Livio Farallo

Livio Farallo is co-founder/co-editor of Slipstream. His work has appeared in The South Florida Poetry Journal, The Cardiff Review, The Cordite Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Misfit, and elsewhere.

Easy read of the poems in the images above:

hypnophobia
fear of sleep

I. in flower

mud spirals,

perfectly gone timber

rotted

in the sun

left to

burn wet,

left to

lose its knots.

my alliance

with my

many selves

dissolves

in a melt

of sour taffy

down

summer blades

i sleep on,

once

i

see myself

there.

II. i pull

the sky to me

when it cries

like the mad sister

i never had;

when it asks

if it’s pretty

like that thirteen

year-old cousin.

i don’t want to

chase it though,

as if it

meant that much

to me.

i sleep

under its

crumpled bedding

instead.

III. in a puddle

on sinking ground,

i reach a sprinkle

of the time

that fell at night.

i touch a note

of the melody

pressed

from the shaking breaths

of a billion leaves;

weary

as the soldier’s eyelid

under which i sleep.

eremophobia
fear of being alone

one longingly

flower mine:

red as storming sun

stormy as red sky.

a candle

on a wooden cart,

on a creaky dirt road

is who finds

there is no west left

to find.

go wester

in discovery.

new calendars

for dry moon and

wet sea to find.

one wet stumbling sea

crushes castles, shore birds.

one glass flower

hewn from heated sand

is a blossom smoothed

under

from a place of broken

drink;

wave upon wave upon

melting roll.

once,

farflung

light

opened

morning glories

clung to night.

now,

only one weed-choked

sand dune singing,

one well-choked

harmony mine.

acerophobia
fear of sour things

you dig

and dig,

the posture

that sweats,

the shadow

that licks it up.

the straw

of your hat

unwoven

as the corn

in this

ragged wind.

the dust

and dry ground,

the sugar cube

meant for the horse.

one flapjack

honeyed over

was a trembling

breakfast of gold:

an acid spill

of the sun.

corn

the size

of pinecones.

water

you dig for

deep as dust

piled

in your throat.

sweat

that cries tears

of golden sap.

shudderings

of the syrupy skin.

syrup oozed from wretched

skies.

syrup of the sun

of the wretched earth.

acid

on the thinnest skin.