Oak Morse
Oak Morse won first place in the 2024 Poetry Super Highway Poetry Contest. He lives in Houston, Texas, and has an MFA from Warren Wilson. He won the 2024 A Public Space Writing Fellowship and Julia Peterkin Literary Award for Poetry in South 85 in 2023. Oak has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has won fellowships from Brooklyn Poets, Twelve Literary Arts, Cave Canem’s Starshine, and Clay, as well as a Stars in the Classroom honor from the Houston Texans. His work appears in Public Space, Black Warrior Review, Obsidian, Up The Staircase Quarterly, Southern Indiana Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, Los Angeles Review, Hampden-Sydney Review, and Hobart, among other places. He is a candidate for the School of Library and Information Science at the University of Southern Mississippi. Visit him on the web here.
The following work is Copyright © 2024, and owned by Oak Morse and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Black Man Compares Thee
You yen for a Shakespeare spirit / like many / I’ve known —
not fanciful / but merely divine / and daintily. My dear
I cannot chase dragonflies / while dodging vultures: black man
in America / racism outrunning / me, like avalanche. How
can I carry you / to islands of bliss / stilling sirens? In my head,
I’m humane / but you prefer hulk, nothing
woven from rainbows / magma / shoved below Earth’s crust. /You want
this body to dichotomy / honey for you / yet headstone
for storms —hard, unafraid of darkness / forged on scraps. / You never saw
my childhood / its sour shortcomings: fathers gone/ imprisoned. / Still
you see me as tower to dwell in / you & our unborn village. / Who am I
supposed to pass / glory onto? Dear / I barely have enough
for my own flame. I’m burning, sure, / I’m sweet / but I swallow cinders,
grow tusks of permanent teeth / to be your monsoon
you call on / ego held up like an oracle / beaming brighter than
some lighthouse inside / human storms. Your conscience, quiet, clamors
for this. Can’t I lay / between me & your arms / stretching / ravenous
to caress me, dandelion? / If I’m a tailed cat / born to razor / giant
grass —let me / love you like a wound / that needs staunching / briefly,
between / griefs. Because I am etched / from boundless
wars calling me / target / despite white flags I have
planted / while I keep pride in gated gardens / and guns
in mental chambers. There, bullets for dreams spin/ unshot. I must preserve
my fire / for the sake of butterflies. /Oh, if you
& the world withdraw / from taking a chunk of me / I’d stun us / hero
meteor caping toward Earth. While corpses still flood
the battlefield / outgunned by sonnets, dear, / it’s truth:
I cannot love you / daintily & stay bulletproof.
Christian Ward
Christian Ward won second place on the 2024 Poetry Super Highway Poetry Contest. He is a UK-based writer currently recuperating from cancer treatment for Stage 4B Large T-cell Lymphoma. Recent work has appeared in Rappahannock Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, Double Speak, Wild Greens, Mad Swirl, Dipity Literary Magazine, Impspired, and Streetcake Magazine. He won 1st prize in the 2023 Cathalbui Poetry Competition.
The following work is Copyright © 2024, and owned by Christian Ward and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Nature Translates My Lymphoma
Stage 0
My lymphoma speaks cicada,
hides underground like a miner
sweating their sanity. A canary
gleefully drinks it, does laps
in the cage like an invisible bull chase
until they outpace the sun.
Counsellors pluck feathers
from my swollen tear ducts.
Why does the sun shout so much?
Stage 1
My lymphoma speaks Mount Iberia frog –
all liquorice and flame. It reeks
of stale coffee and painkillers.
The frog doesn’t want to talk
about my parents. London is a rainforest
unsure of itself.
Stage 2
My lymphoma speaks dwarf lanternshark.
A rubbery dog toy content
to nip at the Great White circling
beside my bed. It doesn’t know
I don’t care if the damage festers.
Stage 3
My lymphoma speaks parakeet –
a flock of magicians hiding the sky
under a bright green tablecloth.
Distracts therapists with Instagram
photos of exotic holidays flirting
through the screen. My body
squawks away the pain.
Stage 4
My lymphoma speaks common carp,
has reduced my body to a thesis
on the effects of abandoning your children.
The fish swim throughout my blood
until my words are bubbles. Therapists
tell me to lose myself to the river.
Stage 4b
My lymphoma speaks parasitoid wasp.
The spine is a mouth. My pain
is subject, object, verb. It talks
non stop.
I haven’t slept in weeks.
Noel Poston
Noel Poston won third place in the 2024 Poetry Super Highway Poetry Contest. She is an inquisitive spiritual seeker enchanted by words and the quirkiness and splendor of EVERYTHING. She makes her home with her spiritually indifferent yet incredibly tolerant and indulgent husband in the hills of Middle Tennessee. Noel delights in striding and humbly stumbling through the mystery and wonder of IT ALL.
The following work is Copyright © 2024, and owned by Noel Poston and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Speaking in Tongues
I need your voice,
the husky plum thrum of it,
the way you enunciate at the end
of words that end in k or p or t.
It’s not like I cannot sound things
out for myself. I do not have
the courage to finish
certain words, they go off the rail
as they leave me, disappear
down a diverted track
without the waiting ear,
eager to welcome them in,
offer the well-worn chair across
from you, the listener I have longed for
even before I knew I could speak,
make a sound that traveled,
left me, sought a destination.
The first time I heard you say
kept, I knew I had arrived.
