Poetry | Tarpaulin Sky Magazine
Poetry | Tarpaulin Sky Magazine
PUBLISHING NOTHING BY BILLY COLLINS SINCE 2003 | IMAGE: NOAH SATERSTROM
Two poems by Drew Kalbach
We were friends with the shit-filled paper bag.
It felt nice to be at home in semen, comfortable
to get peed on by strange dogs.
But I mostly wanted to touch your penguin, to pry apart
his beak and to pop pictures of you into his throat.
Prose poems by Sandra Doller
Children are both full of lumine and ill. In my experience, the child you were is the one you kill. Take this icky kiddie before I drop her. Jog on top of me like that, like boot camp. Jump. Jump. Children are glowy like that.
Two poems by Lina ramona Vitkauskas
Poppy stars, come home to me,
you are my little test prawns!
and bring the litmus of being. The bias of celestial skin.
Spread all of your fears onto this Dictaphone.
Poem by Dustin Luke Nelson
Virgin Mary, and associated symbols, we believe thee a fiction, but god be an activist, we pray thee. Virgin Mary, and arbiters of hope, we know thee a fiction, without useful evidence, we pray thee. Virgin Mary, mother of god, be a feminist, we pray thee.
A.T. Grant: poems from WAKE
Dead Sister do I love your death. Do I love my own. Dead Sister did my soul choke yours out somehow. Dead Sister will you ever not come around. Dead Sister is there something you want to tell. Tell me. Dead Sister my head feels light. Dead Sister my body feels light. Dead Sister my. Feels light. Light fills.
Jason Labbe: Two Poems
Franz not your father called and left you a message: Difficulty requires consciousness, to which I replied, That is simple to understand and I will tell her. Often one condition requires another which does not reciprocate. Franz not your father is totally German in his austerity. Our friend’s father, whom she had not known since she was seven, died unexpectedly, and a mysterious man with an authentic Albanian name I would never remember called to notify her. I know her less intimately now but that is not the point. . . .
C.J. Waterman, My Teary TV Breakdown
"I watched myself laughing at puking children choking back smoke & slow roasting outside of an oven. My ‘World’s Best Dad’ t-shirt creates its own armpit stains." Excerpts from C.J. Waterman's poetry manuscript, My Teary TV Breakdown, a finalist for the 2015 TS Book Prize
Felicia Zamora, Silence for the Rest of Class
"The underside of flesh {where light must soak}: a broken thing / etches —songs score along blood vessel, your throat / cannot sing the occult notes, your lungs in constant / deflate {all these wounds puncture wounds}, fill / unable–the scribe of defining {a heart ...." Excerpts from Felicia Zamora’s poetry manuscript, Silence for the Rest of Class, a finalist for the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize.
Poems by m. forajter
many suffer, and it is acknowledged. this is the micro brought to focus, so you may see every ridiculous pore. this is about one person who is broken, & one person who is unwhole.
Poem by Geoffrey Gatza: I Hate Capitalism but I Want to Fuck Santa Claus
From the Introduction: "These poems are based upon change ringing. This is an English method of ringing church bells to produce a rich cascade of sound set in a predetermined series of order...."