COME OUT OF IT – DAVID P. MILLER

Come Out of It Now look at the knots you knead between the next instant and its spinoffs, how they simmer soup behind your forehead. You are hooked to poke-fingered what-thens. So certain of them. You know every crisp moment surprises, yet there goes your breathing all thin again. Remember how firm you were in […]

5 POEMS – DS Maolalai

A retreat. the autumn each year smelled like old crates of apples. and winter the softness, a skin- wrinkled must. and the house was his passed-away uncle’s house next to an orchard; he had plans for it, he told us, through the smell of old fruit – it would make a perfect guest house; had […]

the writings of the late LANCE GAMBRELL — AMERICAN HERO

We are pleased to present our next Poet to Notice: LANCE GAMBRELLHe never calls himself a poet and perhaps that’s the best kind. I’ve always been able to tell when reading his work that something special was going on. There’s a palpable longing and an honesty of spirit all spread out before us on the […]

MIDDLE AGE FOLLY – MITCHEL MONTAGNA

Middle Age Folly Lurching hole-eyed and numb, he wondered if talking might help. Maybe he could regain their respect that way; he could show wisdom as the product of his experience. He rehearsed during wretched nights: “Did you ever look into a mirror and see something lower than dog shit?” He gripped sheets as fever […]

English Teacher – JASON VISCONTI

English Teacher She is the neighboring tree in the yard That will name every branch, Every flower becomes an apt remark, Every star a word to be chanced, The garden of language arts.

THE PITHIEST SUICIDE NOTE – JOHN TUSTIN

THE PITHIEST SUICIDE NOTE Dear World – enough

4 POEMS ~ THOM BAKELAS

summer rebirthdeconstructing wallsbuilt by cold years,my hands are no longer brittle,my blood has begun to warm;it all now comes so easilysavoring daybreak frost from her last kiss,discovering constellations in her freckles,chasing sparrows in her eyes,this is my home,i am home. ~ floorboard truthso full of excusesfor why things don’tget better—i write poetry for no one […]

SAND – CHARLES D. TARLTON

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. […]

loroform Dinner Napkins – John Maurer

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 […]

SOLDIERS – JOHN GREY

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 […]

Cacti Fur

a poetry high ground