Kitchen Gods, White Feathers & Human Hearts – new poetry

Three fantastic new poems for you now. What more can I say except they are SO Grievous Angel!

About our contributors...
M.C. Childs’ speculative poetry appears in multiple publications. He is associate dean of architecture at the University of New Mexico specializing in urban design. 
Gretchen Tessmer is a writer/attorney based in the US/Canadian borderlands of Northern New York. Her poetry has most recently appeared in Star*Line, Abyss and Apex, Wild Musette and Strange Horizons.
​Yuan Changming currently edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver. Credits include Best of the Best Canadian Poetry: 10th Anniversary Edition, BestNewPoemsOnline, and Threepenny Review.  


beseeching the kitchen gods
by M.C. Childs

push the dishwasher button 
for power scrub plus 
set the maytag dial 
to extra heavy load,  high water
self-clean the oven
and adjust the freezer 
to ice over Hades

slide the kitchen knife 
back into its wooden block


Teach Your Children Well
by Gretchen Tessmer

empty your pockets
of what? are these treasures?

nickels and dimes and
half-written letters
I’d rather—sea stones,
red leaves
and white feathers


Moving Sale
by Yuan Changming

A whole box of human hearts, each
Still beating fresh like skinned toads
 
Two rows of shiny skeletons of unknown gods
All fingers longer than legs, toes bigger than skulls
 
Three sets of knives, blades extremely blunt
With evil spirits and devilish impulses
 
Four giant alarm clocks, making thunderous noises
Waking up all dead from as many directions
 
Five bottles of wine filled with soaked souls
As colouful as the rainbow above the styx
 
Can I just have the reddist heart please?
Sure, it’s free