April 2019 – Page 5 – Novus Literary and Arts Journal

Wicker Man

Written by Jamie Fleming. Posted in Uncategorized.

Last night,
I dreamt of the Wicker Man.

Could take both his pinkies
And ignite the tips.
Watch the candlestick bleed
Into a new kind of wax.

I could take each
Cream flower
Nesting a teacup,
Could rub the petals
On my eyelids,
Chew the Easter color.

But the Wicker Man is charred.
I’ve seen him eat flowers too.
I’ve seen him brew tea
In kettles over his own chest.
I’ve seen his eyes under my shoes
And within my own fire.

He does smile.
The Wicker Man does smile at me.
Sometimes.

Alignment

Written by Peter Blair. Posted in Uncategorized.

They arc over the night mall,
like streetlights on the ecliptic:
Venus, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter.
In the sunset’s pale afterglow,
Venus hardens into a diamond.
Lugubrious, yellow, Saturn’s
like a light underwater.
Sluggish, it takes a decade to move
against the distant stars. Mars
is a gleam on a bloody sword.
But Jupiter’s the one I watch,
higher than the others, rising
into the darkening sky.

Gazing into my father’s refracting
telescope as a boy, I marveled
at the four tiny moons ringing
Jupiter, just as Galileo saw them
for the first time in 1610.
He cracked the crystal spheres
forever, and drove the gods
out of their celestial houses.

Here in the mall parking lot,
I want to re-name them:
Whammy, Kybosh, Bailiwick, Bejesus
Look up, and see your selves.

Lumberjacks

Written by Nathan Bauman. Posted in Uncategorized.

We searched high and low
For the tallest we could find.
No need for the young and fresh.
Let those grow taller,
‘Til the tips touch the skies
Then we may return
To reap their sons and daughters.

Ten men here,
Ten over there,
Twenty in total makes the team.
Axes, saws, drills, and chains
Prepare their reckoning.
Hear their cries, their creaks of woe.
The sap now heavily gushes –
Flows.

Their lives, to men, aren’t seen as such.
We hack and we slash,
We cut and we pull,
We beat them to a pasty pulp.
They live and let live,
Are docile and true.
We look down upon them.
“We’re bigger than you.”

Cracking

Written by Karen J. Weyant. Posted in Uncategorized.

Every kitchen edge was her tool:
the side of the sink, a rim
of a mixing bowl, the round lip
of a measuring cup. Snapping
her wrist my mother could break
an egg with a single flick, pull apart
shells so that a stray thumb
would never slip into the yolk.
Yellow suns like those
in my crayon-colored pictures
fell into frying pans or mixing bowls.
Circles were never punctured,
but with every toss of broken shell,
her skin grew thinner. Veins bulged,
deep fate lines cut into her hands.
This is where I learned that
a clean break starts with a tiny
fracture, and then a crack.

Lightning War

Written by Sara Cox. Posted in Uncategorized.

The storm clouds marched toward us
bursting at their cotton-candy seams
armed with their weapons
made of water droplets and electricity.

They made their way over my hometown —
the roads that my bicycle knew all too well–
and chose my childhood home
to wage their war.

They did not rent out our sky,
provide a notice,
or even ask permission–
they just were.

Lightning struck the roof I dreamt of climbing atop,
and our town seized from the sheer noise —
the final blow
the fatal shot —
setting fire ablaze as the clouds reached the end of their battle.
And while I’m sure that science can explain the chemistry of it all
I cannot.

Rain cascaded down walls that held a lifetime of secrets
as the city’s water, shot from a powerful hose,
gracefully destroyed what remained–
shoving antique furniture and a personal library
into oblivion.

The same series of hydrogen and oxygen that I drink to stay alive
washed away fingerprints
and crayon masterpieces

The same substance that my savior converted into wine
could not save us in that moment
or restore my home
to normalcy

The same series of ions that is essential to human life
stole mine –
proving that destruction can come
from even the most beautiful things.

Everyone Knows the Taste of Blood

Written by Brianna Bruce. Posted in Uncategorized.

Everyone knows the taste of blood.
It tastes of rust and wrinkled cherries
Trickling from the empty socket of a tooth,
Whether loosened by time or kicked out too soon.

The edge of an envelope sliced too sharply
Across the tongue spreads a tangy plastic film
Over the taste buds and mixes with a
Warm, salty slick of molten metal.

Teeth sometimes bite into the tongue
Like vipers striking a fleshy palm.
Scorching welts bloom, boiling
As the mouth sours with sharp pillars
Of stinging pain and soiled copper.

The adult grows over the space the child left behind,
And the red-flared tongue returns to pink.
When I needed your eyes, they looked away–
And the taste was pretty much the same.

Month: April 2019