before you miss intimate years paint yourself
an old abandoned grey room
take conscious measures create color in
your life desires urgently calm
radical inattention spends without counting
worried dollars purchase few friends
eye rubble and speculation grieve seasons
give screens a sabbath night for surprises
diversion reduces world thinking
of poetry temples to technologies of heart
absorb images observed in day
dreaming a planet free to sense music
in silence sit a spell to shift
Jericho Hockett’s (she/her) roots are in the farm in Kansas, and she blooms in Topeka with Eddy, Evelynn, and Bastion. She is a poet, social psychologist, teacher, forever student, and dreamer, most whole in the green. Some of her poems appear with or are forthcoming from Mom Egg Review, Coffin Bell, and Pilgrimage Magazine. Her first chapbook, ‘Rituals for Dissolution,’ is forthcoming from Eastern Iowa Review/Port Yonder Press. Instagram: @jerichomariette
About the Guest Editor: Dennis Etzel Jr. (he/him) lives with his spouse Carrie and their five boys in Topeka, Kansas where he teaches English at Washburn University. He has numerous books, including My Secret Wars of 1984 (BlazeVOX 2015) which was selected by The Kansas City Star as a Best Poetry Book of 2015. His work has appeared in Denver Quarterly, Indiana Review, FUGUE, Puerto del Sol, 1913: a journal of poetic forms, Tarpaulin Sky, DIAGRAM, and others.
The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative 