Sand Where now a thousand thousand houses bake in the summer desert sun, there were once lolling sandhills as far as Slover Mountain, surrounded by the endless geometry of dark green orange groves. The limestone mountain was ground down over the years to make concrete to make the stucco houses that crowded out the groves. […]
Read more "SAND – CHARLES D. TARLTON"Chloroform Dinner Napkins I grew up with paint thinner, not paint I grew up with blood as thin as wineglass legs To the eye of anyone who isn’t a sommelier; I am a torso floating I am the skyscraper built on quicksand he who needs not walk on water since he can’t walk at all […]
Read more "loroform Dinner Napkins – John Maurer "SOLDIERS An allusive whisper, down on all fours, scented with spice, at the edge of the bed. In a thick-walled and narrow windowed house, a stucco fortress out of Mizner. Fronds of light. Camera. Palm trees. A series of flickers. Dancing on the lawn with imaginary water from a sprinkler system. My eyes are dull […]
Read more "SOLDIERS – JOHN GREY"Happy Valley In a hand-potted bowl of browns and tans, pink-hued eggs rest against sugar beet slices, waiting an overdue repast. In this season between seasons, adolescent bats arrive— midnight’s uninvited callers —to this aged house, nestled where rocky ridges paint the sky slate and avocado. On late August afternoons, black bears lumber through my […]
Read more "3 POEMS – MICHELE MEKEL"Touch Cockroaches are one of the only insects that actually like to be touched, are some of the only non-domesticated creatures that crave physical attention, aren’t comfortable unless they’re wrapped in the bodies of their companions, in the palm of your hand tucked deep in the bottom of a shoe or the folds of a […]
Read more "TOUCH – HOLLY DAY"Dumped I find a hole to live in, on 18th Street in Brooklyn. To pay for the dump, I get a job. I walk around the hours of the day— a magic trick—cups and balls. My roommates, a colony of cockroaches, just out of grad school, have been watching me for weeks. I shred or […]
Read more "2 POEMS – Gabriella Belfiglio"Here It Is Again Yeah, well, here it is again. It’s me dang birthday. Happy birthday to me. Happens every year, usually. Missed it once and was 22 For a year and ten months. My 23rd year was rather short. Now, I don’t worry ‘bout Counting them, they add up. Only one that bothered me […]
Read more "HERE IT IS AGAIN – DANIEL S. IRWIN"Continental Breakfast La Quinta Jackson, Mississippi There’s a sadness in heart-shaped waffles, in the cool flickering logs, in the tower of Styrofoam tended to by a brown person. There’s petroleum in the apparel, haircuts and politics of the others. There’s blunt force trauma in the space-age gravy, in the Fruit Loops from a wheel, in […]
Read more "Continental Breakfast La Quinta Jackson Mississippi – Tim Staley"Deep in my Couch Deep in the couch of magnetic dust, I am a bearded old man. I pull out my last bundle of memories beneath my pillow for review. What is left, old man, cry solo in the dark. Here is a small treasure chest of crude diamonds, a glimpse of white gold, charcoal, […]
Read more "DEEP IN MY COUCH ~ Michael Lee Johnson"1 Rosa Parks on bus unmoving, an ice sculpture protest with the rain 2 She did not give up started a revolution they did not give up 3 she was not the first first was too dark, too pregnant teen Claudette Colvin 4 (bonus haiku) seams of revolution camel through the eyes unravels status quo […]
Read more "3 ROSA PARKS HAIKU BY SOUTHERN NEW MEXICO TEENS"
Cacti Fur 