ars poetica by Alicia Mathias

a red pen stalks us.
we write, wearing camouflage.
i hope words can still find us.

shrapnel rescues a poem,
where we tear words out 
of our bones 

and flesh. 
echoes of bullets
speak. 

voices pang 
to purple.
critics huddle 

to burn our words
(burn our worlds.)
surrounding us with torches:

Think with your heart.
No, think with your head.
Don’t think at all. 
You can think, when you’re dead.

hurry, poets, hurry.
collect your own
voices--

run, run 
sacred 
to shadow

and gather
your wings
within the dusk

before they fall
into breaking
fire

shape your vision
ready your defenses;
verse is rebellion.

Alicia Mathias is a writer, artist, and photographer. Her poems and/or artwork, can be seen in: Ann Arbor Review, The Bitter Oleander, bradlaughsfinger, The Canopy Review, Chiron Review, Clockwise Cat, Fearless, January Review Journal, SetU Magazine, Newington Blue Press, Porter Gulch Review, The Rye Whiskey Review, Sore Dove Press, Unlikely Stories Mark V,  and elsewhere. She lives in New York, with her favorite muse, Zeppelin the Wonder Cat.