In a defrocked mask of the morning,

smudged in at first, but vast in its launches,

he uses the preening tines of a toothbrush.

With a trill of cold water hung from the faucet,

in scents of modern spray-mist staunched,

he meddles in a colloquy of try-on faces,

ignoring a wart.

Her plasma red streaks are curled in his hairbrush,

and noting it, he finds her immedicable form on his mind.

He shuts off the pipes, deactivates the switch for light.

The cricked on a.m. turns on a vandalous hush;

the seclusion of mating, the postponement of the future,

and the cassia, itself, near to his dislike,

find his two eyes blinking.

This in his sight, and as he first senses ahead of thought,

this tightening harness of rot and revelry

yokes him to the mushing sun-up world.

Bio:  Ray Succre currently lives on the southern Oregon coast with his wife and baby son.  He has been published in Aesthetica, BlazeVOX, and Pank, as well as in numerous others across as many countries.  His novel Tatterdemalion was recently released in print and is available most places.  He tries hard.

Have you the groundfish sand in shallows?

Edge of life, whereon cold

punctures draw one into the deep, have you

any more regard for thought that cradles itself,

stuck to living, pleading for breaths, more beats,

illuminated, shot-fired thought,

than the sensational human vision?

 Does your lifeless crater reach here,

in shallows where life freely creates

civilisations of tottering feet,

of playful fish-like smarts?

No, you take the party.  Never the work.

Your fear-vending grate draws at our ever.

That we know it

is the one unhealable injury.

Paddling in water and churning up the sand,

here, we swim and see and swim.

Bio:  Ray Succre currently lives on the southern Oregon coast with his wife and baby son.  He has been published in Aesthetica, BlazeVOX, and Pank, as well as in numerous others across as many countries.  His novel Tatterdemalion was recently released in print and is available most places.  He tries hard.

Today
I want to walk away
and never return.
I want to move to Greece,
where the sun always shines
on the turquise waters,
and the pure white houses glow.
I want real food.
True home-cooked stuff,
not hamburger helper.
I want to live
and breathe deeply
where people still live together.
a community.
a family.
Together.
I hate this isolation we’ve created.