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“Live gold,” “besieged, a trapped mattress,” “indisputable reduction largest,”...by Joshua Martin

Live gold


macro offensive line

crowded swelt numbskull

sit branch

seek letter

underwhelm harbinger of horizontal


mania ironing t-shirt necklace

back brace a hero’s welcome

tho a bee in ritual Crimea

& knowledge trials an ordeal


courtly leg up

against aghast harpsichord

an ocean brittle to defeat




besieged, a trapped mattress


fer-de-lance consummates

taxable mortar

without uttering

knife’s blade artifact


filled to the top breaking point

shuttered intact Inca ghost town

but still preserving photography


demonstrated stone

popularizes a thaw


as work submarines scorpion

we request feuding most shocking

captured in organic expedited hull


emerging draped b/t

two miles all

allows stalactites to eat iron

as a

bacteria researches

collapse to a

mortally nicked superlative



indisputable reduction largest


alliance embittered onward

vocal technocratic pamphlets

printing deficit deal

skimmed issue tones


domestic loan

circulate abroad

silver a de facto

water from export

wine feast value


agricultural meanness

reacts unsavory minister


told light striking

common evident profile

emerge scope tactician

edifice errors haunting


fault lines certain examination

deficiency context traded boom

flows sectors studied risk force


borrow a fluctuation

normalize a benchmark

absolute a core

interest a publicity

liquidate a relativity


secondary nadir basic

peak since per capita



Bird is shining


You once wire willow

tiptoe tipped tooth

a crowned hollow

plaything housed behind

aquarium fuzzy—

scoffed grinning

growl made out

to moan through

braille—.


Last you uttered pursued

bigfoot jazz hands

latitude a marble patch

stranded near oceanic

peeling skin cramp

tug of war.



Expose


cloudless not curvaceous

pointedly caressing effective labor movement

momentum only provides fundamentally popcorn

making writing opaquely mysterious

captivating guided empire of senseless scales

rooted platform for physical sublimations

strikingly perverse tonal mocking context

provide a civilization

present an illumination

protestations warn bubbles concentrated confidential

warped media mind

distorted veil experiments to third degree

levels papered over bus terminal window harpoon

house from beginning to secret





Joshua Martin is a Philadelphia based writer and filmmaker, who currently works in a library. He is the author of the books combustible panoramic twists (Trainwreck Press), Pointillistic Venetian Blinds (Alien Buddha Press) and Vagabond fragments of a hole (Schism Neuronics). He has had numerous pieces published in various journals including Otoliths, M58, The Sparrow’s Trombone, Coven, Scud, Ygdrasil, RASPUTIN, Ink Pantry, and Synchronized Chaos. You can find links to his published work at joshuamartinwriting.blogspot.com

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