
mud music.
The sloppy squelch of toes
when you choose
to enter the ooze
and make the mud your muse—
mud music.
The syncopated sibilance of reeds
as they whisper in the breeze— 
mud music.
The slap and flick of frolicking children’s feet—
mud music.
The secret sliver of unseen snakes seeking slaughter—
mud music
The lip and lap of lines of water
and silence,
silence too.
Mud music asleep
in river beds,
mud pure,
mud deep.

—Submitted on 10/03/2022

A collection of Bruce Greenhalgh‘s appears in 2018 FSP Anthology 42 and New Poets 19. His poems have appeared in anthologies including Poetry d’Amour (WA Poets Inc. 2016 and 2019) and journals including the Weekend Australian and inDaily. Greenhalgh lives in Adelaide, South Australia where he reads, writes and occasionally recites poetry.

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered for publication.

Visit our Kickstarter for A MONTH OF SOMEDAY, the debut chapbook by Gerald Wagoner. 

Rainy Day Man

Emotions bleed and 
Fertilize the seed. 

Embryonic pain 
Spouts through the rain. 

Stillborn dreams 
Silence screams. 

Joyful tears every 
One million years. 

Bleeding knees 
Need bleeding. 

Against my chest 
Lie cold breasts. 

Undilated eyes so  
Tears can upward rise. 

Drowning pools form to 
Escape the storm. 

A hiding place where 
Dirt covers my face. 

—Submitted on 10/03/2022

Charles J. March III is a hospital corpsman veteran currently living in Orange County, CA. His poems have appeared in Dissident Voice, Revolution John, The Recusant, and other journals.

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered for publication.

Visit our Kickstarter for A MONTH OF SOMEDAY, the debut chapbook by Gerald Wagoner. 

Day #15, 10 Mar 2022

You’ve got an hour to decide
what to carry from your life. 
I look at my phone, charger, passport, 
password list, wallet, and one 16lb
cat, one 8lb cat, a chicken, 
and a husband.

On your way to the border,
you remember what you couldn’t carry:
the 100 year old piano, a change 
of clothing, an extra jacket, and tooth paste.

If you and your belongings make it 
to the border, how will you feed
your cats, chicken, and husband?  

How much will a sandwich cost
when your lives cost nothing? 

Listen to the prayers made
before your body was unrolled 
from the tarp. You were loved.

—Submitted on 09/28/2022

Melinda Thomsen is the author of Armature (Hermit Feathers Press, 2021. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Artemis, Poetry Miscellany, Hermit Feathers Review, The Ekphrastic Review, THEMA, and Salamander Magazine. She is an advisory editor for Tar River Poetry. She lives in North Carolina with her husband, two cats, and one chicken.

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered for publication.

Visit our Kickstarter for A MONTH OF SOMEDAY, the debut chapbook by Gerald Wagoner. 

Your Pulse Nightclub

During the humid Miami night,
like a heat-seeking missile
you were drawn to the dancing 
of the hot-spot club,
the two-souls sweat: a magnet.

Once you began shooting,
you couldn’t stop
or wouldn’t stop
or dared not stop
until you yourself
were victim.
Death by cop
became the attraction,
the gravitational pull,
the force that fueled
your desire to die
while high 
on a mission of self-hatred.

—Submitted on 09/27/2022

Austin Alexis is the author of Privacy Issues (Broadside Lotus Press, 2014), winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award, and two chapbooks from Poets Wear Prada. His work has appeared in Barrow Street, The Journal, Paterson Literary Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, Poetica Review, and Dash, as well as in the anthology NYC from the Inside (Blue Light Press, 2022) and elsewhere. He received a fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center.

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered for publication.

Visit our Kickstarter for A MONTH OF SOMEDAY, the debut chapbook by Gerald Wagoner. 

“Some Other Race”

Playing catch with some unknown uncle 
while in the house everyone is dancing 
to Marc Anthony. And later, I’ll go back
to mom and the stillness of Mahler 
and grandpa’s words, "You’re white, that’s it.” 
Some other pitch I catch in stride to the cross-
section of father’s wish, “I just want him 
	to have blue eyes, blue eyes.” 

When I go inside and see an old lady on the table 
she pulls me up and teaches me to salsa. 
My uncle later says, “That rare synchronicity 
of family in rhythm.” Though I was happy 
to leave, go back to mom that gave dad 
the only thing he wanted: offspring
with the right to check “white” before “other,” 
	though others are all he made. 

—Submitted on 09/26/2022

Ryan Clinesmith‘s poems have appeared in Heavy Feather Review, First Literary Review-East, Blueline Literary Magazine, What Rough Beasts, Prospectus, and other journals. He holds a BA from Emerson College and an MFA in poetry from Hunter College.

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered for publication.

Visit our Kickstarter for A MONTH OF SOMEDAY, the debut chapbook by Gerald Wagoner. 

In the 1870s

Half-white, half-black, she wears a clean
straw hat, ribbon died deep lavender
and a couple of roses poised. Still,
her lips below broad nose, and solemn,
her brown eyes wide with song
as the pastor extols the continuing good
of Jesus revived from His cross.
High pale lace on her young throat
and a cameo beckoning love: time
can only begin to touch
the way she understands the world, 
a sash still tight around her waist 
and all, all she reaches for 
denied her without anything said
as though she were invisibly
an outcast diver swimming deep,
drowning as she reaches for the pearl.

—Submitted on 09/26/2022

Katharyn Howd Machan is the author of Dark Side of the Spoon (The Moonstone Press, 2022) and many other collections. She edited Adrienne Rich: A Tribute Anthology (Split Oak Press, 2012) and other anthologies. A professor of writing in at Ithaca College, she served as Tompkins County’s first poet laureate. Machan lives with her husband, fellow poet Eric Machan Howd, and two cats, Footnote and Byron.

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered for publication.

Visit our Kickstarter for A MONTH OF SOMEDAY, the debut chapbook by Gerald Wagoner. 

The Year in Streaming

the child and siren align    
summering down
hands incomplete as 
dancers waxing 
rainbow moonstone
“can you stop suffering
for like, a minute?”   
do you mean could i?
burn through? 
wave by wave? 
at what difference?
in a spiral, crocodile 
& roses aaaaallll day
teach myself 
(again) to rest 
is not to squander
lighten 
as the sun hits 
off the cymbal 
nn-tsk 
like back in the day  
when we were still 
planets to a plum—
swan-swank 
gonging in between

—Submitted on 09/26/2022

Andrew K. Peterson is the author of A blue nocturne notebook (Spuyten Duyvil, 2021) and four other collections. In 2017 he was a co-organizer of the Boston Poetry Marathon. He lives near Boston.

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered for publication.

Visit our Kickstarter for A MONTH OF SOMEDAY, the debut chapbook by Gerald Wagoner. 

Song For Goners
after Jeff Tweedy

Inside our tiny place
there’s still a long way
to go walking off the pier
at a loner pace, together.
I forget the least time
I meant home.
I mean, that’s inevitable.
I’m a fiber of a fiber,
goner than miles.
While I’m here, I’ll stay
in the salt of a crying
day. Say what you say;
I’ll try to listen,
reply in my cosmic
unpaid-upturned-
out-tuned-intuition-
think-I’ll-call-it-a-way-
kind-of-way. Sifting
the evidence, pouring
milky dust from a bowl.
Remainders of reminders
until they call me back.
I don’t mean to forget,
there’s just not a lot of time,
my love. The in-between’s
been like a lot of things
with lids – unfastened.
Just stay.
If it’s OK with you,
then it’s OK with me.
If you say that it’s just,
then it’s so.

—Submitted on 09/26/2022

Andrew K. Peterson is the author of A blue nocturne notebook (Spuyten Duyvil, 2021) and four other collections. In 2017 he was a co-organizer of the Boston Poetry Marathon. He lives near Boston.

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered for publication.

Visit our Kickstarter for A MONTH OF SOMEDAY, the debut chapbook by Gerald Wagoner.