Three Experience Poems

by the Editorial Staff of Uncanny Valley Magazine

How

by Chris Alarie


To be present

   in any one moment

To inhabit

   the spectre of the self

To live within

   the concept of linear time

To traverse the

   vast ocean of doubt

To accept the

   brute fact at the heart of existence

To know that

   anything is

To be present




Dream Trails

by Alexis Faulkner

Two feet touch the ground: awake

Snap around, peel off a piece of the night fuzz

Where I was, how ever it all fit together,

Sun-striped flag of beach weather or

The flakes of the snow peeling away from the sky

Floating into squint slice of my eye

Arms folded overhead and being cleaned

Take to patience and adjust, clear list, no fuss

A cloud of dust, the being was a cloud of moving pieces

Truth, in dreams, rare to reach them

This nightmare echoes, released in my shower

Fleece freaks within the hour

Dodging foreign objects at ground level, stuck in this hell

Faith writ final and reached not easy

Be walking around in the daytime, be slack

Movements patterned against black, though hardly as darkness

Still sleeping, not sparked yet

Watching neighbors, envied as zoetic  

Which thoughts have they to reach sudden presence


sentimentality is the best part of nostalgia

by Douglas Slayton


i only go so far

without looking back.

collecting all the years

as lines, up and down me.

there are small rocks

that rattle in my shoes

but start with planters

or construction work.

my movements slow,

when i wave from side

to side

like the sea at your feet

the day you realize

your own size.

i can't fill that space

that was my shape before.

Alexis Faulkner is Executive Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine. 
Chris Alarie is Senior Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.
Doug Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.