Poetry by Brian J. Alvarado

once more round

stead, fastened to our fashioned grooves,

we gear up to singe our backsides 

yet again on our way around the 

unsung, youngest sun we’ve ever known.

glasses rimmed with sediments of time,

fire becomes water in our alchemist bellies,

the gullet blaze reverts temporal debris 

to glass, in cruel circadian clockwork.

do we ever endeavor to hydrate enough

for the high duration of time suspended

over hot and hasty horizons,

or do we gasp long and late for the heirloom,

exhausted and afraid to grasp for 

luminanary air with empty plates?

a seer took crackled form on our flesh,  

and vanished without warning or counsel, 

well before our dry eyes could muster 

so much as a damp soothsayer’s glance.

Kinfolk

I had friends in the

way-back-when

that truly believed

grass was life.

Out here, it was often refreshing,

even if for one measly pint,

to just sit at the local bar

and watch the final call happen,

just because I could.

I sometimes felt so frail

that I feared others can see

my very heart beat

through that itchy, 

starchy sweater.

And yet I’d often wonder

what it would be like

to be born with

transparent eyelids.

I grew my hair down just

so that I’d have something

to tear out in the end.

In the way-back-when,

I was as happy as

a crock-pot clam

boiled, sealed shut

at the lips. 

* Previously appeared in DenimSkin Review, 2015*

would you?

If you grew motionless in

your upper deck Megabus seat,

because of the Boston chills, and 

your inability to turn down a secret-

spiced joint from a station bum,

the top of your Yankee cap threatening 

to break through the ceiling as you

begin to question your own mortality

accompanied by a cold sweat rid of

hiding under a minimum four layers,

your last supper of two backpacked 

McDonald's burgers and a Sunkist, atop

an open laptop while for a moment 

you wish that the universe had taken 

its own life as a scapegoat over yours,

hastily eradicating your porn while you 

ponder leaving behind riddles and 

high hopes for healers and solvers,

setting the song that you'd like to 

be found still listening to, to play over 

and over, queuing your "I love you" texts, 

as your eyes get heavy and instigate a nap,

fearing an aneurism’s silent precision, and 

fighting off sleep like the death penalty 

all because you would much prefer

a more personal deathbed,

would you drift off? 

would you wake up?

would you ever come down?

Brian J. Alvarado is a Puerto-Haitian Bronxite with pieces published or forthcoming in Squawk Back, Trouvaille, Alien Buddha, Beliveau Review, Cajun Mutt, and The Quiver Review, among others. He holds a B.A. in Creative Writing from Susquehanna University.