Issue #31.10 A Triple Issue: Lee Lemond, Laura Sheahen, Strider Marcus Jones
A Poem by Lee Lemond
Cassie
A kettle of Turkish coffee. A stare. A cute couple.
This podcast won’t end. As if I’m even listening. Does anything ever end?
It seems we’ve reached a time where the news cycles, the sun cycles, and bikes cycle. Too many cycles. Why are bikers so rude? Why can’t the sun make up its mind? Why can’t I turn the news off?
The eavesdropper forever eavesdropping. The philosopher always philosophizing. Man forever man-ing. Man forever trying. Man. An eternal recurrence of mediocrity. Or Eternal recurrence, but make it mediocre.
Why did I walk in the cold to sit in the frozen stare of the person across from me? “Get on with your ‘work,’ so I can get on with mine!” I say with an angry scowl.
‘Oh, how I wish I had said that,’ I think with a reluctant smile.
The soundtrack inside my mind even cycles. Reality. Imagination. Reality. A dream. Another fucking cycle.
In my mind, there’s a place where life is linear. We never have to pass the same test or cross the same fork. There’s always a new coffee shop, instead of the same old boring brick building with the same old black and white menu. What even is a flat white!? The “Demon’s Question.”
Give me your poisonous decaf and I’ll trade you my soul. The Buddhists say we’ve all been each other’s mothers. I’m tired of being a mother.
More repetition. More conformity. When all I want is to trade in my awkwardness for a chance to live… Awkwardly.
Do I know him? Or do I know everyone? The Stranger question.
Have there been so many cycles that I’ve met all the world’s variety? I’ve certainly read all Variety. Each page, the same.
I can’t even focus. Can anyone focus on days like today? I should’ve grabbed Insomnia. This life feels like insomnia. The podcast has been over for hours anyway.
A cosmic rerun on another broken screen. I could literally scream. The déjà vu we call living. This can’t be living. The universe feels like it’s on repeat. I’m pretty sure this ‘Coffee House’ playlist has been on repeat since I first tried a macchiato.
Finally, I pour the last of today’s kettle, While considering what I’ll choose tomorrow from that black and white menu. Finally, I resign myself to tomorrow, Knowing exactly what I’ll choose.
If repetition is reality and life this serious, why am I out of coffee?
And since you’re wondering -- yes, he’s still staring. I fall into another pathetic smile. Hell. Other people. Or something like that.
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Lee Lemond is a queer writer and yoga and meditation teacher from New Orleans, Louisiana. They write poems and essays on philosophy, life, and spirituality. Instagram: @yogawithleenola; Substack: Here for the Experience
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A Poem by Laura Sheahen
The Voodoo Doll Wakes Up
the voodoo doll pulls thick needles out of her stuffing fills the syringes unwraps foreign hair from her throat settles down in her lab
on a clinical scale weighs your grievances maledicts rage
at her bench with her button eyes blinking green test tubes of potions her cross-stitched lips set
what she needs is precision she must centrifuge truth
no space to confuse the real villain and victim no mixed human error
where does DNA fail on her arms on her legs your dark fingersmudge too
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Laura Sheahen is an American poet who spends part of her time in Tunisia. She has traveled widely in Asia and Africa as a writer for humanitarian aid groups. She has also written arts and literary criticism (collected at LSheahen.substack.com) for The Irish Times, ArtsFuse, World Literature Today, and other publications.
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A Poem by Strider Marcus Jones
Forage in Me
forage in me amongst the dunes still damp in sun and wind as the tide retreats- for driftwood and strange shaped pebbles. where have they been, these abandoned voices, with colours and textures, wild and domestic, moving and rooted, sooting and scenting the air- being engraved by beauties and conflicts, uncovering how love is only rented jumping ship when it sights new land. inner changes, have not changed anything out there- and when what moved in is all moved out, we can sometimes sit in this displaced time, with drifting belongings and pebbled thoughts, aware of strangers moving slower than the clouds deliberately doing the same.
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Strider Marcus Jones – is a poet, law graduate and former civil servant from Salford, England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales. He is the editor and publisher of Lothlorien Poetry Journal https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/. A member of The Poetry Society, and nominated for both the Pushcart Prize x4 and Best of the Net x3, his five published books of poetry https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/ reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.
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