​one late autumn
the bitter water spread
through the entire building
filling mouths with a caustic taint
but the tenants did not care enough
to protest,
until the dreams came:
 
DREAD
EVIL
DARKNESS
SADNESS
EMPTY
SO EMPTY
 
a thousand agonies of loneliness
the sum total grief of mere being
the cats howling, the dogs whimpering
a hundred people—men, women, children--
feeling that they were falling, falling, falling...
forever and forever and forever,
until--
 
after two nights of mass distress
the grim hysteria bubbled over
and—making a connection--
they finally sent the super up to the water tank
 
he lifted the lid and there she greeted him:
floating face down, fully clothed
her backpack still about her thin shoulders
her stygian hair clumped like rotting seaweed
 
some of them had been wondering
where she had got to
 
she had been such a nice girl
a little quiet perhaps.

On my broken back I carry the world: hungry children
drinking the minerals from my exposed bone; battered
women prickling me with needles, yet even they,
adept at the art of patching things up, defeated
by my tectonic fissures and split vertebrae;
men who—for lack of softness to scar—destroy 
themselves, fashioning bandages out of my peeling skin.
And those who are neither man nor woman,
dangling from my ragged clumps of fur,
clinging tooth and nail to the forces trying
to forsake them. 

Rotten roots attempt to trip me, birds made
of pure keratin and spite, swooping down.
Carnivorous bracken find no flesh left to nibble.
The tears of my passengers, acid rain over ravaged earth.

I run quadrupedal, leaping over fermented fords of ichor,
bounding through woods of my fellow skeletons
growing into trees, limbs into boughs. But I have
many more journeys left inside me before I fall apart
and my passengers do too, before we are all dust
and ghosts, feeding this broken-backed world.

Avra Margariti is a queer author, Greek sea monster, and Pushcart-nominated poet with a fondness for the dark and the darling. Avra’s work haunts publications such as Vastarien, Asimov’s, Liminality, Arsenika, The Future Fire, Space and Time, Eye to the Telescope, and Glittership. “The Saint of Witches”, Avra’s debut collection of horror poetry, is forthcoming from Weasel Press. You can find Avra on Twitter (@avramargariti).

At vision’s rim,
curtain flutter,
a shadow, a blur.

My nerve ends twist, 
wrap round sinews, 
tighten me to a standstill.

Something 
is in the room with me.

Only one of us
is breathing.

​John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. Latest books, “Leaves On Pages” “Memory Outside The Head” and “Guest Of Myself” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Ellipsis, Blueline and International Poetry Review.

Lone dead approach unbidden with requests.
Eternal rest’s eclipsed by unmet needs.

Preparing for the ask, its devil tease,
The dropkick of the punchline, I’m composed.

This won’t take long. Crisp salt-white speech is not
A conversational duet. It’s brief.
Succinct. Direct. Delivered neat. Deep-voiced.

Or else transmitted silently, slipped thoughts,
As if the listener’s reborn inside
Unwritten books that stalk the author’s mind.
Desires, regrets, or urgencies don’t die
When bodies decompose to worm-sawed seed.
Don’t think fierce yearnings laze about, content
To swing in hammocks of the afterlife,
Unhunted by the conscience’s sharp edge.

Gut hunger’s not forgotten when homeless.
Dumped six feet down, desires don’t get dismissed.

Remorses, cravings, impulses revive,
Resurface -- seeking friendly patronage.

Why wouldn’t I oblige? Souled will still thrives.

Returning home, before I hit the sack,
I’ll muse: “When are the dead expected back?”

Native New Yorker LindaAnn LoSchiavo, recently Poetry SuperHighway's Poet of the Week, is a member of SFPA and The Dramatists Guild.  Elgin Award nominee "A Route Obscure and Lonely" and "Concupiscent Consumption" are her latest poetry titles.

Forthcoming is a paranormal collection of ghost poems, a collaborative horror chapbook "Santa Muerte," and an Italian-centric book, “Flirting with the Fire Gods,” inspired by her Aeolian Island heritage.

Her Video-Poetry channel will give you nightmares.

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