A poem — My grandmother worked the legend shift at Denny’s, a Saturday morning struggle to keep ashtrays empty and eggs on the plate as Delaware cops and construction crews threw smiles and crumpled dollars into the crumbs of chewed toast. How often those breaded triangles were cut with a single moon bite…

A Poem — The day after savage anthems, I look for grief behind my eyeballs. I capture hallucination. I close my fist tight over a firefly of tangible solution, drop her in a jar, a magic lantern to peel back smog, and yet someone has swiped that fly away in a sleight-of-hand street…

A Poem — Sleep is an arrow — time is a bullfrog warming its blood in the sun. The morning flowers blur as they stretch toward pollinators, as wings beat and tongues moisten, hairs lengthen, sugar ignites, muscles spasm, ink dries beneath fingernails clipped and left for dead. We no longer chop down Christmas trees. We no longer dress our own cattle, our own chickens, our own children. We’ve pulled down all the scarecrows,

Three poems from Childproof Sky — August 2023 — On August 19, 2023, I had the pleasure of reading three poems from my debut poetry chapbook, Childproof Sky, published in 2023 by Cherry Dress Chapbooks. I was joined in the reading by two accomplished poetry authors, Candice M. Kelsey and Dr. Cathleen Allyn Conway. The reading was recorded, and you can view my twelve-minute segment on YouTube! I shared three poems from the book:

A Poem — I am sand swept, a rusting hulk pitched over in a graveyard breeze carrying spore drops between gunmetal commemorations. Why I keep setting out to sea in a small canoe to race the tankers is anybody’s guess. You have to believe there is another land mass ready to receive an emaciated champion, blistered hands, missing teeth, one more Sunday shy of scurvy. It takes every ounce of strength to drink water without a dry heave, to hold a bite inside until it breaks down into more tears, more sweat, more pituitary answers for why a pin-feathered baby bird jumps from a nesting rock before it knows how to fly.

A Poem — I am a tenuous what-if this morning. I wonder for whom I should lunge for next, if this spotlight before me is all that I possess, a light that chases torch-bearing angels into the deep night of a dress rehearsal. The new quiet is a chlorine bleach of call time…

Originally published in Issue 21 of Wild Roof Journal, July 2023 — This poem is titled Nature Games. It was originally published in Issue 21 of Wild Roof Journal in July 2023. ©️ Trapper Markelz 2023 If you enjoyed this poem, please check out my chapbook Childproof Sky, a Cherry Dress Chapbooks 2023 selection. Previous reading: Poem Reading: Monsters Originally published in Issue 6 of The Creative Zine, June 2023trappermarkelz.medium.com

Originally published in Issue 6 of The Creative Zine, June 2023 — This poem is titled Monsters. It was originally published in Issue 6 of The Creative Zine in June 2023. ©️ Trapper Markelz 2023 If you enjoyed this poem, please check out my chapbook Childproof Sky, a Cherry Dress Chapbooks 2023 selection. Previous reading: Poem Reading: Childproof Sky Originally published in The Journal — Volume 45.2–May 2022trappermarkelz.medium.com

A Poem — There is an anthem we sing in the sunlight today. It smells like fresh breath. It sounds like the soft grind of microplastic. It hurts like a right calf cramp. The song is a blood flow celebration. The song is a college acceptance letter that explains the future away. Let’s…