[Aberration Labyrinth – Spring 2022 Issue – ISSN 2179-8805]
Hey Folks, Welcome to 2022’s edition of Aberration Labyrinth. The pandemic forced us to make a few changes to the way we accept submissions and to the frequency of our publication. But, we’re back now and have a more manageable slush pile to get through each year. This is the first issue of our reformat and we hope you enjoy what these wonderful poets have to offer. Remember to check out our site for the updated mission and submission guidelines! Happy reading! Jessica & The Labyrinthians
[Aberration Labyrinth – Spring 2022 Issue – ISSN 2179-8805]
ALMANAC 50 Christopher Barnes Ripples at sluice gate. Moments course residue. Barges loiter in sparkles. Crack - promontory jitters. Gashed-black scalp refluxes Distressing you to a whimper.
HURDY- GURDY Vyarka Kozareva Ring the bell of the perennial home. Invite the rain To be long and meek. Absolve caged butterflies From all their sins. Carpet my tired legs with lilies. Break the Holly Bread. Choose the proper death mask To find basic secrets beneath the cerement. The vibrating strings will help you leash The burst of thanatophobia.
My House Lauren Sadler The cracks in the paint, the creaks in the stairs, the dents in the walls are no stranger to me at all. In these imperfections I'm conversant. These colors never blend together, only stay the same. My house, and its familiarity can be so ugly I sometimes forget its beauty
[Aberration Labyrinth – Spring 2022 Issue – ISSN 2179-8805]
PRE-OWNED INSOMNIA Vyarka Kozareva Chaos is preordained for irregulars. Dreams caged in a catalogue which Never been leafed through, Specimens of fears, Brocaded rendezvous, Monsters with soft close type eyelids, Splashes of yesterday’s ductile humor, A utopian alloy of remedy and happiness In a spiral precipice, A nocturne in three holy scenes, Poly- floral extracts From the dark side of the moon, Decapitated spatial thorns With silver spurs. What else to long for? From my desperately clenched fists An indigo night Is inconvertibly bleeding to death. Chaos is irregular for preordained.
Without/Within By Paul Foster Jorkinn Within Breaking Walls to walls and skins to skins Walls and skins of things breaking down Breaking, breaking Merging Things to things: connections Connections merging: into things Merging, merging breaking in, breaking down merging where breaking allows breaking in where wholeness allows breaking down where merger ends ending where merge and breaking darkly balance moving on where breaking and merging are driven from within within finding skins and finding ins connections, things, connections without, within
[Aberration Labyrinth – Spring 2022 Issue – ISSN 2179-8805]
as a sleeve, waiting Benjamin Pierce where there is only this to be said: that every noise there that has no word is altogether too loud anyhow; that all the words that are there beneath are too many words for any new words anyway; that every ear and where each ear and where that leads hold no listening here anyhow; and anyway even in quiet there would be no opening and no listening for it to be said let it be said that the resolve to hold silence was itself spat out, and all that was never yet said grabbed upon that one tongue and that one tongue sneaks in behind all other tongues as a sleeve, waiting.
BURGESS Marc Carver I drove to the top of the hill the one with the school at the top parked the car and watched the sun go down put the radio on and listened to the classical music window down waving my arms I had never even heard it before later found out it was Ludwig van. I never wanted that sun to go down but knew it would like it always does, it goes down and then it comes up.
A Broken heart Marc Carver A couple with two young children come close to me as I sit in the sun. The girl looks at me I smile then Dad plays that game that all parents play, the one where they grab their hands and spin them around until their feet come off the ground, it makes me think of my son. The smaller boy gets jealous. MY TURN MY TURN, he shouts so he gives him a go. I want to run over with my arms out my turn my turn. I look over at the young girl with a young boy. She has been crying since she came and not even this fun can stop that crying her whole body filled with a pain that she thinks will never end but it will. I cry too but no one sees my tears
[Aberration Labyrinth – Spring 2022 Issue – ISSN 2179-8805]
An Ode Upon the "E" in "Curve" Benjamin Pierce It were a wondrous escape from corners, that word, beginning curved, cupping the rounding; closure for saved evasion cistern to keep a rainy day's wet a hook or better, a tree, sprouting straight rounding down; a fruit to drop to hide against the winter to ambush the sand in it's own deeps, a rounding down again won from straight high ambition and, though sharp, a divergence a tribute in the bottom angle to round escape on high, And what of you, straight, high, tripartite, filing, divided; how came you to square off so round a word; how came you, silent, even, and not yourself at work, to hem it in, present your closed back and not your two hungry mouths to your origins: Even your silence you stole in art, for it was the shape, not the sound of this word that freed it; a poetry that did not announce itself to the open air and, more covertly, in no other alphabet— in no other tongue at all may your treachery be shown— And yet, an ode and not a curse upon thee: The rest of this word has escaped roundabout, left thee standing flatfoot arms and mouths extended never needing a poem, but to track its' departure leaving you in the empty plot not round or square but just everywhere to display you, O! "E" in curve and to dis-splay you conformist oaf and villain!
[Aberration Labyrinth – Spring 2022 Issue – ISSN 2179-8805]
THE POWER OF THE DOG Marc Carver I watched the dog for about forty minutes he would bark at everyone women, men, other dogs, babies, runners and the man would pull him back firmly. He was one of those small dogs with the funny faces but eventually he started to let some people go by, saying nothing as if he could tell the good people from the bad. I had to go and see so I walked over to him, just before I came up to him he started going berserk at a woman. Am I good or bad, we may never know.
Here's To Being Free Gabrielle McHenry You faked what felt like true sincerity It seems everyone but I Knew you couldn’t help but lie to me Pummeled by emotions every time that I learn How little I mean to you While I let this one-sided flame burn Our fire you’ve stomped out will be the last for me Last round of half assed happiness For now, I can say I'm finally free Couldn’t see who I was apart from you Thought we’d be close for a lifetime But now I know which one of us I choose I choose to live a life I can truly call mine