Deep

Tissue
Magazine

Number
Nine
2011
Cover Model: Cat Corina

1
Heather Brager

touching the art.
just moments before in a stark white museum
echoing silence from ceiling to floor, sterile and
bare
but this breathtaking scene on the wall
this architecture of layered blues
with violent red
scarlet tresses climbing off the canvas
in smears just asking to be licked
and her father‘s voice whispering rules into her
left brain
without hesitation, her arm reached out
fingers splayed tips exposed, despite the alarms
she expected the paint to be wet
months before in a lucid dream
his beautiful arms bare, brown and smooth
in the burning barren, desert sun
ancient tribal tattoos
in raised patterns cut into his forearms
curved by the sepia tone landscape and a river
only heard
she, without contemplation
reached out with burning fingers to slide slowly
across his wet skin
and it mattered not
who was this man
years before in a child‘s curious wander
spying a soft winged moth the size of her heart
deconstructing with awe and innocent wonder
in powdered patterns of camouflage and a
perfectly round eye
staring back and taunting
until her finger traced the image
and then leaving behind an iridescent dust
it flew up and away with an impressionist's
smile
drawn on her mind

2
within perspective.
from up where the world
expands vast with highs and lows
dips dark and elevation dazzling
with breaks in shadow formed under vapor
suspended gnarls depicting elegant endurance
clutch the overhangs in place
on the ground, with the grit of independence
the slurry of safety in anonymity
the air sultry with expectancy and
sirens threaten the distance, with late-night
cracks
slapping the scene from its knees on the floor
midway though, a window is opened
and she rinses a dinner plate and fork
questioning the subtle ache in her chest
reluctant to settle, somewhere under the lights
she considers expanding the views
and with wet hands, tosses her scrutiny
lost time.
we adjust the clocks ahead, and back
pausing, sometimes in moments
of inanimate decompression
and we lay still and warm in tenderness,
cocooned
stifled, resolving to awaken transformed
then the alarm sounds and we‘re there, again
with high pitched echoes down the long hall
in the mutual air, shared
I am often waiting for the knife
clumsy with my cuts, my fingers have always
suffered
but not nearly as much
as my heart
we adjust the doors, slamming and locking
hesitant to open again, while we scale walls
balancing on our wavering habits
and dodging, the fodder for fear
we hold in our mouths
and our hands
3
waiting it out. final velocity.

images muffled by vacant obscurity the room echoes staccato

entranced by a silver tongued dichotomy heels clack to the floor with
the urgency of mitigation
sharp like bruised tact, a tic intermittent against her breasts
the sign reads, we‘re open at six
if the walls released and crumbled
the fervent ones, riding each leaden gulp oxygen could rush forth
purring and wet just after 3:00 a.m. and the detectable vacuum
would vibrate her mind loose
drown by the moon, her fluorescent stare of the agonizing pause
drinking the inky sheen in sheer resolve
it‘s just a moment of time
there exposed, quiet like milky thighs and acceleration by definition
impending three times three distinct slaps is neither fast nor slow
but fragments
motion and stillness are momentarily magnified within the continuum
then swallowed inside the ticking clock
the room echoes staccato
and she opens the door

Heather Brager is a mother, professional multi-tasker and life-long procrastinator. She is a lover of
music, art and words, and often arranges her perspective on life into the occasional poem or drawing.
Some of the results of her restlessness can be found by visiting:

http://heatherbrager.blogspot.com/
http://msamericano.deviantart.com/

4
Rose Morales

Dream Knowledge I fly between alternities, finding truth in strange

corridors.
I know something I shouldn't know,
it makes circles in the April mud,
Awakened by the maddening tribe,
tires with no traction, I sleep,
I stand on soap, speak in riddle bubbles.
and dream of death and madness.
I might recite the secrets of the universe,
but the group mind is crazed, angered
Visions become real in the deepening,
by things I was never meant to know.
souls escape worldly prisons,
fly through nether and flux,
Curtains lift, membranes fall,
whisper warnings in a deaf ear.
I point and make it so,
becoming god in my mind,
I know, I know, the meaning of anti,
a galaxy in my thoughts,
when nothing holds substance in its hand,
all from the realization of a dream.
the future sparks with magnetic fingers.

5
The Ascension of Mars
Fire,
angry red of human folly,
the color of bullet drip,
mine maim, faceless
shrapnel blast, heartless
iron confetti sold in the marketplace.
Elders push buttons,
toys on maps
veni, vidi, vici on tv screens
robot soldiers with burning flesh,
flames throw merchants of death
a dollar, bill of sale mayhem.
Mars rises like ashy Phoenix,
feeding on war's organs,
Looking down on selfish mortals,
meat grinder food of the gods.
They worship his Ascension,
the glory of shattered bones
tossed, telling the future of mankind
in a scarlet cup, blood red wine.
Ether
Ether killed my poem
written, anesthesia fog
breathed in, lines were blurred,
reality skewed, buttons pushed,
words, sounds disappeared
and ether killed my poem.
Phrase died upon the table
netted heart, blood rung
from cyber tubes, operation
deleted, none survived,
doctored letters lost in space
and phrase died upon the table.
No stories writ in stone
type "O", negative tome
perished alone, will remained
unread, lost inside my head
when all was said and done
ether killed my poem.
6
Live and spit in its face.
Eyes glaze,
caught in the disease
of doldrums,
the cynic morphs
into something monstrous, Empty Houses
from simple doubt
to loss of hope. Dogs bark on far off streets
signs of life in the crypt
Taking rays and the chance of a stray
and twisting them in knots, footprint on bare sidewalks.
preferring blackness
to the agony of sunshine, Spring breeze blows through windows,
born to die, stirring faded curtains and dust
and dying for the pit, which spin in small tornadoes
having learned too well across the warped wood floors.
the secrets of despair.
Sun shines through greased glass,
Even nothing radiating grey walls and the white spots
is a substance where pictures hung, carelessly ripped
that slips through hands, off, holes where the plaster fell.
leaving false patinas
of something gritty; Feral pads along linoleum,
there's no place left to fall. cracks killed her mother,
now she sniffs unwashed bowls,
Rather climb looking for remnants of supper.
kick and gouge,
grab the brass And wind winds through the chimney flue,
and hold on tight. moaning like a wayward ghost, tentative
Something evil left you here touch on tarnished knobs, a pin drops, but
then tried to rip you out; if houses are empty, does it still make a sound?
live well,

Rose Morales is the author of the book "42" now available at www.alabasterandmercury.com She lives
in Miami, Fl with her husband Alex.

7
Dan Provost

Home for Thanksgiving once inside.

Smoking a stogie, bleeding from the lip.

Blood Yep, the gangs all here.
Cigars
and shiners. Ready to pounce, pillage and take whatever
they can from your seedy pockets.
Walk into the bar boys.
All the common thieves will be here. You knew the score once you‘re in.
Lust, punches and lots of smoke.
Waiting for the handout from the uninitiated—
tagged Oh yea—a night back home.

8
Gutter Mind
The blood on my lips does not
mean I‘m a vampire.
I just spew out sick sardines
when the mood strikes me
to speak in fantasized tongues
Mostly about nothing—or sickness
that inherits the earth.
But don‘t let that get you down, I‘ve
Slept with legal prostitutes in Worcester
And I can tell you brother…their night habits
Aren‘t great either.
So, pick you bones clean at the vermin warfare,
The grossest point of no escape.
Because when it can‘t get any lower—it always
does
I Beat You to It
Seasoned spirit…
You do not realize that I am evil made.
Born into a party of madness—where the
Master of
Ceremonies is a defective grocery clerk selling
his
goods to those who cannot eat.
I am privy to this episode…energy of poor;
suffering
tirades against the spiders who stroll along
defective counters.
Then I leave, my fire trails behind me…
Ready to introduce another chapter.
9
It’s Me Now

I am now the old, lonely man sitting at the end of the bar.

Seen as a quiet murderer

A genius wasted or
Just a loser of the bottle…

I snarl sometimes— taken as misunderstood… common as

the mental deficient who walks around Worcester glumly.

I study the peelings of the beer label, stare hard at the bubbles floating to the top; remember lost
Chances, missed opportunities to be in the middle of
Life‘s normalcy.

A misplaced icon lives at every corner tavern…he

Has seen the heroes who battle for the worthless woman, the
Guy with the beer muscles get busted in half, the other drifters
Who try to claim kinship with him.

Twenty years ago…it was me who would look at these

Men, wondering what they exist on?

What made them give up and settle for a stool under

A neon light flashing Bud Light?

Now I know…
Now I know…

Dan Provost's poetry has been published throughout the small press for a number of years. He lives in
Worcester, Massachusetts.

10
A.g. Synclair

nothing, being

nothing.

and I thought

if I could lie down

on some milky black night

and detach my retinas

Untitled Love Poem
swiftly, like opening a vein

I could use my mind's eye

the poet Jamison Gilley once told me

of his penchant for lying naked

to see
in a fetal position
how you pulled me in

gutted me
on the cold tile floor

in the bathroom
disembowled me
of his Manhattan loft.
and bled me out

how you opened me

unable to move for hours

waiting to feel something

skillfully
anything

and feeling nothing, seeing

11
Ruminations On Love,
& Fucking Poets
I knew this girl
when I had that blue
Camaro
when I hung copper wire
out my bedroom window
to pick up far off jazz
stations on my shortwave
before sex
could kill you.
she called herself
a poet
so I fucked her
on the dirty bathroom floor
of a wood paneled fern
bar
left over from the 1970's.
the kind of place
where any dumb fucker
could get laid
as long as you were clean to old hippies.
and bought Black Russians
for girls who would fuck someone told me
guys
she got published
that would fuck girls like
them.
she got published
received a check for two-
which was better than not
fucking hundred dollars
and five contributor copies
on a Saturday Night
of New Voices in
Contemporary Poetry.
when the world was
cumming all over each
other I've read her poetry
and the only other option and just between you and
me
was jerking off in the
IHOP bathroom I'm betting
New Voices in
or pancakes. Contemporary Poetry
-like simple submission
guidelines-
sometimes
cumming together
I see her in front of the
Haymarket
drinking coffee and love
selling homemade is only
chapbooks an illusion.
and broadsides
12
Proof At the Gate
(Love In A Time of Voluntary Diaspora)
endless loop

Gesture after gesture, we pause the circumnavigation of four,

gangs of human flesh, wanton, exposed not horsemen,
backs bent, arms outstretched,
bloody hands slit by the oiled blade but just as foreboding
of the intangible orb.
recurring
The bushels of proof, tied in bundles,
as if knots of twigs, or bits of brush apocalyptic ribbon
culled from the soil of our earth
to kindle the flame of the soul.

This pulchritude visions rebound quickly

not borne of acrid prose
plunge deeper into
meant to violate the pure page
or drift rotten across our tongues more
like a corpse, tossed about purple sea.
Nor does it lie dying in the widow‘s web of
or passed from breath to bitter breath, the
in a tangle of crooked limbs
and gently breaking bone. same

isolation
For the proof of our {be} ing
will bloom again in simple things
like the frying of an egg
or the twisting steam evolved of a curious mixture
from a pot of Russian Tea.
the turning over of stones
Proof lives just beyond our breadth
snug in the arms of the aged willow miscalculations of
and alive in the sunrise whisper
of the morning paper time
landing on our winter porch. upending our supposed bliss

the poetic half-life of

absolute

insurgence

13
Ascent/Descent

we scale the walls of treachery

pull the teeth from winter's yaw

with delicate fingers

deft hands

grimy, gutting glances

a bloodletting

consummated with

soiled paper sheets, you

milking shadows from the breasts of naked trees

closer to me than words on a page

these fragile things, like sleep

or paper thin prayers

illuminate you in fiery glass shards

for we are splintered

and sharp

for cutting

A.g. Synclair's work has appeared in numerous literary magazines, anthologies, chapbooks, and
'zines, both online and in print. He drinks too much coffee, suffers through long bouts of writers
block, and sometimes wishes poetry, and most people, would just go away. He lives, writes, and
is occasionally employed in Southwestern Montana.

14
Chad Repko

WHAT I TALK ABOUT WHEN I TALK ABOUT LOVE

Electromagnetic sources,

excitement through the atoms

complete visual dumbness

eyes that hold an angelic being

and a being that is hold me

Awareness-

and nervousness

calm together as a wedding night

explosions

and destiny

15
 all passions heighten as it ignites

obscene thrill fullness,

and wanton madness

a look, a touch, a meaning

unselfish feelings

doing whatever it takes

and by any means necessary

to have you say it to me

and this notion may never vary

Seeing beauty in your full aura

your neck, your hair, your skin, your voice

The way you sleep

the way you dance

the way you sit

The songs that you sing

only seem to bring

the most colorful light of spring

and fashion of a bird's wing

16
 and the warmth within your thread

and the energy within your head

gravitate our likely beings

into the desire of your bed

No real words can describe the vision

no mix of music can vibrate

as you stroll through the galaxy

and I sit here and wait.....

My name is Chad Repko and I live in Pottstown PA, after attending film school I decided
to concentrate on writing and studying as much as I could on the subject of life.

17
Winnie Oliver

BLACK SHEEP

It isn't how I do it-

How the tug of my lip
tugs hers like putty filling in the cracks
or how my lipstick mingles with another color.
It isn't how my hands lift a skirt like a breeze,
or how I know where to tickle her knees with my pinky fingers.

It isn't how I do it-

It's how I don't do it,
lying flat on the floor or bed,
with a man with hands rough as cement,
body hairy as a beast,
dry where I crave wet.

Every time I visit

my father stares too long at the male waiters
tells them how much he likes their bowties,
while my mother orders a drink, or five.

At home my father sleeps with his back to her,

dreaming of a hairy beast of a man,
while my mother wishes she could be that man.

18
RAINED OUT REVOLUTION

It keeps raining on our revolution days

and they close the park on our anarchy.
The signatures on our petitions
turn from hope into puddles,
for propositions we only half understood.

I was going to change the political system,

dust the dusty apathy from the blue-blood's hands,
until that tornado came barreling out of Georgia.

I was in the early stages of a PSA about the SSI or the FDA,
when it rained on our picnic outside the Pentagon,
when the hooting of the cyclone made us STFU.

Even the onyx roses for our peace rally

wilted during an unexpected Autumn heat wave.
We drove to a diner, then, and split the check.
four orders of french fries,
greasy as they come.

I dipped mine like a mixed-up vote in blood red catsup.

Some swam theirs through milky ranch.
The waitress asked us why we want peace
when the world wants war.
We each tried, but her tired, fried eyes
didn't blink until we left the tip.

We swear the flyers for our next revolution

will specify rain or shine.

Winnie Oliver is many things: An activist, photographer, and a traveler not content with an
armchair- but more than anything else, she is a poet. She has most recently been published in
Spank'd and Bestiary Magazine.

19
Mark Paleologo

and a really deep shine on the floor

god shed his waste on thee

but has provided us with a myriad

products to keep ms jones off of her knees

microwaveable liberation ding ding ding

goes the trolly ring ring ring

those ugly rings you try scrubbing

america
and still your soul will be spotted and yellow

nicotine stained derisiveness in a handy

from the back of the room
dispense with the principles
i can hear a shrill voice waiver
and be sure to recycle every fallacious
the siren‘s doxology
intent on control intent on the rapture
forgotten tables in forgotten mythology
my god‘s bigger than your
oh beautiful for specious lies
will to survive to stand to breathe
mixed metaphor on the rocks
without the weight of oppression
with a love for wealth chasers
without the foul stench of life
a penchant for quoting scripture
from sea to slimy sea

20
the event horizon tavern
swelling in glandular process
‗i never believed in the semitic god
while honesty is the soup de jour
and never had the stamina
‗and there is no messiah and there is no
to be a good pagan like my brother‘ prophet

she wraps vaporous fingers about and there is no way for me to rend the veil

campari and soda with a splash of bitters between this world and the next‘

a wedge of lime laughs at both of us wet fingers disconnect from cut crystal

our near felonious intentions they find my hand and interweave

arrive neatly arranged on blue rimmed china tapestry from the vault of the basilica

gay waiter smiles and platitudes fade ‗and i never understood a thing about

‗i just never bought into any religion what was and what was not sacred

no need for fervor or satori‘ until you told me that you loved me‘

coconut encrusted daydreams with untouched appetizers grow cold

chipotle garnish too hot to taste and my hand no longer dry predicts

runs circles around the table halting time trends of atmospheric accommodation

sensory afflictions metastasize acknowledged old dog learning

how to order for both of us

21
napping in gardens but you ‗i do not know him‘

i ain‘t no pussy my friends with each blow

i was the son of a carpenter slept while i prayed knowledge

i built houses and barns the dark hour tore my soul

i earned my bread by the the end of all time as the blood ran from my
sweat of my brow tired body
the moment i needed
and the fiber and sinew in and when i looked down
my arms and disappeared
hung between a thug and a
i did not choose scattered flies searching thief

i was chosen i faced no accuser i saw no loving eye

sent tried by proxy save for a mother and her

son
to do my father‘s bidding alone and aware
and i cried out
to speak of alternatives my fate ever so certain
father how the fuck
to free the ones i loved rejected by my own
could you do this to me
from slavery and bondage for a gangster
wasn‘t i a good boy
i told the man to put down and they beat me
the sword did i not do all
tore the flesh from my
when they came for me back as prescribed

i went willingly crowned me with thorns the silence

led away knowing great sport mockery hush

and the traitor and it was carried the storm that rises

could not deny his nature the pain amplified

a sad fate but one i by the words

embrace
one dearest spoke
Mark Paleologo lives in New Jersey and is decided in that alone. He enjoys long walks in the park and all
of god's tasty creatures.

22
Wes Bender

crushing

this is how we express ourselves

when our faces must remain
expressionless

these are the sheets we wear

when we pretend to be ghosts
haunting each other

wailing are the moans

crying out in the witching hour
making us laugh nervously
pretending it's just the wind

23
anathema
Dandelions framed a face
Hand-picked, milky-stemmed bouquets
Of wine and weed;
Butter-cupped hellos
Lighting up a dairy-cream chin
Liquid mercury towered overhead
Hermes in a pernicious gravity
Shining skyscraper vertigo eloquence
Revolving mirrored drops
Reflecting rapture
Falling on a celestial tongue
Prisms twitched in mineral eyes
Pyramids rose so goddesses dissolved
Mantling [in](to)(two)(too)
Prickly -flavored slavery
Lemongrass ghosts rattled about
A sylvan chase of spades and clubs;
Marionette trees of sugary lumber
Swayed cotton candy branches
Dripping taffy
After the whisper of a pulling
Croissant persuasion
Biting a lighter-than-air thumb
Man‘s best friend heard stories
About poking holes in cupcakes
Getting frosting impossibly stuck
Under red velvet finger nails
Around knotted birch beer lips
Behind ferromagnetic kitten eyes
Hissing in the hibiscus
At the poker playing dog
Gambling attentively
24
let down your hair

I woke with my tragically romantic optimism in one hand

Reaching for my crystal ball with the other

She wasn’t just looking for his sunrise,

She wanted to be his sun

I‘d been visiting the fortune teller more than usual

Seeing my future in the small of your back

She didn’t just want his blue sky

She wanted to be his atmosphere

You‘re not crying, just breathing hard and shuddering enchanted

I climb your Rapunzel-spine ladder to hide with you in your tower

She wasn’t happy simply being in his air

She wanted to be his breath

I exhale “I love you” at the nape of your neck, into your woven tresses
Drowning us both in the fairy-tale pool of my existence

25
pariah excesses

By imitating the vices of others I have worn

Happiness is altruism, adversity.
being a byproduct of the imagination. The greatest pleasures are always found
through the deepest pain.
Universal morality is an abandoned
romanticism. Lust is the lifeblood of all
Life itself is endless thievery craving, depravity,
and nature‘s systematic competition. close-fisted greed
& retribution.
Inner peace is found
in the manner we appreciate each other. Passion is the most paramount quality of
others.
Ecstasy comes by the way Passion gives us substance, most agreeably.
we choose to pursue our infatuations.
Passion‘s desire will have its way—
Human nature breeds imitation— screaming for it,
for the tenderness in mankind to resemble clamoring, influencing everything through
as closely as possible those people persistent,
around us whom we love. raging torment.

To know true virtue, No god, nor law, nor creature of any kind
one must first lie with vice. can inhibit passion, not deep down

My thinking is not the source of my where lust and desire truly dwell...
misfortunes, ...a woman‘s heart will always beg for
but rather, it is the thinking of others which torment.
dooms me.
Let us care not if our thought are
offensive to others
for we think for ourselves and not for them,
and we might expect them to do the same....

26
My life's experiences happen poetically, so I write poetry about them. I can't subscribe to one
way of thinking, nor commit to one single standard of morals or ideals because life is so
abundant and moods are so varying--inspiration comes from everywhere. Good ideas come from
bad people, bad ideas from good. Mistakes are part of humanity, destruction is a part of nature. I
look at everything around me as living, breathing, pulsating verse, beating with energy inviting
us all to dance. I've spent my life scribbling lines of prose for no audience other than myself and
an occasional bed partner who would indulge my romantic side by letting me read aloud as we
enjoy a post-coital tremor. Recently, however, I was encouraged by a dear friend to post my
poetry online and share it with others who might enjoy it. I'm just a full-of-shit poet like
everyone else. Currently I live in the mid-Atlantic area and enjoy a day job where I get to design
and build boats for a living.

27
Mike Taylor

beautiful and we could see

our path lit before us
we‘d join in conversations
when we were with others
together and finish each other‘s
back then sentences
we‘d make such fine you were beautiful
music together so beautiful that I quit
and our mattress would fucking faces after you‘d left
sing along with our song yes, you were
we‘d smile across that beautiful
the room at each other

28
broken fingers drip
(for frankie rios)

drip
the letters
broken fingers w/scarred knuckles leaky faucet like
nails chewed to quick smearing the page
hip forming words
to down
it all down
cragged boardwalk
out the window
brought the need
that freshly cleaned
needle marks soul window
history playing solitaire closes in
need need need carefully
approximate babies cry
no failure here children laugh
or there mothers
even fathers,
bouncing waves
smile in
lap the beach close scrutiny
& the boardwalk
creaks stubbornly talk if you want
their ghosts listen if you
haunt and hallucinate dare
stare at
history repeating itself
the panorama of
again life
and again so visible
the word wants answers everywhere
the word wishes well
yes, the judge
the word has issued his instructions
and the jury
wishes
is out
well deliberating

meanwhile
there is
movement in
the heart
and
all is
well

29
hollow heart leaving lovers
in the dark
hollow heart reachin
walks for sumthin
slowly thru tangilble
maze of pain or at least
n not knowin a promise
wishes had the hollow
sumthin heart
to fill it shudders in
wishes had solitude
dreams to ride rejects the sympathy
passion to excite offered
& as the hollow & continues
heart fades its walk
to pale this hollow
& evening sky heart
shuffles sun alone
away

Sixty-four year old retired railroad worker. Flag, Woman & Other Desecrations published by Bowery
Press in 1973. Was one of the Denver/Venice West writers/artists from the 1960/70‘s. Currently live in
the mountains outside of Denver with my son, the poet MJ Taylor.

30
Glen Still

―Emerald Asphyxiophilia‖

Emeralds The sclera as white as porcelain

She had ‗em for eyes Her face reeking of ecstasy

I swear just to look in

Took you down deep [Seattle Sessions 3.24.2011]

Past the tiny indentations

Glen Still is wandering the streets of Seattle
She hid on her face with makeup looking for the perfect cup of coffee.
It seemed to work for her

Casting enchantment through black nylon

She liked it tied around her throat

Her emerald eyes would roll back

Behind her eyelids

31
Paula D. Lietz

Kinetic Carousel Ride

If reality is but a variable of time caught

amongst the quarks, what is perception
that creates singular illusions within
minuscule world ( s ) ?

Do subatomic particles cease to be matter?

Did they ever matter?

Insane neurones fire madly along synaptic

pathways only to meet at endless crossroads,
desperately trying to untangle what we fabricated
to justify our cycle on this kinetic carousel ride.

32
Particles of Life

Quiet reflections seep through

the pores of dusk that drapes
yellow and grey hues upon this listless
evening.

In between time, where every little thing occurs,

pulsating beyond its limits, unfathomable,
most bewildering the beauty within,
subtle this creation of life.

The place between the bark and the tree,

the dew droplet stance on the blade of grass,
a hive of a bumble bee.

Stranded amidst birth and death with a word,

sentence, paragraph, a chapter ~
a volume read.

The book now closed but for the

silken threads weaving the chromosomal
order in the essence of you forever caught
within the folds of faded particles of memory.

~ You ~

I hunger for your lips,

the salty taste of you.
Your wife glances at me ~
I smile.

33
I KNOW YOU

I know the intimate smell of you

the curves and swells

I know the different textures of your skin

the velvet the callouses

how your hair grows and where

I know your knee bothers you

I know what your teeth look like

the taste of your tongue

I know the colour and depth of your eyes

I know the shape of your fingers

the touch of your hard heat

I know your unspoken words replying

to my endless troubled thoughts

I know the strength of your back

and the weight it carries

I know your astounding kindness

the lilt of your laughter

I know the salt of your tears

I know and applaud your integrity

what I do not know

is where you are

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Cold and Dark

cold and dark

planted there
stripped bare
huddled beneath
winter snow
seed steadfast
natures wonder
pulsating
upward
trembling
timidly
reaching
higher
higher
grasping
gasping
sunlight
stem firm
first bloom
shy blush
petal by
petal
life
unfurls

Published poet , artist, collage artist, and photographer

Paula D. Lietz lives in Rural Manitoba Canada

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Felino A. Soriano

Stipulation November echo

I reconnected death A memory

inside the hollow organs awkward until

of hallowed insomnia. Light fully ascertained by the

extracted stale personas musicality of devotional

dim as dusk‘s exhaled anorexic plagiarism. Much

configurations. Bodies, whole, of the elder thought

collected, the simulated culture escapes upon existential

of popular contamination creation motivates, haunts and

specialized interrogation articulates blemished facsimiles

method revived the breaths of wandering flesh of nascent meanings

dissipated ambulation. achieved among autumn‘s

elemental scarring.

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Celebratory

Confetti as frozen alphabets.

Burned proclamations

balance unwell‘s version of the skeletal

imprisoned aggregates. Motional

superstition begs and bows into

verbs‘ inarticulate faith, hindering

scope and aggregated focus of

night‘s camaraderie of dead syllables,

dangling, disarmed.

Felino A. Soriano (b. 1974) is a case manager and advocate for adults with developmental and
physical disabilities. In 2010, he was chosen for the Gertrude Stein "rose" prize for creativity in
poetry from Wilderness House Literary Review. Philosophical studies collocated with his
connection to various idioms of jazz explains motivation for poetic occurrences. For
information, including his 43 print and electronic collections of poetry, over 2,700 published
poems, interviews, and editorships, please visit his website: www.felinoasoriano.info.

--
Felino A. Soriano
felino@felinoasoriano.info
Find me on Twitter and Facebook
Personal website: Felino A. Soriano | Poet of Philosophy and Jazz Coöccurrence
Founder, Publisher Counterexample Poetics
Founder, Publisher Differentia Press
Guest editor, Calliope Nerve
Contributing editor, Sugar Mule

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© 2011 Deep Tissue Magazine

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