Table of Contents | Features | Editorial | Story Excerpts | Poetry Spotlight | Exquisite Corpse
February 2020
What We Do For Love
in the silence of broken mirrors and splinters of light
I have hollowed myself out—flesh, mind and soul—to create within me a shelter for you.
Not the bright red love on a dollar store valentine, but deeper, darker, distilled by time.
With satiny inks I slick my unsigned flesh to match what in you sings, intangible.
I will drown in your darkness, submerge myself in your shadow.
I stalk you like a heron hunting a vole.
Walking through a rain of the blood of your enemies
I died for love but love died anyway and I’m still dead.
I accuse myself yet offer you undue reprieve…
support, sacrifice, defend or die…
selfless acts, unconcerned with self-preservation.
I destroyed galaxies just for you.
Plutonian shores raze daydreams, harbinging
hormonal urges and stolen kisses; draining one’s self for the other.
For her pleasure, he crafts black orchids from the shadows
abandoning all freedom for the torture of manacles wrapped in iron and pain…
sacrificing self, arteries by corpuscles, on the altar of harmony.
Momentum towards all that matters, the abundant and purest adhesive for everything shattered.
Adoration for all imperfect, constant awareness of how one affects.
Handfuls of dust are replaced with a single black feather.
Bite by bite we shred the tender meat, tongue the texture, treasure the tales left by time…
wring our hearts of blood and souls of grace for passion’s beloved and painful trace.
We give until we’re empty, hoping to become complete.
We sacrifice our freedom for the cage of an embrace.
We do what skin, bone, flesh, require…
extrude a new organ, hoping for compatibility…
bury hearts with bloodied hands, offer the Judas kiss—
the exhaled immortal breath.
—Russell Hemmell, Elsa M. Carruthers, Brenda Huettner, Felicia Martinez, Angela Yuriko Smith, Cobalt Jade, Harris Coverley, Tina Rath, KB Nelson, Briant Laslo, Ryan Aussie Smith, Christina Sng, Moaner T. Lawrence, Pamela K. Kinney, Marge Simon, Querus Abuttu “Dr. Q.”, John Reinhart, Tina Swain, Nelson, Colleen Anderson, Naching T. Kassa, Carol Gyzander, Jennifer Shelby, Denise Dumars, F. J. Bergmann, Stephanie Ellis and Vincent Shaw-Morton
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What is an Exquisite Corpse?
An exquisite corpse poem is created by different people giving a line unrelated to the previous line. A poem is built from many authors, following the same rule or theme. In this case, there are no rules but it is a line, so no paragraphs please. You can read more about them here.