stainless links tinkle 
their bell tolls for thee 

from pinions nine 
hundred forty feet 

in three miles an in-
verted shore sandstone 

*

to climb morning sun 
reflected like God 

in a burning bush 
from the mountain 

face scorching breath deep 
in lungs upward sky 

*

deeper than azure 
a hue to drown in 

clanking steel a 
resolve in fingers 

into shadows off this 
beach step slip stretch rise 

—One of four Finalists in The Chains Writing Challenge

Jonathan Yungkans

is a Los Angeles-based writer and photographer with an MFA from California State University, Long Beach. His work has appeared in San Pedro Poetry Review, Synkroniciti, West Texas Literary Review, Gleam: Journal of the Cadralor, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and other publications. His second poetry chapbook, Beneath a Glazed Shimmer, won the 2019 Clockwise Chapbook Prize and was published in February 2021 by Tebor Bach.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Lawful and Proper, poem by Jonathan Yungkans in Rise Up Review (Fall 2020)

⚡ Cadralor in the Key of F-Sharp as It Cuts into My Spine in the inaugural issue of Gleam (Fall 2020)

⚡ I’d Love to Cook Like Hannibal Lecter [video], read by the poet at an event sponsored by Moon Tide Press (10 October 2019) celebrating the anthology Dark Ink: A Poetry Anthology Inspired by Horror

⚡ Saving the Patient, poem in The Voices Project (18 January 2018)