A New Years Poem

by Douglas Slayton

last year

i wrote you songs

because i didn't think

i would make it through another

and you still haven't called

but i am not mad

but i am sad

i still wait somedays

i want to ride my bike past your house sometimes

but i know it's wrong

and i know i will die someday

and if i was meant for anyone 

it was for you

the moon was new

and there was no rain

when we were together

but when it rains and

the moon is full

i think of walking through

the yard together

Doug Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine

Xmas Poem

unsigned checks
by Douglas Slayton

it had always been cold
where you were born
i promised i would be
a warmth between you
skin and bone

when i called
i never heard back
so i keep the windows closed

Douglas Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

Two Crumpet Poems

Crumpet

by Alexis Faulkner

Cranny cranny 

Cranny cranny cranny

Cranny cranny

Butter

Hat
by Chri S. Alarie

What is a crumpet?
What am I even doing here?
What a weird headline
Don't post this
thanks

Alexis Faulkner is Unicorn Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine. 

Two Trumpet Poems

Sounding From the Trumpets of Heaven

by Alexis Faulkner

Blonde rascal provokes louder horns

Sounding towards skyways

Hiding

Certain shrouded

Mystery only for

Speckled so many humans across global

Awareness spreading

You know, like the fire spreading

Possess heart, do you?

Possess fear, do you?

Hunger for wealth

Depth

Earth’s center

Sinking center depth

Holds a lot, parking lot of ammunition

Blonde rascal

Sounding off the trumpet of heaven

Golden horns

Light enough brightens

Instruments speak for

Who

Power corrupting nearest stars

From

Angels

Black angels

Angels holy to

Harness magical projection

Of what a blessing looks like on your mind

winter
by Douglas Slayton

sad songs
squealed across the highway
flowers on either side of a tunnel
a weekend every year

i am still picking pieces
of you out of my clothes
so it never really ends

Alexis Faulkner is Unicorn Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine. 

Doug Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

Two Rock and Roll Poems

Rock n Roll

by Alexis Faulkner

Plane down

Wings ripped apart

Strewn

Not staged, not on a stage

This is not a test

Let us examine the interior of the rock n’ roll suicide

Flesh guts wound round wires neon

Spiral center tight bound toward the brain

Electric spark shoots also up, comes and goes

Rock n roll is not really a go with the flow art

Follow the unprotected surge too

High demons with razor claws sewn in and with gravity, stuck

Sparklers once more up the center

Fluid inside dripping rainbow tears psychedelic from goddess tending towards ornamental elaboration from, say, Hendrix

There were notes in the suicide and then there were addresses

Structures inside they have furniture composed in waves of tension

I mean, you can still sit on the sofa

Dance uneven jerk work can wash right off skin

Death inside downed plane

Takes psychic vision

For internal view and dissection

Maybe this is a test

Maybe

On a stage


surfing
by Douglas Slayton

pressing down
navigating dim lit nights
three times a month
i catch myself smiling

Alexis Faulkner is Unicorn Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.
Douglas Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

Two Classical Poems

april 2nd

by Douglas Slayton

the seasons change their song

as they change with each other

it was a theme played on my palm

running lengthwise with your fingers

held tightly

bowed slightly

Classical

by Alexis Faulkner

Good old fashioned essex station and I was sure a 

Ghost hand touched my head

Then I figured out it was my own hand

And the psychology of me splitting into a ghost to 

Feel my own head sent spinning me into the train 

Gutters

Not all of them are easy thoughts

Unfolding the middle east through fireworks

Because here in the west the explosions are 

Miniature

Ghost once again

Bombs are ghosts and spawn ghosts

A fine mist, really

Eastern corner of westerners mind

Good old fashioned essex station reveals its wealth

To me on this Novemberest of days

M train wretched waiter-maker

But thought blessing it sends onto me this day

Champagne for the cheers and vanity thoughts

Have but a ghost waiting for me

Alexis Faulkner is Unicorn Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine. 

Doug Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

Thanksgiving 2015: Haiku

by Chris Alarie

I give thanks for Bart

Simpson & all the other

Simpsons—like Maggie

by Alexis Faulkner

I just discovered

Deliciosity of

Kahlua. Turkey.

by Douglas Slayton

i am thankful

for existential dread and 

endlessness of night

Alexis Faulkner is Unicorn 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.

Two Gospel Poems

Waiting in the Bushes
by Douglas Slayton

with resounding call
the voices ring and shake through
colored glass

it is nothing real
nothing concrete

it sits in my chest like a song
that floats about the pews
caught up in hair and hands
out the door

it will never stay
but reach out for it
anyways

Leaving Something Out
by Alexis Faulkner

Hello dreadful throne giver
Stepping down majestically (sarcasm)
Leaving to take over another operation
The Word as gospel
Hello listener (sarcasm again)
Waving hands around, spreading germs across all surfaces
Words flew
Flying words
Anger
My color check in: Red
Holding everyone under rule in a circle
Sure, it's a strong shape, or is that the triangle
I wouldn't have asked you because I wouldn't have been able to patiently listen
To your response, trust answers, not turn back to red
Temperature reading an unsurprising hot
Why now
This is all really vague
This is about work
I remember the white tiles upon first step
I clomped on them and eventually wore white shit on my jeans
Where my knees touched the floor
The snow I'm so excited for it to get cold again
Sing a song
Twirling in the flakes falling from the sky
The white flakes I love them
The sky The sky is bigger in some states
You know big sky country? Wow, what a beautiful thing about an unpopulated area
Back to the patch of ice I slipped over to work I sang the song
The song sang at me the reverb
It was a pattern or resistance and then a pattern of feed back and then back to observing the reverb
The very thing is about church it's so dramatic
The very thing about snow
It's so beautiful

Alexis Faulkner is Unicorn Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine. 

Doug Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

Two Friday the Thirteenth Poems

November 13, 2015
By Alexis Faulkner 

The scariest thing to happen to me today

On this unlucky Friday

I’ve been possessed

Listening to a classic house mix playlist

Pause, tilt head right, thought mist disperse

Glance up and to the right to an earlier fall-spiced night

This same month, sure

Sitting on the stoop with a visitor

Visitor II came past us, but with their own key

Said, formed the words, as form in him human,

“Don’t worry, I’m just the night mailman.”

Sure, I thought, nothing to see here

Turned the key to the left and pushed the door open

Our apartment, the door

It’s tricky and it’s not like they were new to the task

My eyes didn’t close like Brautigan’s did

Because, in fact, I’m still not in California

My stoop is in a seasonally affected zone

Where people of the post office act on a different code of ethics

A code all their own and full of fright

Good thing he wasn’t delivering on a Friday the 13^th

Perhaps then he would have deposited anthrax in our box

Which love is, to reference another dry moment in time

Hopscotch
by Douglas Slayton 

that black cat kept me warm
in every storm and frozen evening
the windows wouldn't close

salt on my shoulder
won't dispel that hex
i picked up some winter

i can't cross a street or portal
anymore with that luck i carry
i wanted to make this right
but it's all wrong

i can't look them in the eye anymore
every room, every street,
where everyone else stands close
i see them looking
like they can smell it on me



[found the image here]

Alexis Faulkner is Executive Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine. 

Doug Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

Three Memory Poems

by the Editorial Staff of Uncanny Valley Magazine

Memory Tantrum and I'm Not Lost

by Alexis Faulkner

All of the facts

The equation, it adds up

When the sultan is discovered deep in the mind’s storage facility

Entertain the oldest thoughts about the ghost

That’s right, I found the ghost and it told me

A story in the East Village

Or perhaps it was Washington Square Park

These translucent spirits are always thugs

Watch your wallet

BLESS
by Chris Alarie

GOD BLESS FALSE MEMORIES

REVEAL UNTO US THE FALLACIES

AT THE SWEETENED, BEATING HEART OF

   PERCEPTION

   TIME

   EXPERIENCE

   EXISTENCE

ALL THE TIME

THAT WE ARE WRONG
WE ARE THANKFUL

open windows
by Douglas Slayton

i carried it around
for most of a year

i still think sometimes
of the nights i walked
through crowded streets
thinking of what might be

no ride was alone
there were no cold nights

when everything crashed
i sat on that street for hours
messing up traffic

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.

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.

Three Wine Poems

by the Editorial Staff of Uncanny Valley Magazine

In Wine Country

by Alexis Faulkner

Dead field in a land flash
Wine-beaten and weathered in the late season’s sun
Who begs most for the water cast
From the clouds on the one

Wish of these golden hills
Globe glass waiting for deep, rich liquid
Pride of the fair skinned and faith-filled
Hard to remember what last night we all did

Most of all the earth demands waiting
Manicure the offerings to be rows upon rows
Ask for peace from labor and with it patience bring
To me the wealth and then land once more to sew

One time a prayer for the worker
Seen waiting only for the work

Tele-(communications)-machus
by Chris Alarie

As Odysseus looked
Out at the wine dark sea
He checked his phone & sighed
It seems the one challenge
He could not overcome
Was simple loneliness
What a fucking loser

The Flat of the Knife
by Douglas Slayton

it was the view
i didn't appreciate
but watched everyone
revel near that cliff

there have been walks since
they are always longer

i have been standing in the mirror
still finding evidence

i sit still sometimes
when the air is cool
and the light is obscured

i reconsider constantly
the way it tasted sweet
it must have been thick
in your blood

it lingered
on my fingers for days
sticky and inconsistent
leading me to misconceptions

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.