Chris Ozog

Knight’s Night Out

You write

your memoir

of shattered mirrors

and misconstrued epiphanies.

for every recollection,

every doubt that

binds your

mountainous limitation,

to the top of the

summit of debt,

retaliations still sings

as it’s proliferation stings,

dissection

of affluent

memories persist,

onto life’s projection

where you tip-toe

towards your demise,

a modest dignitary

forever monetized

within life’s monotony,

where life is a lease,

any moment could disease.

Inked into our membranes,

are words transmitted,

through our rife.

We reside inside

our calligraphy,

where you recite.

Your memory is a mic

your future is a turnpike,

but the past remains

a present

– a precedent

only a wish could represent.

 

 

The Weight We Carry

 

We painted black

into backpacks,

revived our

medieval retrievals,

and clasped onto

our adamance

that sunk deep

beneath the bag,

where thorough

thoughts of

fervent promises

transported to

a portal of

prominence.

When we gathered

our optimistic

pleasantries,

we prevailed

like concrete

shadows,

but our fossilized

memories froze

under

the clock

that echoed

faint haunts,

as we traced

our uncertainties

that paved

to cemented

cemeteries,

where

we follow,

but never lead.

When we cleansed

the palate

that painted

only faithful

melodies,

we withstood

our melancholy

tragedies

as we

evaded our

casualties

to combat

the disdain

that punctured

the tapestry

of  a gangrened

dancer.

We Bloomed

like flowers,

and watered them

until the spring

turned to autumn;

memories that

blossomed

melancholy

melodies,

and when

love walked

on bridges

we began

to break

by the

hook that caught

onto our shirts,

where we descended.

Still we arose;

we were maps

that traced back

into the wilderness

and we eroded

from our sacrilege,

sentences written

of  trials tribulations

and labored distortions.

As they swallowed

their accelerants

and grabbed dismay

and sold it’s Adsense

to the relapse

that plummeted

into yesterday,

we still peak

to re-capture.

and re-hash,

decades of last

years ghosts,

so within

a century

our ancestry

could

create an abstract

memory

where dissipated

pilgrimages

pulled their

weight

like sacrilegious

vestiges

as they tore off their

appendages.

It’s never too late

to rekindle the seams,

that took apart

our shovels,

and buried our dreams.

 

by Chris Ozog

 

Christopher Ozog is a 23-year-old writer who currently resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He has previously appeared in Burningword Literary Journal, The Commonline, and Crack the Spine and has work forthcoming in the 2015 winter Crack the Spine Anthology.

Brown Water

I liken the effects of coffee

multiplying in my nervous system

to the sound of cicadas,

cacophony transitioning to unison

on the warmest of days,

finally climaxing, singular high pitch,

solid throbbing greater than the sum

of its parts. My brain ceases to exist

outside itself for a period,

all becomes internal cloaking haze

before the caffeine begins to sluice

and trickle down liver’s way,

as the insects disappear into winter.

 

by James Mahon

 

James Mahon’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Bitchin’ Kitsch, Enizagam, and The Insomniac Propagandist.

Soak

I have an image in my mind. It is an image of a particular man. He is perhaps less scruffy than he was over the weekend, and no matter how close his morning shave he reached the evening’s shadow. I see him, soaking in a tub. There are no candles burning. No bubbles. No salt crystals filling pastel jars tucked in the corner. I see the steam rising, clinging to the surrounding tiles, everything about him shines, and so does he. Eyes closed, his hair drenched enough for droplets to drip off the ends and down his neck. Shoulders peaking above the service waiting for their turn to soak after his knees finally give up creaks to the bath. His sighs cast ripples to his toes as the heft of his worry evaporate from the substance of his thoughts as he soaks. The gate of his imagination opens to an image of a woman. She is by far more tousled than she was at the start of her day. He sees her, in the particular way she leans against the bathroom door, arms folded, barefoot, smiling, with him on her mind.

 

by Julieanna Blackwell

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