JUST STUPID, I GUESS — OR BLIND —OR INATTENTIVE — OR…

“So, Jean — (somebody), I said, “do you believe in love at second sight? I mean — Rum toddy, Waitress, for her; I’ll have a screwdriver — going dateless ‘s obscene! Dumb! Big crime to do! Shouldn’t I have realized the very first time?”

VAN/ITY (for Natalya)

The happy inconvenience of forced reliance on these, the sole tools I own

for prying below your oh so frozen golden skin,

The patient persistent application of these blunt lips, this inagile tongue,

trying to learn entire the inarticulate soul hiding within —

peeling it away     layer    by     layer  

from the long & blonde cool slim softvanilla Ukrainy icecreamcone

lying frostdelicious  beside my pillow.

I (reluctantlustily) Bonaparte after you Kutuzov: 

who hawkodineyed watch for every movement upon your flanks and

          (engaging not, engaging, not) withdraw, withdraw

                   withdraw apace,          another pace—

all communication broken, 

knicking off my van/

    /                (engaging not, engaging not)

    /

    /                                till

    /

    /                                                    suddenly

    /

    /

    / confront we                :Borodino                     

    /

    / frontal attack into your center

    / bodies blood contorted everywhere

    / ferocious punishment on either side

                                  /

                        The c/ity of tsars ash against stars and ice

and our dreadful painful slow long extraction begins. 

FISHING WITH A LINGUIST

I never claimed my German was good

but I can conjugate worm and hook,

and I can understand your language

by knowing of your hopes and anguish,

of your cathedrals and your ruins.

We all communicate in Human.

I’m not fluent in Russian or Greek,

but I practice my Reason and Grace.

PEOPLE LIVE IN CIRCUMSTANCE

Prophets

coffin fears.

They undim the years

and make futures clear.

Each instant starts new infinities and we want to learn our world before it leaves and the present in constant process of departure is all of time we possess and we want to change reality we say but won’t imagine others until prophetic language speaks itself and inertia is the prophet’s strongest weakness.

Poets,

clothed in words,

are philosophers

who live as paupers,

ambassadors of imagination, and their hands acting as mankind’s tongues make

the machinery that molds humanity and their chisels read our marble’s manuscript to free its sheltering angels. The poets’ sort of characters presses their texts on the stubborn world’s soft tissues.

Healers

seek to cure

the pains of the world,

improve the impure

with powders potions pellets promises prayers prophylactics and prosthetics and redeem the work of their harbinger barbersurgeons, barbarous locks smiths, who balded us while tonsured ones whittled our natures away.

Teachers

reach our minds

by opening blinds

to show us our signs

bright enough to darken our sight, reveal our oceans’ icebergs, use their mistakes instincts and stimuli to instruct our eternal youth eager only to grow old.

Scholars

caulk the cracks

in the walls of fact

caused by careless lack

of application as their brains’ gray boredom yearns to learn about all the abouts to catalog and diagram and quest to close the gap between the sag of our intellect and the stretch of actuality, but our tired libraries strive for arson because we know when nothing is left all will be understood.

Rulers

view their role

as plugging the holes

in their fated goals

and they deploy their troops their laws their clubs their crusades their mobs and their parades to advance their cause of making the patch of our earth a carpet for their comfortable feet and leave us as shirazless as Shiraz. We say we need rulers to draw our lines straight but the rules rulers impose are intended for us ruled ones only.

Soldiers

know: to kill

they must always drill

and harden their wills

to deform enemy stones into tombs and they expect command and stratagem to stand up their haughty uniforms against opponent motley and bayonet resistant pacifists.

Judges

budge the law

from hammer to saw,

from justice to fraud,

they are the chaste prostitutes who should always be on trial for verdicts that sentence abstinence with masturbation and we must prepare to wear our loudest scarf to their dockets their gallows and their guillotines.

Prophets live in confusion, poets in fantasy, healers in contagion, teachers in ignorance, scholars in mystery, teachers in ignorance, rulers in entitlement, soldiers in destruction, and judges in wickedness.

WHERE DO THESE, OUR CASTRATI, GO?

On the march–

the rag, the drum, the bugle’s linger.

In the church–

the wine, the crumb, the seedless singer.

By the curb–

the road, the thumb, sundrunk and cindered.

Remnants of sacrificial souls.

…

Varnish


“Hold me oldly,” she
says. for

love, not for 

long. dipped in the

darkness 
of the dancing night.




Ephemera


Once we 
were. once there was  
a sensation of stillness in a kiss. once

the air 
lapsed 

pinkly
before your lips—collapsing 
camellias. 




Tryst


A room awash 
in the wan androgyny

of the moonlight. she
tells him, “Say

little words, they 

end 
quickly but
last longer.”


Eric Mohrman is a writer living in Orlando, Florida. He's the author of the chapbook Prospectors (Locofo Chaps, 2017), and his work has appeared in The Citron Review, Otoliths, One Sentence Poems, M58, Moss Trill, Gone Lawn, BlazeVOX, Eunoia Review, and other journals.

My stomach is the palace of hunger

My tank clatter ironical song that clutter my pleasure,
Rhyming chronicles cock like confused can,
For course that clamps my container.
Chuku-chuk-chuku-ku-chuk!
Causing sounds as cavalry choke on war,
Itching as chisel choking on wood.
Crawling core my heart chimney.
Converting charge to body weakness.
Coercing me clutches calm humbleness,
When feeling uncomfortable like comb choking my clatter container.
I conclude to comply to its command…
Conning me to comply as he concise.

I am a miner of peace

I have been mining peace with my peace digger core metaphor
Arranging words to sentence with the alphabet of inspiration
Laddering rhyming sword that kills conflict
Filling my leaves with my shape edged pen build up of simile
Pouring hyperbole water to fills the leaves of crafted poems.

Nuraini Mohammad Usman is a passionate writer and student from Minna, Niger state with roots in Kano State. Inspired by his experience and culture, he crafts uplifting poems and stories that ignite positive change with a strong foundation from Dayamas Model School, Better Treasure International School, and Al-Fawzul Azeem International School, Nuraini is currently honing his skills at Legend International School and the Hilltop Creative Art Foundation. He believes in the power of words to inspire and motivate others.

the spring sometimes with mud and rains, where we wore jackets and sweaters, walked the miles and sat a while upon the hill where a stone was stationed. overcast and windy, but, as it goes, change does the world well sometimes. then, warmth and the celebration of summer, its blooms and creatures and the clear blue sky, the petals just there and the feral ferns unwinding. see the verdancy of the woodlands whimsical, the paths and ways wondrous.

Autumn waits and then its own brand of beauty, hues red yellow-brown,- the treeline captures one’s eye there, calm, reminding somehow of all the autumns before. where is that sweater?-that jacket?- that book of poems or novel that used to be revisited in the fall months? what would Henry Miller say about?- he said he liked Jack Kerouac’s nature writing. he would have something to say about it, something positive, life affirming. the sagacity of seasons…everybody wants only the great sun and clarity,- but the cycles of time know what they are doing. winter,- cold and brooding, serious and often saturnine. bleak days, early dark, but sometimes the sun, the sparkles of snow upon branches near or wild. that is good, no?- the quiet meditative earth then, blanketed in nature’s newness and wisdom…

Now you know…

You wrote poems called “mother”,

“Father” is the only word in your heart.

I think you’re calling me “father”

You know the value of your father now.

Who is the person who did your thankless work,

Ayamai gave his love quietly.

If you don’t tell me that you gave me love,

You don’t appreciate your father.

You are jealous of someone else,

You are happy in your imagination.

You are in pain, not happiness.

You know the value of your father now.