Landscape with Tree To be the worst makes someone very special. Imagine the worst crook, the worst drunk and the worst enemy. They’re all special in their own right. And the worst art history student? I looked at every painting like it was a Rorschach test for hysteria or depression. Logic kills imagination. I studied […]
Read more "SARAH HENRY ~ Landscape with Tree"Unfinished Exit I keep thinking about the time in high school when you drew me a map of the city, I still have it somewhere. It was so easy to get lost in a place where all the trees look the same. And now every time I see a missing person’s poster stapled to a […]
Read more "Claudia Wysocky ~ Unfinished Exit"COYOTE TRUTHS Beauty What is it like, I ask Coyote, to wander in fields of lupine and poppies that dot the dry fields, to never walk a straight line and yet brush against glory? All day I starve and all night I roam, Coyote says. Beauty is to wander through an unwoven fence. Fear What […]
Read more "JEFF BURT ~ COYOTE TRUTHS"HONORABLE MENTION – Michael Taylor Utah GirlsI wanna be more disciplined and responsiblePissing off a mountain into a riverYour watermelon can’t believe, approve, or understand your behavior and he is very upsetGrumpy man with with a tan, sitting in a lawn chair in a blizzard, Coca-Cola in hand, upsidedown, drinking his magazineMy teacher told me […]
Read more "WINNING POEMS FROM THE 3rd ANNUAL KAREN TRUJILLO TEEN POETRY CONTEST ~ LAS CRUCES, NM ~2024"bitter coffee so she’s standing there— in vaulted two-storey morning light Bratz Doll Angel engulfed by Redemption coffee shop’s bustling glory ass as tight as a peach the contour of her muscled thighsshowcased by a definite size six boot-cut black yoga pants draped over platform Docs topped with a brightly-colored cap-sleeve and she’s me with […]
Read more "Natasha Deonarain ~ BITTER COFFEE"Cantata some laughed, some wept,most stayed silent.i must hold my posture,face the onlookers with steady eyes.many hide behind their newspapers,a few pull out handkerchiefs.i lock my stance, toes gripping the ground.a boy with a black bag stares, unblinking—i almost dropped the bird.from my chest / a crimson bird emerges / we are told not to […]
Read more "Jennifer Choi ~ Cantata"Old Fiddle Man Old daddy man playing fiddle man in a family youth band. He was the star. Crowds paid & rushed through that door, dancing clapping to hear a few slim notes for just transitory seconds a few brief notes only realizing the ephemeral rhythm man before he died. Dance, dance, dance, fiddle man […]
Read more "Michael Lee Johnson ~ Old Fiddle Man"With a Partner Like You I could win some championships in Tucson, Honolulu, and PhoenixWe could get married and have a baby and eat some noodlesWe could doctor and teach and sell houses and preach with the HubbardsWe could coach and throw a wet sponge at a roachWe could eat dimsum and have some funHeck, […]
Read more "Robert Beckvall ~ With a Partner Like You"Baffling As a would-be baffler, I’m engaged in creating something fool-proof. But there’s such a wide variety of fools that I don’t know how to baffle them all. Fools come in many stripes and furs, demonstrate a myriad of facets, advocate a host of harebrained actions, override some basic setups, and dare to wreck whatever’s […]
Read more "jacquelyn shah ~ baffling"Elon, Extraterrestrial Elon has reverse engineered our trajectory. To mars. A dreamer and futurist who thinks out of the box, he’s clearly well ahead of his time. And ours. There is no comparison. In light of the 8.2 billion people now on this planet, his campaign to personally proffer seed to repopulate the world has […]
Read more "Karen Schauber ~ Elon, Extraterrestrial"
Cacti Fur 