PATRICK MEEDS – 5 POEMS

How Small Can the Smallest Star Be? I hear the thank you notehas gone out of style.That’s just bad mannersif you ask me. A sign ofpoor parenting. Remind meagain, what’s the small fork for?What’s the proper salutationfor a collection letter?Are dowries still a thing?I thought I saw a hummingbirdbut it turned out to be a […]

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TOM PESCATORE – 5 Years Ago

5 Years ago Remember as the sun set on James island Tired Together Fading into the coming nightAnd how after heading back to our camp An old man to show the pictures he had taken of Our silhouettes together encircled by Fiery dusk How he asked for our emailsIn effort to send the photos to […]

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Quentin Staley – Caffiend

Caffiend Oh, when the bridle wirepulls her comb and her teethbegin their play, their tin-canmorning melodies aremocking me, so gay. “Oh,” is what I say.How is it these sirensstrike 6, and 7, and 4?No day is as before,a roller-coaster melody,looping back-and-forth. My body aches with gravity.My blood: mercury soup—poisoned, heavy metals;cold and acid blue. “Hey, […]

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Steve Deutsch – O Canada

O Canada From his first two weeks in Kindergarten, Eugene was told he wasn’t college material and should work with his hands. I’d like to tell you he had a gift, aside from perseverance, but he didn’t. At 16 he bought a beat-up VW Beetle, more rust than steel, and called her Canada. He’d sing […]

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Joseph Somoza – NEW YEAR’S POEM

New Year’s Poem Hardly any movement but the windshaking banana-shaped brown seedpodson the locust trees. So many seeds,so little space to burrow in, so few birdsarriving for the year’s last birdseed,though tomorrow, the year starts over,just like magic. People will pretend to be re-born,new resolutions, a new pageto turn, wanting so muchto try again, to […]

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John RC Potter – Cold Ashes

Cold Ashes You thought you left me behind languishing in the dust… then the air began to clear; so, I rose above the unsettled place where you once occupied a little space. The smell of smoke still lingers long after a fire has gone out… cold ashes bearing mute testimony; the truth will live longer […]

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LAURA STAMPS – LIGHT

Light So many postcards. So much to say. “Dear Elaine,” she writes to herself. “Almost Christmas. Can you tell? It’s the reindeer. They’re everywhere. Their antlers rising from car windows. Tiny Christmas trees. Those too. On these windows. These cars. Antlers and Christmas trees sprouting from the same window sometimes. Insane, I know. And wreaths. […]

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GWIL JAMES THOMAS – THE MOST MAGICAL THING TO HAPPEN ALL WEEK

The Most MagicalThing To HappenAll Week. In the kitchen at work,a gargantuandaddy long legs landsin the bug zapperto an electricdrum solo of death –as we watchits poor bodyget cocoonedby sparks,before splittingand melting betweenthe live metal bars,as we’re promptly toldto get back tothe chopping, washing,baking and the realityof our white tiled room –whilst we sniff atthe […]

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