DOING LINES

Welcome to our special edition posting, “Doing Lines.” For this theme we were looking for one-liner poetry: powerful, humorous, or interesting ideas conveyed with few words.

As previously promised in our guidelines, our favorite line appears at the top of the bunch. We chose Brenda J. Gannam’s line because it was the one that socked us in the gut the hardest, and because we could see an entire story unfolding within that one line. The remaining lines appear in no particular order. Thank you to all of our submitters; you all did a fantastic job.

And to our readers: thank you always. Enjoy.

~ At the funeral parlor the lifelong miser slowly counts out thousands to buy his wife the deluxe casket.

~ Late at night the old man’s hand trembles under his pillow as he caresses his late wife’s lingerie.

~ Rereading old love letters, the widow lingers over the one not from her husband.

Brenda J. Gannam, Brooklyn-based poet, writer, and photographer, has been active for more than 20 years. Her poetry reveals spiritual, metaphysical, and Jungian themes embedded in everyday phenomena, and has been published online and in print, e.g., The Temple Bell Stops: Contemporary Poems of Grief, Loss and Change (Edited by Robert Epstein, The MET Press, Baltimore, MD), Baseball Haiku: The Best Haiku Ever Written About The Game (Edited by Cor van den Heuvel, W.W. Norton, New York, NY), and The Heron’s Nest.

~ After your death, I will bay at the sky—

moon or no moon.

~ Pairless socks:
Ferret Feng Shui.

Rhiannon Thorne lives in Phoenix, AZ. Her work appears/is forthcoming most recently in Existere, Grasslimb, and Sugared Water. She also edits cahoodaloodaling and may be reached at rhiannonthorne.com

~ We’re sexting the dead with a re-gifted Ouija board.

Carly Weiser is a poet from Buffalo, New York, exploring what it means to be a female millennial in middle-America. She is a graduate from Buffalo State College with a BA in theatre. In her spare time she likes to love men like Jack Kerouac, drink too much, and write it all down every Sunday.

~ The homeless veteran stared at the bowl of water placed outside the store
for thirsty passing dogs.

~ The Gypsy fortune-teller saw my future in the translucent ball, but I saw Santa and twelve tiny reindeer.

Doug D’Elia was born in Massachusetts and served as a medic during the Vietnam War. He owns the Onondaga School of Therapeutic Massage in Syracuse, New York, and writes to purge demons and inspire hope. He is the author of three books of poetry. A complete list of his work can be found on his web page: dougdelia.com

~ The dream returns 25 years later, no sign of aging.

~ The weather vane turns with the rooster’s crow.

~ Our childless marriage; some secrets will die with us.

Jari Thymian volunteers full-time in state and national parks across the United States. Her poetry has appeared in various publications including tinywords, A Hundred Gourds, and American Tanka. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize.

~ You don’t wonder what Jesus would do; you’ve got your six-pack of apostles chilling on ice.

Kathleen Nalley is the author of Nesting Doll (winner of the S.C. Poetry Initiative Prize). Recent works have been included in The Bitter Southerner and Night Owl. She has an MFA from Converse College and teaches English at Clemson University.

~ Fall my love and I will
rake the leaves.

Charles Bane, Jr. is the American author of The Chapbook ( Curbside Splendor, 2011) and Love Poems ( Kelsay Books, 2014). His work was described by the Huffington Post as “not only standing on the shoulders of giants, but shrinking them.” Creator of The Meaning Of Poetry series for The Gutenberg Project, he is a current nominee as Poet Laureate of Florida. http://www.charlesbanejr.com

~ Minus sign: listen without the near lethal attempt to articulate anything.

~ Nerve-storm: swirls of water Leonardo-drawn, like curls of Renaissance hair.

~ Melancholia: tropical bodies and arctic minds, reading gin bottles and Greek epics.

Kenneth Alewine is a doctoral candidate at the Institute for the Medical Humanities, University of Texas Medical Branch. His current research combines music, mood and consciousness studies. His poems have appeared in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, UCity Review, and Psychic Meatloaf