Corey Mesler's work has been published in many magazins and anthologies.
He has been nominated many times for the Pushcart Prize. He has a chapbook of poems, Piecework, 
from the Wing and a Wheel Press. He won the Moonfire Poetry Chapbook Competition 2003 
and his chapbook Chin-Chin in Eden, was published by Still Waters Press. 
Another chapboo Dark on Purpose appeared from Little Poem Press in 2004. 
Two more are due in 2006: Short Story and Other Short Stories, from Parallel Press, 
and Noctambulation from Wood Works.  

One of his short stories was chosen for the 2002 edition of New Stories from the South: 
The Year's Best, edited by Shannon Ravenel.

His novel-in-dialogue, Talk, was published by Livingston Press in 2002. 
His forthcoming novel We are Billion-Year-Old Carbon is also from Livingston Press. 
He has been a book reviewer (for The Commercial Appeal, BookPage, The Memphis Flyer), 
fiction editor, university press sales rep, grant committee judge, father and son.
With his wife I own Burke s Book Store, one of the country s oldest (1875) and best 
independent bookstores.



 

A Dream Party


	for Susan


It’s hot here
by the telephone
with the lines drawn
and the men in yellow hats
marching on Washington.
Communication is
down. I follow it like a news
cast. It’s broken,
I’m told. Still, I write to you
and say, dear Felicific,
I dreamt of you last night.
We were dancing in the dark
on the party’s lawn,
lit only by a fire, a bon fire. 
I held you so close I could feel
just how naked we
are when together. You said,
if this is a dream
it’s a good one. I put down
my pencil. I pick
up your eidolon, a wavery
ghost. A party,
I repeat to no one there. And
we were dancing,
almost naked, 
hanging on for dear, dreamy life.
There’s a click.
Somebody is listening. 
Tell me, I whisper,
that I am still wanted, Dreadnaught.
Tell me that in the daylight,
I am still a man. 
That Storm Again

The rain is moving in
and its luggage
is heavy, black
and full of remorse. 



So Much Happens


So much happens
because
of distance.
You
leaving and me
trembling
behind. 
So much happens
when
there is parting.
It is change,
inescapable,
like the dream you
had where
your mother died.
I was
speechless
in front of its enormity
and power. 
Life tumbles you
about
like that.
We are only spores,
drifting.
We are only poor
unfastened
hearts,
fierce in our in-
dependence,
our own
paths. And yet
our need
for each other.
And all watched
over by
the God of Trumpery
and his Friar’s Lantern. 




Caulk



	“Everything is/part caulk.”
		Kay Ryan



If only we could stay together
like disparate words caught
in some pre-positional phrase. 
Then we could be free again
like the birds are free, like the
adverbs. Like the wind which
blows your best thoughts away,
the things you meant to say.