NO BOTTOM

by Ed Shacklee

There is no bottom here, I’ve found:
the water’s swirling round and round.
We’re going down the drain, I fear,
for there’s no bottom here.

We have a circus but no bread.
There is no heart, there is no head,
the end, however, can’t be near:
there is no bottom here.

Our leader leads us from behind.
He tells us that we shouldn’t mind
attempts to make us disappear,
for there’s no bottom here—

there’s only down, and down we sink,
too dumb to care, afraid to think.
What’s brinkmanship without a brink?
Don’t worry, for it’s very clear
there is no bottom here.


Ed Shacklee is a public defender who lives on a boat in the Potomac River.  His first collection The Blind Loon: A Bestiary was published by Able Muse Press in 2017.

SUCCESSOR S/ELECTION

by Karen Neuberg

Image source: LevittownNow

We are unsure who to s/elect
and take a peek under. This leads
to new understanding and at least one
skinned knee. How easily the world rocks
back and forth between mystery
and revelation. Vision or revulsion
stack in individual ways resulting   
in no consensus. Someone suggests
a water test. Another fire. No one cares
to make the attempt. We continue
leaderless but full of direction until a previously-
unknown candidate emerges from behind a boulder
and behaves as though s/he knows both
what we do and what we don’t.


Karen Neuberg lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her chapbook, Detailed Still, was published by Poets Wear Prada. She has previously published at The New Verse News.