“Perfusion” by Cameron Morse
Perfuse mebrain scanner Push your fluidsthrough my blood vessels my tissues Let whatever in me that is at issue be scanned interior scar star-birth tumor …
The Metaworker Literary Magazine
Where great stories are forged.
Perfuse mebrain scanner Push your fluidsthrough my blood vessels my tissues Let whatever in me that is at issue be scanned interior scar star-birth tumor …
An ivy educated American male, bespoke suited but modest and sincere, once seated and lighted to good effect and confident of his look and manner …
How many days to Calvary? I asked the rich man’s child. Depends on how you’re travelling; Are you dying or exiled Or seeking sweet contentedness? …
Our balsa-sweet Mosquito flies low and slow into the burning sun, undetectable by radarI hear only air scratching past the belly of the holdNo bomb …
We have always lived within these walls,this gleaming, shining castle on a hill,a beacon held aloft for one and allto marvel at, imagining the thrill …
Seven billion was the end predicted by that movie where the population was fed on a questionable combination of soy, lentils, and plankton that wasn’t …
A fire sunset facing her, thunder didn’t show, how much she even wished for this sky to hurt, to rive in two, boiling the river …
On questioning circumstance;One must accept that it is often mere collision.That it is neither the (un)holy they, nor a waxwork trinity, at fault for the …
This solarium could be a craggyoverhang in the desert or a yurtburning sandalwood inside, plates of rosewaterjellies awaiting us, or a dumpster letting in moonlightbetween …
The bus climbed slowly up the gravel road,the inside all dust and sweat, smellingof leather seats, of engine oil.The travellers rubbed together, chatting,recent arrivals to …
A grey afternoon and when itcontinues to rain, a clueless patternleaves pools on our balcony, tearson the skylight.By now we knew who we are and …
The I, That which separates me from you, Was the first of our sins. Thus, at rest on the sun-bleached water, We have learned that …
1.And you wish it were easier to writeAbout how you’ve been feeling lately,The thought of being back homeFor the first time in a while placating,Quite …
We three stare at each otherit’s Reservoir Dogs: BurgeoningDomestic Dispute Edition Our mouths trained guns,words chambered, Hello translates directly to Say something stupid, BrianAnother Hello …
Edmund Evanson is an aspiring creative-writer who penned feature stories and film reviews for The Star newspaper, Malaysia’s leading English-language daily, in 2017 and 2018. …
on his roof checking shingles for fleasscouring the ground for alien invaders Hey Don! I say, but he’spolishing tools till his face smiles backdigging more …
Boxes everywhere, boxes overflowing, traffic conesstacked in the parlor, a brown Christmas tree in thedining room peeks out from behind a tower ofnested plastic chairs. …
i.other things live easy, you knowI suppose I, too, live easy in some ways.a domination of oceans gatheringa braying of old bones, dust and then …
The sunlight that crawls between hydrangea leaveswhile moss roses stretch and mouse through cracks in the stairs Neighbors who share their sweet ouzowith stories about …
Floating, ghost horse wakes in a fieldExactly like his own, just that he can’t touchThe soft weeds crawling up the fence.At first, he shivers into …
once, mothers waited for their dead children in damp bodies untilno more noises crept from their wind-polyp’d throats, until a dozen moons passed, a skinned …
August humidity in Coney Island makes the darkness much heavier,Candles dimly light the lock to match the skeleton key,As darkness provides anonymity to faces hiding …
Waiting for a chicken leg to broilI near the end of a chapter of Eco’s bookThe Name of the Rose.In my pocket is a timer …
I In an old cafe on Frenchmen Street in The Faubourg Marigny, a ceiling fan churns, throwing dust into the eyes of an old painting …
Up here, the intervals of thundering wavesat dawn signal churning, pebble-rivensculpting by water’s paws: crucible likea cleanse. Low clouds, contesting gravity,fabricate braids of gray sleeves …
now in the park july no– no parks are left. we survive inside the maelstrom of infinity, a glitch inside the program of identity late …
It was the days where the night would not come, for the sun held the sky hostage just by a look. It was the tyrannical …
Even without a caress its petals wait, try more red than usual then sweets, sent along with the scent from the latest hillside till one …
I I plunged my shovel into bare ground One foot stomping its edge, Tearing dirt like paper with needle-like precision My garden was full; I …
No one is enlightening this mass of all masses. Everywhere I look, the paintings are in a language my inner voice can’t translate. I feel …
Gallery of grotesqueries whence names are staked as pilgrims blameless to manifest that destiny, hands out hand me downs. Accompanied, individuality affronts. Individually: unencumbered; loving, …
Chaos sings, we areDisintegrating whole, drunkWith the city’s disillusionmentHalf and half and nowhere reallysick sipping stars, picking dirt off soles unmet; yet to birth new …
Through a broad valley of baked brown dirt and sparse green trees,past mudbrick and stone villages of flat-topped houses, we climbthe Humvees up the mountain, …
Riding shotgun, I look out the upper right cornerof the windshield, writing in a blackEnglish car,and see a dark thing: a dot,with a wing, twirling …
Getting all the feels with SZA tonight as that rack of wine from yesterday makes its way through my wrists and ankles Sometimes a voice …
Did they tell you Inferno was made from glass? Clear as truth turned upside down You can see through to the bottom of the world …
Out of respect I acknowledge you’re a speck on a papered wall in the midst of a tornado. You’re expected to show your worth, follow …
You wake up on the fourth floor to the garbled coo of some window-shopping pigeons, dress quickly, pick at breakfast, clamber down the dark stairwell …
Earth o’ mine green red brown and blue, They ask me which colour you are And laugh when I cannot answer. Could I lie you …
The winds switch faster thanThe clouds can circle Under avalanches of ink Saviours and Saints allBuried beneath Invisible tombstonesProphets gone, mixed with dionysian delusions Bound …
Hidden under sheets of ice invisible as dreams in glass comes smoldering behind, my foe who shoulders fire and steel aside, rides elevators high and …
Kurt wouldn’t eat yellow rice. Hedidn’t like that exotic food. Henarrated our trip to Iowa onesummer, had a story for every exit onevery road, tooth-whistling …
Wisteria drapes green bean-knuckled fingers over my forehead, the anointing oil of rain dripping. Robin poised upon the weathered, mossy timber spine of the swing …
I speak- Of climbing trees, and, of being terrified, but jumping, ‘fifteen feet!’ onto the brown mound beneath, momentarily and relationally also jumping through a …
“I’m not used to being in Nature” Is what comes to mind as I stand here at Still Point Staring up into space – Feeling …
The destiny tree, Dark gnarled and secretly wick, Claws at you and me Across eye spaces Twisting phoenix-glass specks prance Bloated toad-faces Yearning for their …
I have no hair atop my head but if I did it would be like yours and I’d wash it brush it out and take …
I always mowed the wild green hair of lawn, eyes of corn stalking me from across the street. Steering Dad’s tractor in the shapeof a nose ring …
The aspirations of man are simpler— a plate of fruit, a bottle of wine and my wife about to cook a chef’s dinner from disparate …
This neighborhood is all I know, these placid lawns and cars consumed by blooms of rust where things move underneath the surface —parts and widens, …
By the waves I felt the storm shall Death bring his scythe? Eagerly I looked for cover; loud thunderstorms drumming from the tempest that is …
Oisín Breen is a 35 year-old poet, part time academic in narratological complexity, and a financial journalist covering the US registered investment advisory sector. Dublin …
“through the view/of a hollow lens/like an eye surprised/by lost sight”
you’re biting your nails again o sweet white of time I feel in the December rush of cold the whoosh of closed & open doors …
Shaman paints the wolf and full moon blister red above a sinuous line of orange scales, serpent tail pointing to the past, head spitting a …
Dopo mezzanotte! Dopo, dopo! The door pops open, out of the dust the ocean unfolds under the ropewalker’s high gloss black shoes. He floats among …
Another stormy night in their neighborhood a warning came for twisters, hail and fire no one said anything about ghosts in the dark. Eerie hours …
In a chamber with three hundred ninety eyes there is no place not to be seen. No blind spots. The corners, the ceiling, on the …
She wasn’t a phoenix, but she knew ash. She painted herself with coals, with cinders. War paint disguising the woman of the woods. She felt …
This dimly-lit café, there’s a voice then two, then three speaking like a detuned triangle with so much impatience. Winter, dense and black, crams itself …
somewhere up here you might bite the whole horizon. love pours in like an emptied sack of apples. tastes fresh like apples, and smells like …
I would step out of my bodyto dream I was concurrentwith the wind and light,or the painted stonestossed over the embankmentinto the hearts of rivers.I …
Two to speak loud and clear for all and too many to hear; secrets of an alcove and two more join for some chatter; it …
Connie Woodring is a 75-year-old retired psychotherapist/educator/social activist who is getting back to her true love of writing after 45 years in her real job. …
There used to be an edge where the world ended, where ships would tumult down cataracts into nothingness. There are places still, buffers and hallows …
The cracks of frost in the whitened planksspell the end of one season and the slow plunge into the next.By the black pond, the danceof …
A pair of purple-throated pigeons entwine atop a post as our train passes by. Their beaks lock beneath unblinking black eyes. Breeze passes over the …
My poor dear, were tight plastic ties placed on your tender wrists? Were you marched down a long dim hall to the room “Philosophy 101”? …
Kill the funeral please.Mow down the mourners.Assassinate the coffin. Hey. pallbearers,hands up. don’t move.And preacher man…none of your phony speeches…heaven’s what I say it is. …
[Shot] [in a single take] [with no lighting] [and no sound] [some believed] [The Black Movie] [would fail] [at the box office] [when it opened] …
A four-engine train engines idling diesel beside the iron fence mist herds of penned-in cattle earthen clouds settling low a rider crooning Huddie Ledbetter Goodnight …
The Devil’s wicked lips taste my burning flesh A delicacy A flame with delight (with shame) He teases, waiting, enticing, watching as I squirm and …
The villages grew wingsOut of their water hyacinth-fringed backsAnd took flightTowards the heart of a hot, busy, concrete-skinned metropolis That had the hands of steel, heart …
You are a man of your wordsbut your words are all lies. Your queen is an import but the rest go in cages, you paw …
Take out a month of green from your April heart. Spread a quicksilver green on the whitewashed walls. Paint a gut-wrenching green on the palls …
The shards of blanket comfort are all that remain—what framing work this is, what demeaning work this has become—begging like the hen baking bread. A …
In the dream, I’m falling. I tell you I’m falling. One arm hooked onto the ice shelf, the other wrapped about my boy, I fall …
“as I hunch in gnarly leather, drool, toothless,” #metaworkermonday
The summer after my first year of college the KKK had a presence on Main Street in my hometown for a few hours. Don’t know …
“In the dead and dark of night,/
upon a haunted gorge they rise.” #metaworkermonday
Did you, my beloved, notice the barbed wiresthat run along the length of the city,to separate you from me?Such walls of divisiveness are man-made:penetrating your …
We go grocery shopping with a pregnant woman who does and does not want the Hawaii rolls, a woman who drops the cockroach in a …
The longing of the round peg to become squareto belong to the holeand that of the piece of the jigsaw puzzleto be fitted into make it …
I sit and I stare, trying to peerinto the back of my beautiful sons’ eyesbecause I am looking for somethingthat I soon begin to realize,I …
I freeze, startled by the sudden flight of a mud swallow against the backdrop of a tilt-up building, swarm of chirping notes I cannot decipher, …
The house across from mehas caught aflameand taken it against water The firemen are comingtheir trucks yelling attheir speed. They are dressedin their shieldsand are …
When it was the fashionI too measured out my life in coffee spoons It was not only to youthat some things made no sensebut to …
may your eyelids be diaphanous parasols sheltering from the invasive light of the sunshielding as parables the blinding truthwhen love excites the eyesto things the heart …
I exist where you’ve kicked me Your boot rings the bell Cracks the shell Invites Hell’s inverted Sisters to rent a storefront At the …
I sat and held the world’s coldest hand.One whose skin had been taken by ice. The palm of a dried …
Someday we might meet,when time has melted in us,our lives look like dried river beds Would you then recognise my face? My face might appear …
There’s a man the silent world claims as Noah, standing at the cliff’s edge, looking down on us as we crawl across each other, his …
I fold the corners Of a very desperate sky. The stars I had to throw away, On highways that know Where they are going. With …
When bombs rattle the insides of houses, cafes, churches, Twisting and turning their intestines, Hurling their insides out, Bleeding them dry, What do the birds …
Nights are essays in loneliness words scrawled in the darknone to be retrieved, I stretch on the bed; disheveled like my hair,twinning with the night.My …
I don’t care if I’m dead as long as I’m still alive, in Heaven I mean though not Hell, I might be dead but I’ll …
Dust motes dance on sunlight streaming through a dingy window. Rusty mailbox, empty, always empty. Cadaverous cobwebs mocking back at him from a peeling wall. …
for a while there I was worried I had cancer. I even joined a gym though I don’t know why I thought it would help. …