Poem of the Month
#88 earth

By jasper avery

Published on November 5, 2018

you fill the water bottle
you found in the trash
with pondwater in the field
at recess
because it has been raining
and you like this

water is full
of mosquito larvae and water fleas
and you like this

they squirm around
water fleas swim the most beautiful
and you like this

you show your dad
your dad shows school administration
school administration
orders insecticides be sprayed
into the pond
you do not like this

all you wanted was small pond
of bottle full of magic

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The Jungle of Screaming Souls

On the Jungle of Screaming Souls,
helicopters dropped napalm bombs.
The battalion of men beneath
ran in every direction, on fire. 
Scattershot blasts, and one by one
machine guns cut them down
until there were only ten.

Abundance

The streets of the living are among the streets of the dead, the houses of the living among the houses of the dead – three centuries of dead packed close, stacked twelve deep. On stones, scissors mark a tailor, grapes announce abundance.

Regain

Tonight it will rain on the green dunes of limestone.
Wine preserved until now in a dead man’s mouth
will awaken the realm of footbridges, displaced in a bell.
A human tongue will clang courage inside a helmet.