Timber The US is the fourth-largest exporter of forest products in the world: $9.7b in 2015. Ergo, money does grow on trees. Indeed, it is made of their bodies. Ergo when a tree falls in a forest, the trees will hold a moment of silence for one of their own whether any human is around […]
Read more "TIMBER – Megan Wildhood"THE CURIOSITIES OF DECLINE Stillness through rainy fog— car’s creep through flood pools, sidewalks padded with oak leaves cloak. Light held, luminous, grieving. This dying is no surprise. Helicopter’s flyover burr flattens through its sweep. Ferals slink the pavement’s driest line, shadows skew under streetlamp, dripping bough. Cooping in a stairwell, a panhandler’s broken shoes […]
Read more "THE CURIOSITIES OF DECLINE – R.T. CASTLEBERRY"Mannequins in a Perfect World On soft chairs they wait. Dark strands of unwashed vinyl hair; clean follicles strung with gold, a color in every woman’s eyes. Empty light fades in worn cloth under hands on arm rests woven with time unraveling: a fleshy palm hidden when a woman is unsure. Ebony and bronzed shoulders […]
Read more "Mannequins in a Perfect World – P.M. FLYNN"“Reverence for the women in the poet’s life, stealth bombers, a juvenile cougar strangled on the trail and plenty of blank space on well-organized pages come together in The Pieces You have Left, Staley’s second full-length collection. Echoes of recent giants from Mary Oliver to bell hooks, musical quotations from Lucinda Williams to Miles Davis, support […]
Read more "STUNNING SOPHOMORE EFFORT FROM NEW MEXICO POET: TIM STALEY ~ ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY"Recurring Tears It’s as if I committed a sin in my past life And the one I’m living is the sentence Wondering when the pain will come to a full stop Seems to get relief I will have to fall into a coma In order to get a breather, already had an opener Just need […]
Read more "RECURRING TEARS – Racheal Chie (from MUTARE ZIMBABWE)"Dust to Dust It gathers behind doors, the muck of hours and days and years, blown through vents and tracked in on the soles of shoes that have hiked through hell and heaven. They may notice at first, casually, but awareness is soon cloaked within other thoughts, other times, the tired ache of heads ready […]
Read more "DUST TO DUST – C.S. FUQUA"cut-price cut-price do i bump & struggle through another dislocated day or do i return to my bed where guilt will gnaw on my discount store existence or wait for monday sales that return so much less
Read more "CUT-PRICE – Geoffrey Aitken"All this Broken Love I didn’t tell you how I felt when you said those things. I will tell you now. Those words are long rides on the highway. Broken sandals. A no-fly zone. Your anger sits on my tongue. It’s a restless bee. It shakes the walls, paints them green. Once we danced to […]
Read more "2 POEMS – Amy Soricelli"SEPTEMBER II It’s September third The ornamental maple Turns, I look away.
Read more "SEPTEMBER II – Marc Janssen"Forsaken I am the pen she left uncapped The one she tossed in the bottom drawer. I’m the line she crossed out when she wrote me off the one she crossed at every spot with every hook with every loop with every slant on every point each blot, each space: every trace of ink ran […]
Read more "FORESAKEN – Frank William Finney"