A Magazine of Many Arts

Whale Tile Mural by Makena Tile Murals

The world ends like the whale falls
to the ocean floor: slowly, unencumbered
by life, supported by water, sinking
into the strata of scavengers
until hunger and fear turns everyone
to hagfish and sharks, teeth and odors,
opportunity and opportuned.

In the fin-frenzy, there is no future.
The stomach rules all.
But once the blubber is gone
the bones are so white
they dazzle even the sunlight
silting the eggs of mackerel.

Man never did learn to fly, but
for one or two cases that
were quickly relegated to
the medical curios box.

Whales, though—whales we modded
’til they were giant zeppelins,
bones thinner than the birds
that now bore our weight as couriers.

The whales merged with cities
made of platinum and tungsten,
neuro-wired for power and control.

Great herds of whale cities flew
like dreams of children, man
dreaming of his days
as children
beneath the great blue sky.

Leonid Meteor Storm by Edmond Weiss

This universe stalled

stunted, well-nigh aborted,
Barely a light year across,
We’re all neighbors,

And all relations,
One world, one sun,
That’s it,
And when the Empire of Frost
Stretches out its long shadow,

To assimilate every last hectare,
You surrender,

Give up your dreams, because
There is nowhere to run,

To start afresh,
But somewhere in the darkness,

When work’s done and the sun’s hid,
We are sharpening our sickles,
    and telling each other
        that anything
            is better than this.

Column VII by Larry Abramson

I don’t think the Moon wants
to go home.  You have cosseted it,
given it cake and cookies,
admired its fullness as a function
of time.  It has kept you up
late with its returned volley
of flattery and I desperately want
for you to come to bed,
warm depression in the mattress
beside me as we co-pilot into sleep.
From the darkness I hear your laughter
and know it has fooled you
through one more story, tenderly
wiping the dust from your eyes.
I’m a poor lover, voyeur
in my own home, unable to take
the stairs and step into the brilliance.
I believe in choice.
When you ran away with me
my metal heart nearly burst.
Choose again, choose me again.
Moon and spoon may rhyme
but we are worlds apart.

Oya by Steve Gravel, shared under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Coming of Age

She shakes a red-brown hip jangling with clamshells,
her shimmering thighs bright with the out-flowing tide
and calls to me in a loon’s voice.

“Don’t be afraid of the mud, honey.
It’s so good for your complexion!”

She is lip-smack salty and trade wind persuasive.
The furrows of her hair are slick with chlorophyll
that stains the string of corals at her throat.

“Just leave your clothes there. Great Mother!
Haven’t I seen you naked before?”

Not like this, bared to the bluefin sky,
flesh cold as a crested wave waiting to fall
into the rip current, tongue like a sand dollar.

“I’m…I’m not going to drown, am I?
You said I can breathe under water now.”

Pearly teeth flash behind a grin wide as a dolphin’s.
Fingers like rockweed tendrils reach out to tug me in.
Her laughter is a fall of rain on a brine pool.

“Trust your body, little minnow.
It knows what it’s doing.”

Stumbling into the sea foam, the transformation takes me;
skin to glistening scales, neck to slitted gills,
and we dive, a pair of salmon swimming home, always home.