Edited by Phillip Levine. Submit up to three poems to Chronogram at a time. Send via snail or e-mail. Poetica. PO Box 459. New Paltz, NY 12561. E-mail: poetry@chronogram.com. Subject: Poetica.

...

The red haired psychic said I had
a big dark vision to get out,
so let it out she said,
and named weapons of choice
photography, painting, and writing.
she was correct on all three.
the caught moment, strictly silvered
with sentimental bite.
And paint with its relation to minerals, iron ore, blood.
Writing with its relation to listening, singing, telling
and being told the same thing over and over.
In the end all we have to offer are words
pretty kind or burning.
And no daddy my life is not yet wasted, as you said.
And my hour is not near-that was your death not mine.
I'll not wear your death's
threadbare work shirt anymore.
I won't carry
your expectations, either glorious or bleak.
As was the way with your pre-Prozac generations
I guess, but daddy we're level headed now and mean as snakes.
We have to be, there's no money and all is war.
In the cities, cruel decadence rules.
And the doctors keep handing out more pills
unable to kill the soul sickness of
a nation of hungry ghosts.
Daddy how do you prepare for a thing like that?
Come back and tell me if you are so damn smart.

-Jeanne Mischo

Soon, I dream all
the best lovers are
dead, the sea of
not-health beyond
fog, a tsunami.
When tulips enter
a poem, something
becomes dangerous,
blood petals dark
as lipstick smeared
past the outline
of lips when we lay
under the mobile,
when your cats
were my cats

-Lyn Lifshin

White Formica with gold dots
              Encased
In a thinly grooved, large brass band
              Supported
By spidery steel legs airbrushed copper
              Strong
Enough to capture and create
              Memories
Decades of rushed breakfasts, disastrous dinners and
              Snacks
Dad's King Vidor sardine sandwiches with Hellmann's mayo
              Hundreds
Of night time milk and cookie sessions and
              Dozens
Of awkward attempts to connect the gold dots

-Michael Kandel

i am a single use box,
dreaming
of animated dolls
swelling
solitary

a fuse box,
void
a singular vessel,
seedless
i am just borrowing skin
-impulses

i am birth
exhaling
i have shared
ten thousand lives
the same air

my mother mouth
breathes

listen to my belly

i am

she

whole

-Dina Pearlman