by Jude Marr

cross oceans cross borders cross
lines of demarcation to infiltrate fine-print
dictionaries: old lingos trade
in silks and spices: they masquerade
as coffee and chocolate—

new words colonize (curses
as fusillades, masculine endings
at war with the uninflected): unprotected songs
can bombard as cannon, while liturgies
slash and burn—

some words travel stealthily, tense
but not declined, with or without
portmanteaux: others are trafficked, objects
purloined, passage by passage: names
may be pulled aside, chopped
and changed, subject to
minute scrutiny—

lines tighten
around abbreviated
dict(a): letters
bundle
into acronyms: un-
wound syllables
stutter
from mouth
to mouth—

kiss-word-kith-word-kin

not babble
not bible
survival.

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Jude Marr (they, them, their) is the author of We Know Each Other by Our Wounds, forthcoming from Animal Heart Press in November 2020, and the chapbook Breakfast for the Birds (FLP, 2017). Jude’s day job is Director of the Reading-Writing Center and Digital Studio at Florida State University. Follow them @JudeMarr1 and find more of their work at www.judemarr.com

by Jude Marr

old lady, as you twirl your candy cane at fractured
worlds, kick up cracked heels: while reason leaks
steal what scenes you can—

Chaplin in a blue nightdress and battered curls, worn
slipper-soles tatter-flapping as you clown-walk
down your dust-cake road toward a vanishing—

through limelight flicker, flash one last, lewd smile.

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Jude Marr teaches, and writes poetry, as protest. Their chapbook, Breakfast for the Birds (Finishing Line), was published in 2017. Recent credits include Wend, Minerva Rising, and Eye Flash Poetry. Follow them @JudeMarr1 and find more of their work at www.judemarr.com.

by Jude Marr

a treachery of flesh and bone: hope no

wider than a walking cane: pain

no killer will cross—

                                    fear this pain

                                    back away, back

                                    away

or stand: take a stand: fake

it till you make a stand: broken but (not)

bowed: knotted but (un)frayed: laid

out flat—

no, not that—

fetal curl: furled fern leaf: ammonite

or amber shell: trunk or tusk: snaking

root—

from brain to base, a cord—

strength is curved,  not straight: I make

myself into a curve—

                                    bear this pain

                                    wait, wait

                                    wait

the turning gyrus cingulate

will motivate

a slow uncurl—

my spine and I reintegrate—

                                    courage is pain

                                    (don’t) resist

                                    curve your brain

                                    into a fist.

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Jude Marr teaches, and writes poetry, as protest. They are currently a PhD candidate at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and their first chapbook Breakfast for the Birds (Finishing Line), was published in 2017. Recent credits include Nightjar Review, Weatherbeaten and Punch Drunk. Jude is also poetry editor for r.kv.r.y.