Exterminating Angel Press

Creative Solutions for Practical Idealists.

Exangel

Three Hearts Pumping.

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by Debra Elisa.

 

What is it like to have three hearts pumping?

Octopus with its eight limbs—light a constant

 

If only I could learn patience as the Beaver

who gnaws away at the Cottonwood

her power to change the course of Water

to cause a massive energy outage

no internet

traffic jams for a half-mile

in any direction.

 

Sometimes when we try something new

the soul feels itself not just falling

in love   but loving

as a grand gesture

a giving of Grains

 

the wonder of a Hummingbird

wings’ flutter 40-50 times per second

Giraffe’s Tongue black and blue

stretching 13 times

the length of a human’s

to lick another’s lips.

 

I am so often astonished by the Human Body

how mine wobbles its way

Earth suite responsive

to every thought or prayer

 

and on those most fortunate of Days

when the Heart usurps

 

leads Limbs to braise

bags of groceries

into feast

I cross my chest           inhale

 

this mystic beat

until the next exhale.

Redwood Birdsong.

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by Marissa Bell Toffoli.   River sings us to sleep, ferns guard our keep. Under a canopy of centuries what dreams glow in the starlight. Storied roots. Infinite tendrils. The fog grows— awe around us. In this nest we’ve built, akin to marbled murrelets, waves call us back to shore again, again, again. The waking […]

A Lacanian Poem.

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by Michael T. Smith.   I cited Lacan to make a poem: novelty, in which everything is a slave, who further lacks everything but desire. To meet the unconscious yet living WORD like a myth that turned out to be Real — Another Lacanian term (as told by the “five” real senses, unlike the object […]

Ukrainian Fruit Stands Have Disappeared.

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by JW James.   my grandfather is still sitting on the curb   his feet in the traffic lane   his feet that are waiting for a bus my Ukrainian grandpa has disappeared with his breath of boilermakers   his breath of the land of his birth muck and mire city of his birth Ternopil memory of his […]

The Music of Dreams.

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by Barry Vitcov.   Before meeting one lonely evening, before our lives had completely begun, before we knew little of anything, before accepting how to love or shun, our lives were separate, invisible, like shapeless clouds adrift in darkened skies, our stories not easily admissible and always firmly protected by lies. There you sat, an […]

Mind Swoosh.

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by Bruce Wallick.   As the view unfolded As the sun shed light As the breeze wove Soft flowing patterns I glided through the grasses My feet so light so fleet As if taking off into the blue Gently warming to the view Solely the sound of the whooshing Wind that moved across the knoll […]

Inklings.

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by Diana Morley.   Wonder bread pulls me back like a mayo jar taunting of a baloney sandwich in a lunchbox from my ever-doing mom providing only the best for us three times a day. A whiff of cardamom brings my husband for whom I braided and baked the loaf— saffron rice for my daughter, […]

Hourly.

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by John Grey. The hour is strung out worse than me, in the remains of night’s gutter. And sleep’s a disease I can’t quite catch, so I lie here, part solitary, part every restless human being extant. Sheets and blankets fall off me like old lovers. The pillow squeezes my skull. Thoughts bust through the […]

Escaping the Dream.

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by Cliff Beck.   We live the dream in a land where things are not what they seem; where the here and now is discarded for a sacred cow; a future sold in a sequence of seductive social memes which the panopticon uses to accuse, judge and abuse if we can’t afford it, or try […]

Tinnitus.

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by Edward Johnson.   A buzzing has ensued, a harbinger, a glitchy modem, the air thickened by gossip. The drydock is encrusted in bivalves so of course there are those among us who suspect we’re being listened to. A skiff riffles into the silvery suture where sea meets sky. The data-mining mollusks quiver – desalinated, […]