A chronological archive of poetry published in Cleaver’s quarterly literary issues from 2013 to present …
NATIVITY by Harmony Button What he heard last night, while letting out the dog: A weird whistling sound – like ...
PERFECT DISCONTINUITY by F.J. Bergmann My, what a day we’ve had! Nothing like forgetting whatever it was we had to ...
APPLES ON THE CUTTING BOARD by Gabrielle Campagnano It started a simple gesture— my father poet queried about missing verba ...
APOLOGY TO LOS ANGELES by Julia Bloch I’m sorry because winter. I’m sorry because “Lost Angeles.” I’m sorry because the ...
Brian CliftonOFFICE SUPPLIES In the back, a Formica table waits on off-white industrial tile. We clock- out, pull paperclips from ...
Tony TracyFEIGN & CUT Indian summer a shroud of humidity that hangs in the form of crystalline vapor over the ...
You are so far south I keep looking down at my thumb. Written on the wrinkled skin just below the ...
Luke StrombergWHEN I SLEEP, I DREAM OF TSUNAMIS I’m walking down Main Street when a blue and strangely beautiful tidal ...
J. Scott BugherTHE BANK LET MY DAD GO I'm alone in a projector booth, dressed in denim and sweat, prying ...
Glen ArmstrongTHE LEMON POEM He said “lemon” over and over. Lemon. Lemon. Lemon. Until the word was just a can ...
Merilyn JacksonOYSTERS I am licking the insides of the oyster shells embedded in salt on a plate black as your ...
Karla CorderoMIKEY COMES HOME When I was eight my father told me Mikey our pet turtle ran away from home ...
Dan EncarnacionLENITIVE MAN: from “Hominids” (1) ..the quality or condition of being tortuous;....twistedness, ..crookedness, sinuosity; an instance of this — (2)...figuratively ...
Beth SeetchMISS TORRES WOKE US EARLY Just before a) Death We sleep upside-down, toes at bed’s head, pajama seams chafing ...
Deborah PurdyLAB CHILD THEOREM Automatic habit like a rifle, pistol or pilot, the beach doll hermit told him to hold ...
Darren C. DemareeTWO POEMS I. EMILY AS A GRAND ASSUMPTION Tide & fog, the shore lines up like an army, ...
Thomas DevaneyPHOTOBOOTH Black-and-white film is instant toner for Americans and their famous tans, our fantasy faces, free of talent and ...
Carly EathorneMAKING EGGS A thousand ways to make an egg, and I’m attempting one: over-easy. But there past the blotches ...
TALKATIVENESS by Michael Earl Craig Wave Books, 104 pages reviewed by Anthony Blake In a recent column of The New ...
Grant ClauserTHE MAGICIAN CONSIDERS HIS AUDIENCE The first is always family, living room arranged around the coffee table and a ...
Kelle GroomTWO POEMS Story of the Moon He held out both arms like someone innocent being arrested, showed me the ...
Steve KlepetarONE OF THOSE WORLDS Returning from the kitchen one night, you stumble into one of those worlds where dogs ...
Megan DentonTWO POEMS Early Girl for Allie If they ask you how it felt, say it was like rolling barrels ...
Leonard GontarekVEHICLES 1 It is a large, pink cloud, spreading and growing larger, soft, and saturating everything this morning. The ...
Teresa LeoPoetry Editor's Preface, Cleaver Magazine, Issue No. 6 Cinematic. That’s the word that comes to mind reading the poetry ...
Brooke SchifanoTHE INSIDES In the train, you listen to a story about a shaman, feet braced against the wall in ...
Susan CharkesTWO POEMS To Catch The Ocean In Your Bucket You Have To Point Your Bucket Toward The Shore remember ...
Charlotte BoulaySCIENTISTS HAVE DISCOVERED that there are whirlpools in the wakes of stars. Birds run on at the mouth in ...
Deirdre O'ConnorTWO POEMS A Man and A Name A man fucks a woman, then is smitten by another with her ...
Patricia Colleen MurphyTHE BIRTH OF NO I remember everything but in an order I cannot control. It was suicide season ...
Zachary LundgrenBRANDED He was drunk and I’m sure it helped when I took the iron from the stove: a loud ...
Nicole CallihanIN THE MEWS Two feuding gardens are thought to be responsible for the most recent blooming. According to the ...
Kathy Lou SchultzJACKSON LISTENS TO THE BIRDS for Jackson born 2/5/07 Memphis is a huff of spring grandiose pink blossoms ...
J.C. ToddON THE ROMANCE OF PARKLAND for Erica Upstream, a shadow crosses the oxbow of a river whose flood plains ...
Kim SuttellSHACKLED If it’s a fever you want, then I’m frenzied. What are you but an ice ax ear ache, ...
George MoorePSYCHOGENIC FUGUE Every time I leave home I begin a new life. I am a boy again, sometimes a ...
Lauren HallTWO POEMS The Miser "He was never a nice man," she confessed, rolling her stockings slightly below her knees ...
Cullen Bailey BurnsFLORIDA The pelican was a kite or vice versa in the way I was a wave in the ...
Peter LaBergeTESTIMONY AFTER THE VARICOCELECTOMY My mother changes the bedpan, the evidence of life. Stomach, definition of withhold, overripe plum ...
Pattie McCarthyfrom x y a && a couple of breaks of sunshine over the next couple hours, what little sun ...
Marie Nunaleeblockage no. 8 a bumblebee, Kamikaze pilot in disguise, balancing ancillary, damp sidewalk-situated, papier mache pinions flashing faintly. six ...
Jesse MinkertTWO POEMS Mesopotamian Ruins Eras apply dust victorious harden over masonry. Accomplishments in architecture and death; lives of sleep ...
Jessica Morey-CollinsTHREE POEMS Once Again A woman glances at her watch, one hand resting on the grip of a wheelchair, ...
Christine HammR IS FOR RESTLESS Palm Beach, a fake emerald bracelet scratching your wrist. You crawl to the bed, the ...
Monica WendelBIRTHDAY POEM There’s a secret 1950s housewife in me that loves amphetamines. Do you love it too? The zip ...
Zach FishelBLOODSUCKERS Having sliced mosquitoes From the air all week, he sits with mail Neglected like the quiet granite Of ...
Teresa LeoTWO POEMS Miniature Sawtooth sky reins in its pomegranates and the carnival shuts down. We duck behind the House ...
Jerrold YamTWO POEMS Picasso in 10 Lines Tell them the orange ocean. Make fear a nude woman. Two characters are ...
Matthew HarrisonNEW WORLDS ARE OLD NEWS The pilgrim in Stop & Shop: broad hat, cloak. In the cantaloupes, the pilgrim ...
Jason GordonSTRING THEORIES 1. It’s still December still July a blue cloud walks a dog across the lake my hands ...
David PoplarNAVIGATION BY SPOONLIGHT Six hundred thousand children in the Horn of Africa are dying from ribcages bloated with hunger ...
CONVERSATIONS OVERHEARD IN A BOWLING ALLEY WHEN THERE IS A CITY WIDE POWER OUTAGE by Jennifer Faylor
Jennifer FaylorCONVERSATIONS OVERHEARD IN A BOWLING ALLEY WHEN THERE IS A CITY WIDE POWER OUTAGE My childhood sweetheart left me ...
William Winfield WrightIT’S NOT A CONTEST But if we wanted to, we could paint speeding cars, sneak into business class, ...
Alex SchmidtHIDE-AND-SEEK He hides under hot lamps and sandpaper eyes. Lay your wrist on the sidewalk. I can draw chalk ...
Paul SiegellTWO POEMS *WE’VE COME FOR YOUR BLOOD TEST RESULTS* On the bridge, the birdgirl waits with a weight in ...
Chavisa WoodsTHIS Last night you wrote me a letter a smile big as a swollen peach gushing on your face ...
Stephanie PapaALL THIS I am on my knees. Fur collects In the room with the damp dog bed Peco the ...
Nicole GreavesTWO POEMS Sack of Scarabs The museum's glass box was hidden from light in between the hopeful columns, the ...
S. I. AdamsPESANTE CON MOTO/ALLEGRO BARBARO Street signs reflect neon blinks on and off and on and back from the ...
Lauren Guza BrownQUINTESSENCE In the desert, the day after Thanksgiving, a physicist friend told me I would find what we ...
Mike HarperI DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO SPELL SPONDYLOLISTHESIS Your numb legs were just like Granny’s in her iron lung, and ...
Nissa LeeTWO POEMS BEFORE GOING OUT after a painting by Fuco Ueda I. About one in every 10,000 doe-eyed girls ...
Bill BrownTWO POEMS OPENINGS Blessed is the sick day. / Blessed are things that open / for no reason. --Lorraine ...
Randi WardTHREE POEMS CLOTHESLINE Thank you, gentle breeze, for reaching out to me through his indifferent sleeves. PEONIES What do ...
Anna Strongfrom APOSTROPHES "Hockey" This poem will be mostly about force. With one finger on my knee my science teacher ...
Jen KaretnickNIGHT SWEATS They rise upon you, flood you in the neighborhood of sleep where once-solid canyons of breasts, hips, ...
Rich IvesCAREFULLY WRAPPED FESTIVAL OF DISCOVERY There was a sadness and hearts went in there where it was waiting a ...
Luke StrombergMEMORIAL DAY When you were a boy, did you dream that street And wonder where it was? Did you ...
Prairie MarkussenON BEIGE She is a palomino in the Nordic countries, her hair scorched to a glow. She is the ...
Brian BaumgartTHIS FILM OF MY LIFE IF I'D PAID MORE ATTENTION TO FRENCH CINEMA Scene I: In the foreground she ...
M. A. SchaffnerTWO POEMS WE HAVE TO TALK Returning to this planet from the road I find the plate tectonics ...
Timothy KercherTHE TAO OF WORDS To my daughter Buddha is a baby. Most everyone is a baby unless you are ...
Rachel B. Glaser, reviewed by Kenna O'RourkeMOODS (Factory Hollow Press, 80 pages) MOODS seems innocent enough at first glance: thin ...
Valerie Fox and Lynn Levin, reviewed by Shinelle L. EspaillatPOEMS FOR THE WRITING: Prompts for Poets (Texture Press, 154 pages) ...
Miriam SaganGONE After photographs by Nell Dickerson This needs narrative-- Who left, and why, And who came back-- The photograph ...
Rachel B. GlaserIN HEAVEN they could have lived in clouds but so missed houses that they actually built some they ...
Kevin VarroneBIRTHPLACE OF A NATION Joe saw your number at Silk City while going crazy in the men’s room. Joe ...
Marybeth Rua-LarsenHEAT for the first thirteen days of August. I’m swimming in lemons, squeezed within an inch of their lives, ...
John TimpaneIN A DRY MONTH Time says have to, time says go to a green place, a space, a peace ...
Lawrence Ebyfrom FLIGHT OF AUGUST 6. A desk melts into the tile floor, the windows cracked and browning. A forest ...
Deborah BurnhamALBINO We slung harsh words like stones: we spat at the white-haired boy and called him freak. We couldn’t ...
Kelly McQuainJAM At dusk, they come haunting to slake their hunger: doe and fawn threading autumn brush. Down hillside, through ...
Frances BrentINTERIORS 1. I’ve been thinking about the fish in a glass bowl--loneliness, silence, wasted beauty. The fish appears in ...
Samuel ThompsonSONATA FOR CLAVIER AND VIOLIN, K. 526 (September 2008) The day of playing with Mr. G.'s transitional bow-- yes, ...
John GreyTHE GAME'S LAST BREATH Transfusions come and go like players off the bench. This drip is offense. This pill ...
Katherine FallonGIN A JUNIPER SLICK Gin a juniper slick, drain-bound, spilled by the wrist that meant it this time. The ...
Anna StrongDEAR COUCH Dear Couch, I want to zip myself in a pocket and watch baseball. You say sit down ...
