Shattered Shadows by Heath Brougher

The owl lets go of the bungee and serves the hippo on rollerskates a plate of mashed potatoes. They are a delicacy when the mutagenic ground will sprout nothing else in the aftermath. If there is an aftermath. The wind turns to steel. Smashed netherworlds gather round the ant hill recently ravaged by an airstrike. The drawer inside the drawer inside the drawer inside the drawer inside the drawer calls these moments random spigots of disgusting Manmade chaos. Antmade chaos. Sometimes. The flag is furled and placed in a time capsule for a year that will never come. Eyes argue with eyes. A one-armed veteran twirls a zebra under a swaying cellar lightbulb. The bolt cutters also only have one arm. One eye. A tree that grows tickets to rock concerts from the mid 1970’s wakes up and blows a transparent pink window off of the World. A scare and everyone shuffles to the right standing in wet boots waving nothing.


Heath Brougher is the poetry editor of Five 2 One Magazine. He has published two pamphlets titled “A Drought of Ichor” and “2” (Green Panda Press). He has been previously published or has work forthcoming in Yellow Chair Review, Chiron Review, SLAB, Main Street Rag, Mobius, Riprap, Diverse Voices Quarterly, eFiction India, Of/with, MiPOesias, The Angry Manifesto, BlazeVOX, Stray Branch, and elsewhere.