from Insanity this Song
of regression screams like midnight
in a white room with no echo. The tragedy
of such an ideal is palpable. I can taste its
lyrics, poisoning my thoughts. My tongue
has gone on strike, refuses to cancel
the exhalation. Its arid buds rise
to the occasion, sacrifice themselves on
the altar of larynx’s wind.
Dream Walker
I am shadow
creature of a thousand eyes,
all blind in the light. I am moonbeam monster,
pale prowler of night. I haunt
a world asleep without me. I am lone
consciousness in this desert of the surreal,
and I am dying
to drink of its zzz’s,
but my skin is immune to the soft
slumber of tundraed dunes. I pass
the time instead, planting footprints
of paranoia, knee deep and just beyond
the crack of closet doors. Mine
is the voice, that creaking echo that wakes
you at stroke of twelve. I am that extra, unnecessary
propulsion, the vertigoed fall that shakes you awake,
makes you wonder, had your eyes not opened
if you would have dreamed yourself to death.
Leaving
At night the trees steam like monsters
clawing at my ceiling. I can see
them breathing, count the blinks
of their eyeless staring. I climb
them with my mind, master
ing the vined banister specifically
designed to confine me and my
shadow
ed desire to bloom.
With Amplitude
I am echoing in my own
absentia. A surrealistic nightmare,
I am condemned to follow
a path of my own dissolving
voice. Circling inside
a designated expanse carved out
of my brain. The neon
sign blinking over the bricked-
in door screams: Futility.
A.J. Huffman has published eight solo chapbooks and one joint chapbook through various small presses. She also has two new full-length poetry collections forthcoming, Another Blood Jet (Eldritch Press) and A Few Bullets Short of Home (mgv2>publishing). She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her poetry, fiction, and haiku have appeared in hundreds of national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, Bone Orchard, EgoPHobia, Kritya, and Offerta Speciale, in which her work appeared in both English and Italian translation. She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press. www.kindofahurricanepress.com
Cover Photo: Lolowaro974 flickr.com/photos/lolowaro