POETRY — Split Lip Magazine

Watching Platoon with Your Uncle, the Refugee

You used to think of yourself
as fluent, your tongue an old general.

poetry, 2019SLMOctober 14, 2019Steven Duong

My Bible verse versus your Bible verse. My rib versus your loins. My blood orange versus your green lawn. My salary versus your 401k. My nanny versus your neighborhood watch.

poetry, 2019SLMSeptember 14, 2019Lorena Parker Matejowsky

Made for Each Other

Wedding, welding — it’s all a slow-and-stop machine. Ignition is the easy bit. You know, sockets oiled, batteries replete as a rose with bees.

poetry, 2019SLMAugust 14, 2019Lesley Wheeler, Chris Gavaler

Sixteen Theses on Walking and Poetry

Walking is the poetry of the urban space.
Just as a poet uses the same language as everyone else, only for other things and in other ways, a walker walks the same city as other pedestrians, only with a different purpose and perspective.

poetry, 2019SLMJune 15, 2019Mátyás Dunajcsik, Timea Balogh

A Battle for America

Google removes ‘don’t be evil’ from its code of conduct

poetry, 2019SLMMay 15, 2019Sean F. Munro, Henry Goldkamp

Equivalents

In Stieglitz’s little photographs, sunlight
oozes through scraps of cloud. Dark
presses against light; the spaces wobble
between positive and negative.

poetry, 2019SLMApril 15, 2019M. A. Bowersock

Bill and I Go to Christine McIntire’s Church

High school seniors, we go to a different church
each Sunday, wanting there to be a God so we can

doubt Him. The Quakers are calm, the Methodists jovial.

poetry, 2019SLMMarch 15, 2019David Kirby

The Last Supper

Smoked salmon on buttered bread, a steak brushed
with olive oil and turned twice over a roaring fire,

poetry, 2019SLMMarch 15, 2019David Kirby

DESIDERATA

Do you ever get that feeling like something bad just happened but
you forgot what it was?

poetry, 2019SLMMarch 15, 2019Elisa Gabbert

Notes on Un-Apology

once I owned a wooden door
& a field of ice & I was big-hearted, gentle, prefaced
my friends’ names with sweet & kissed them

poetry, 2019SLMFebruary 15, 2019Erin Slaughter

The Brunette on TV Says “All You Do Is Leave”

and I have never | wanted so instantly | so much
as to be this heterosexual | doctor who scoops

poetry, 2019SLMJanuary 15, 2019Sreshtha Sen

An Extra Heart

I wish I were as fabulous as Titus
removing a pair of sunglasses

poetry, 2018SLMNovember 15, 2018Justin Jannise

The Poets Are All Pretty Pleased with Themselves Tonight

Imagine my surprise to find I’m the only one of me here:
then imagine the exact opposite of that, my lips curled

poetry, 2018SLMOctober 15, 2018Cortney Lamar Charleston

Bruce Springsteen Visits Me at the Doctor’s Office

Maybe he can reshape the doors. Maybe he can carry me through.

poetry, 2018SLMSeptember 14, 2018Kaiya Gordon

Elegy for Mr. Spock

The first time you died, your friends
searched the universe to bring you home

poetry, 2018SLMAugust 14, 2018W. Todd Kaneko

How to Care for a Narcissist

He calls again to say he’s upset I’m making it
difficult for him to feel close to her. How I

poetry, 2018SLMJuly 14, 2018Tanya Grae

You can’t trust

a hammer to hold onto its handle,
a Phillips head to cozy up

poetry, 2018SLMJune 14, 2018Martha Silano

Alprazolam

My chest, a jar
of honey knifed

poetry, 2018SLMMay 14, 2018Brandon Melendez

Shorthand for Disentanglements: 21st Century Edition

In shorthand, words are written as they are pronounced. Know is written no, say is written sa, sew is written so (GREGG Shorthand Manual Simplified, 1949).

poetry, 2018SLMApril 14, 2018Anastasia Stelse

Shorthand for Flirtationships: 21st Century Edition

In shorthand, words are written as they are pronounced. Know is written no, say is written sa, sew is written so (GREGG Shorthand Manual Simplified, 1949).

poetry, 2018SLMApril 14, 2018Anastasia Stelse