A chronological archive of poetry published in Cleaver’s quarterly literary issues from 2013 to present …
Say nothing of this to the doctors of Geneva, to the folks who rock back and forth on front porches ...
HOMUNCULUS by Lucian Mattison In my mouth a heart beats fly wings around my chest, spill fruit juice down my ...
My grandmother braids her hair with salt, forgives my brother for every broken-legged deer he coaxes out of the brush ...
Unknown to the stewardess, the stroke victim imagining his fingers in 12-F. Knuckles corralling a pencil, legs to annotate a ...
Your hand brushes the film from the window, believes it can make a place to see through. Your breath changes ...
It’s all about thresholds. When I walked up Shirley Creek trail I knew some of my friends to have done ...
Alexis Rhone FancherJUNE FAIRCHILD ISN’T DEAD she’s planning a comeback. she’s snorting Ajax for the camera. she’s landing a role ...
do not worry about the bruised dreams of the night-cafe. place them into glass jars. look to the coal weeds, ...
The slick silver thread of highway pulls taut over the Keystone State. Nothing is as I imagined it, says Mother ...
thanks for putting up with my meat cleaver tendencies - hooligan saviour better pray for your kin, where the black ...
i. From a beach towel radio, a Bee Gees' song resonates along the shore, its echoes pressing on the margins ...
a hall three fourths full of echo (generally, many wrung bells) a denture amid other fruits of maya; several identities ...
LIGHT POLLUTION Somewhere, cloud missives, buckshot echoes devouring a hillside in knock-kneed devotion. Elder rain a voice, which tells each ...
A brother is a cistern and a bucket with a rope. The care with which the rope is tied is ...
It is, it is, it is – it’s you, cool as the night, scraping toothy wing on wing. Yeah, man ...
We should take a shot of cognac, a walk. Some days I believe desire is its own penance. Some days, ...
THE RIVER RISING by Robert Heald The air is glass. Leave the window open wide, and I’ll tell you how ...
* There is skin even the sky seeps through –both arms weighted down though you are flying through dirt and ...
VASELINE SANDWICHES by Mark Schoenknecht During pregnancy, she said, Her most intense cravings Were for vaseline sandwiches: Soft white bread ...
HEIRLOOM by Paul Tran We know how the story goes. A pirate leads her off the boat, onto the shore ...
MISS DARLENE’S DANCING SCHOOL by Lynne Sharon Schwartz Miss Darlene, dark, slender, acne-scarred, married next-door Marvin and came to share ...
THE GAS STATION by Edward Hopper by Michael Kern The difference is light – the natural settling of shade upon ...
GETHSEMANE by Aaron Graham I’m learning to sweat—learning to swear. When I speak of God, edges of broken- glass words: ...
SUGAR by Meggie Royer When my mother takes us to the sea my father does another line. At night when ...
AUBADE: A Parallel Poem by Yuan Changming You might have stayed up All night, clicking at every link To your ...
SPRING FLIGHT by Larry Eby We ran through several fields together, the dandelions grasping at the soil as our speed ...
MAY PROCESSION PRACTICE by Tim Wenzell Little I stand by William at the crest of the asphalt hill looking into ...
PROPHET [prof-et] Definition: It’s bloody knuckles and skinned knees, it’s heaven’s fever slicing through the black with open jaws. It’s ...
COCKCROW by Tyler Kline Moment: a father inks the scythe above his daughter’s breast, a tail of bonfire licking a ...
POT OF GOLD by Tina Barr Stings stitching under the skin, bristles, like thoughts that roil, like brambles’ thorns that ...
THE SCORPION by Erika Dane Kielsgard We tear her limbs to divide our fear. Her mangled segments reflect hell mouths ...
from THE BEAUTY OF ADMISSION by Joe Nicholas It's seven in the morning & the shower is asking me questions ...
Notes on POEM FOR MY BROTHER by Eric E. Hyett I have to be careful— what I mean is it’s ...
THE AFFAIR by Lyn Lifshin The Margaritas were blue with paper roses. Later I thought how they were the only ...
ODE TO THE QUIET ROOM by Niyathi Chakrapani There is a room inside a paradox—the silence, the calm of grieving ...
STUDY by Andrew Taw Almost by accident, they found that the average frequency of a particular synapse firing in all ...
NEWS DELIVERY by Smriti Verma Once, my brother set himself on fire, on a cold December morning. We were sitting ...
ANGEL OF THE MERIDIAN by Samuel Hovda Step out of the cave of my mouth. Wear your golden earrings like ...
EPISTLE TO THE COPS ON A WINTRY NIGHT by Cal Freeman Dear historical ambling in that souped-up Ford, dear steel ...
KENNETT SQUARE by Erin Jones We had forgotten the dank mushroom farms, the deer carcasses peppered across route 1 for ...
STONE FOOD by Alex Vidiani My food was stones from a stone tree spoon-fed to me stones in my mouth ...
SALLUIT by Sarah Marshall The snow tongue has no country, and no voice. It only knows the tread of boots ...
5 a.m. by Carla Drysdale Inside the dream you wander shoeless in supermarket aisles. Loneliness opens its stone lid, invites ...
TRICHOTILLOMANIA by Michelle Lin Here is a girl with a mirror. She is separating her eyelashes with a safety pin ...
A Mind of Winter You knew before you drew the shade (before you shook the dream of flying), the silence ...
DOMICILE by Franklin K. R. Cline My fellow Americans: if you listen long enough to anyone, you’ll hear something worth ...
AND BLOOD ON THE TRACKS IN THE TAPE PLAYER by Roy Bentley Recall any moonlit part of an hour by ...
TO THE HAUGHTY VISUALIST by Teniola Tonade Think terrorism, my appetizer word, and watch the slide-show of interminable woes. For ...
TAXIDERMY FOR TROUBLE BOYS by Emily Anne Hopkins We have full run of the parlor. We chatter amongst ourselves about ...
SHADOWS by Eliza Callard The “y” on my forehead from the radiator. The early cooking accident with the knife. The ...
THUNDERSNOW by Larry Eby A ribcage of snow with a beating heart, a west wind moving the cold front over ...
POKEWEED by Lynn Levin In my deathwish days when I was young I reaped the bitter from the field and ...
Pinto los Flores Para Que No Mueren For Frida Kahlo Revolution coincides with your birthday. You open fire, unbound. Born ...
MODALITIES In Giant Latitudes Another retired year and scrappy light’s chronology, with suppertimes the neighbors ask you in or ask ...
THE CURRENT WAS WEAK by Michael Kern I found my sister smashing china in the woods because the color reminded ...
CAESAR IS DEAD, LONG LIVE CAESAR by Ross Losapio There is no new air in this world. Can you understand? ...
ETERNAL CALM by Samuel Hovda A mother descends on a meteor. Her kids on a keychain attached to her pants ...
MY PERSONA by Cynthia Atkins I carried my persona in a brown paper bag. It held shreds of lint and ...
REV. DR. KING henry 7. reneau, jr. bury me standing, with the music of my name ringing out into air ...
SOMETHING SPECIAL ABOUT THIS STREET by Zoe Stoller Adam, and how he thought I was 24 and how Erika didn’t ...
NATURE POEM by Eliza Callard Worrisomely fat dog--a silken nut brown ale color-- belly swaying near the bouldered trail, with ...
GET BEHIND ME SATAN by Mica Evans She remembers his daft voice ringing like a death knell: Beer, it’s beer ...
AN APOLOGY by Simon Mermelstein The mouth is where toxicity leaves the brain. Spit out the ugly until pure thoughts ...
NATURAL SELECTION by Alec Hershman The trees wave desperately to the storm-procession like a pope-cloud has inspired them to send ...
BIRDSHOT by Michal Leibowitz After we’ve shot the swallows from the sky I tell you of the coast you’ve forgotten, ...
ALPHA ∞ OMEGA by Laurin DeChae Unveil, prophet. Write me the end first where you find comfort And tell me ...
BEAUTY by Gregory Djanikian In the eye of the beholder, we say, disregarding what the beautiful might spring from, an ...
MEDIEVAL PHOTOGRAPHER by Sarah J. Sloat In a past life I imagine I was a medieval photographer toiling to capture ...
WHAT I WAS THINKING OF DURING THE FUNERAL SERVICE, DOUGLAS, ARIZONA by Gregory Djanikian for Wendy Glenn Of course, death, ...
PILLS by Eliza Callard Every day, I consume many colors--white and blue, pink, translucent as a pale winter sun. Some ...
STAYING ON TRACK by Ori Fienberg Like his father, whenever he voiced a new idea a steam-engine-run train emerged from ...
STEALING THE BOOK by Leonard Kress What happened to my signed first edition of Auden? Stolen, I suspect, though I ...
ESTHER FRIEDMAN by Michelle Taransky There is always someone Whose job it should be To advise you, even if you ...
THE ENERGIZER BUNNY LEADS A MARCH ON WASHINGTON by Kamden Hillard its about rhythm which is always about noise because ...
CONTROLLED BURN, WAKULLA SPRINGS, FLORIDA by Brenda Butka Cypress knees gather on the riverbank like penitents. Rags of moss banner ...
DINNER, WITH ALIEN ABDUCTION by Michael Daley We were speaking about the earthquake. Some were in high school then, others ...
APHORISM by Dylan Weir There but for the grace of a gallon of vodka go I: barleycorn barrel rolling river ...
ARLES by Autumn McClintock It’s a good beard. Stop yanking it like a strapless dress. See what I did there? ...
YEARS IN THE MAKING by Dan Tessitore for Graham Lewis Frame the landscape with your hands. Pan, slowly. See how ...
BUT INSTEAD HAS GONE INTO WOODS by Lyn Lifshin A girl goes into the woods and for what reason disappears ...
Tonight the Stars Are Strung Up Like Elegies I want them for myself, but you’re right. It's easier to take ...
THE DUCK LADY by Jeremy Freedman In my dreams I see the duck lady, her profile’s sharp tang, quack-quacking on ...
by Kathryn Smith I am trying to think about the circus collapse. I am trying to think about the kidnapped ...
BEFORE BEFORE BEFORE by Kallie Falandays If you were at a dance party and my name rhymed with overalls, would ...
[PEACH JUICE COATED THE LIPS SO THAT EACH SONG] by Jerrod E. Bohn Peach juice coated the lips so that ...
ABC FOR THE CHILD WHO LIVED TWENTY-SIX DAYS by Deborah Burnham Air your only appetite, your first food. Your bones ...
SCALDING by Jessica Hudgins She has killed hundreds of chickens like this. Their last sight is the pleated corner-skin of ...
Taylor RickettALLIGATOR TEETH Bite marks cut across your forearm, marking a half-circle below the elbow. The wound peeks at each ...
OBSIDIAN BLUES # 36 by Herman Beavers on the slaveship used to be, a polemic blast of wind, the mere ...
OUR LADY OF THE MARVELOUS WRISTS by Jennifer Moore Conchita Cintrón, 1949 I killed my first kill in the slaughterhouse ...
ATLANTICA by Ernest Hilbert At a touch, the pane of ice jigsaws, cracks To diamond scatter, hard cold clouds Clustered ...
THE CROWS by Kathryn Hellerstein We hear them before dawn in our dreams And step through droppings On the sidewalk ...
AFTER VALLEJO (Theme and variations) by Conor Kelly I I shall die, César Vallejo wrote, in Paris on a day ...
Bruce AlfordSTUDY TO BE QUIET I live, I say, and language lays itself open through the movement of the earth: ...
PARADISE, ATTAINED BY TOUCH Excerpts by Robert Lunday “When I woke up, I had no hands.”[1] “One day I awakened ...
WHISPERS by John Middlebrook Wrapped up in the rustle around us, I missed the texture and hue in your whispers ...
VANISH by Samantha Barrow We stand naked in the clearing loving each other beyond our bodies our lights clinging tight ...
VARIATIONS ON SECOND CHILDREN by Amanda Silberling On Labor The youngest daughters come stitched into birth like the elastic waists ...
COMPOSURE by John Goodhue As you remember, we were taught how to skin the flesh from an ear so to ...
THINGS THAT CANNOT DIE by Paige Riehl A spoon in a cup of tea. The letters in yellow envelopes, the ...