Michael F. Gill

005 Interrupting The Conversation Of Sleepwalking Clocks (Short Poems, March 2011)
004 Inside A Mellifluous Curve (Short Poems, August 2010)
003 Distilled Queues (Visual Poems, July 2010)
002 Linked Circles (Three Longer Poems, November 2009)
001 Parallel To White (First Poems, November 2008)

April Penn

002 A New Bedspread (Memoir Poems, January 2011)
001 Q-Factor (Queer-themed Poems, January 2011)

Awkward Small Talk

The language where we walk has run out fast.
We’ve got nothing to say, until we sprint
like tunnel vision towards a gospel,
maneuvering through endless piles of trash.
I’ve got bad habits of looking for you
when my words are only small bags of dust.
The sounds in my head are ripe leaves of mint,
but they cannot be plucked off by themselves.
I need another hand inside my rash
dry-mouth of a brain which craves salt water.
It wants to swim synchronized with the new.
Our words together sit in a hostel,
with baggage that lacks any set of shelves -
hearts that hold no resonance, no quarter.
What are we looking for in each other?
A mouth that a pair of ears can outlast.
I’d love your wordcount to leave me smothered
with reciprocations that are my own,
but silences would be equally just,
as sometimes they are the only way home.

The Hunger to be a Witness

I want to see my body commit a falsity in public,
engage itself in ravenous grips of sin that swell.
There is at least a split second
during the first stretch of your legs
where we want to be told a singular story,
to experience an event that's been
exclusively exuviated
for our cupped hands.

On a Saturday in the near future,
meet me under the hemlock
where we can sit and watch
unconscious crimes emanate
out from my mandible and into
the crush of your vestibular nerve.