Night Terrors
by LIZ AXELROD
For endless
India ink miles
the sky is nothing
but super-novas
long exploded.
Sun-powered paths
twist through
fallen brush and
well-raked topsoil.
We focus our 35mm
lens, forever turning.
Swollen bulbs
long for crystal
and sugar shots
of well soaked
rum cakes.
Feed me, see more,
buy new glasses.
Super-glue keeps
our edges neat.
This miracle of stars
is just illusion.
Music Box
by LIZ AXELROD
I am a collection
of well groomed follicles
and hand-colored
sound-bytes.
Need some lube
and diamond files.
I’m making movies
posing sexual
with strobe lights.
I sit, stand, bend while tough jocks
grind out emerald
pointed cliffhangers.
Cinema is fucking
with my psyche.
I want pencil skirts
and cupid bangs, sugar sticks and
polished cherry sodas.
Focus unconditional.
I am not misty.
I am not stunned.
I am not wind-up.
I am not my reflection.
I am the Ballerina
on the box.
Leg outstretched
in hope of turning.
In Transit
by LIZ AXELROD
You’re a beautiful woman
Said the drunken
construction consultant at Tracks,
the Penn Station water hole with swivel
chairs and sweet bartenders who
ease the pain of missing that train
by just
one minute.
Let’s keep in touch.
He didn’t tell me his name
or text me his number.
Crazy bug-orange full moon!
Why don’t I live in the city anymore?
Suburbs suck passion and bleach marrow.
I’m Moonstruck.
Hey! Did you know my biorhythm
And Nick Cage’s are
A ninety-eight percent match?
Someone let him know, please.
What?
You don’t believe in Astrology?
Blow me (no really) Blow me.
Lonely—
Suffering full moon fever
from my kitten heels
to the hoops on my ears to
the glass shards of my
ice nipples.
Orange is calming
and prevails
over fast food joints
and train stations.
Liz Axelrod received her Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the New School in 2013. She has been making the rounds of the NYC Poetry Circuit for close to a decade and has been a featured reader at The Cornelia Street Graduate Reading Series, The Southern Writer’s Series, The Renegade Reading Series, Couplet, The Living Room’s Stories & Songs Residency, The NYC Poetry Festival, and more. Liz is Web Editor for LIT Magazine, a book reviewer for Publisher’s Weekly, and a staff writer for LunaLuna Magazine. Her work has been published in Lyre Lyre, 12th Street, The Rumpus, The Brooklyn Rail, Electric Literature, Yes Poetry, Nap Magazine, the Ginosko Literary Journal, and Have A NYC 3. She is currently working on her first collection of poems.
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