another chance / to have it / all / (&) right / we the molecules / coast / free / of bodies broken / & breaking / away / above / in the ether / we eat cotton clouds / for breakfast / for lunch & dinner / we consume / & consummate / poetry […]

On tiptoe I extend my fingers toward the dark mouths of stage’s end, their glittering rows of hot teeth. On whose shoulders do I live? My toes grip, my calves bulge like nervous eyes. I can trust him with my neck. He is the strong man, these are the shoulders I tried to push away […]

distance the sun shakes itself loose from the plaster of clouds, still awakening from the sigh of last night’s cold you stoke the fire with your bruised tongue  your hands all over my thighs your eyes, everywhere but you invent new languages in things left unsaid  quiescence falls between us an alarming tranquility that you […]

West Virginia natives drive the 2nd class state highways hellbenttwisted curled asphalt counter-graded blind curvesserpentine treachery downhillout of forested mountains into valley sinks kamikaze deer lurk at dawn at dusk invisibleour stretch of Smoot-Dawson is death alleythree persons killed in two years ramming trees and fences on curves at 50 mphand a deer totals my farm helper’s caron […]

My life as a fallen star Maybe it was the way the light worked its way into everything when you were too young to work out the dark from the not-so-dark. The way even your father’s pain glowed some nights. A tree could only take you so far up, and it always hurt on the […]

Angelo Colavita lives and writes in Philadelphia, where he serves as Founding Editor of Empty Set Press and Associate Editor at Occulum Journal. He is the author of two chapbooks of poetry, Flowersonnets (2018) and Heroines (2017), as well as a full-length epic poem, Nazareth (forthcoming, Apep Publications). His work has appeared in The Shoutflower, Wildness […]

Intro Within you  lies a divine message.  A cryptic psalm. Would you recoil  if you heard your  omniscient song?  Would you question your sanity? Would you deny the source?  Would you remain silent?  Better yet,  what if your purpose is to decipher that prescient hymn?   I’m not trying to convince you of anything. Seriously,  all […]

Resplendent, spear gored,  the wedding guest would still be shouting if he hadn’t  come within that single fathom. Over you go,  the both of you, into the photo  on the guidebook’s dust jacket flap. The volcano has either already erupted or is just about to,  smoke stacks poking anachronistically through the power grid. Somebody ought […]

Ben So it was me and you. In the bath tub. Downstairs with Star Trek VHS. Us with Enid Blyton books lined up. Us skidding down church centre halls on our knees. Us playing footy on the village green and booting it into the graveyard. The one where you now reside. Us cross streaming in […]

When someone hurts you,Don’t hold it in your bodyOr let it leak like acidThrough your veins.Take something tender Go to a high place,The suicide bridge withThe fence that prevents peopleMaking permanent decisions.Look down  When you push the sun over the edgeAnd hear the great silence as it fallsThough it’s milliseconds, a rotation As long as a […]