by Olivia Austin How sweet, the words we write- Under tinted sun of gray. Sons of sons, unborn but ready To tell us our crimes. A glancing breath, The total of self ellipses our tongue And dies. Water, undropped. Every word around is tightening, Crown worn at our throats. To be given empty life Is the truth we cannot accept. These words…
by Vern Fein In his poem “How To Be A Poet,” Wendell Berry tells me to sit down and be quiet. Let my mind breathe. He lists everything I might bring— affection, inspiration, patience, growing older—and says we should doubt any reader who likes our work. Write without air-conditioning. Communicate slowly—there are only sacred places, nothing unsacred, but some desecrated…
by Nancy Byrne Iannucci Jim, my neighbor, is the village Sam Elliot, hair as thick as a horse’s mane and gray like a January day. He doesn’t have a mustache, but his cigar replaces the vacancy, floating in white clouds above his mouth. Circles of sweet smoke travel distances like a Sioux medicine man. He can heal…
by Robert Parry And suddenly he was awake. He looked at the clock on his bedside. It read three forty-seven AM. Nothing new about that. Must have been over twenty years since he didn’t have to get up at some point in the night to take a piss. But this…
by James B. Nicola I heard my mother’s voice today. Thanksgiving weekend. Ten years this January. My nephew played a very loving voice mail message from her he has kept on his cell phone ten years. My brother said he has kept three such messages. My nephew said he had another one and wept awhile. It made…
by Adonis Diaz When your doctor tells you “It’s time to get back on an antidepressant” You begin to wonder What you did wrong You begin to ask yourself If you can remember a time Where you felt joy Or simply okay You wonder if there was ever a time that you didn’t hear a hollow symphony Of…
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by Redde Michaels Ambrosia Espresso Aubergine such decadent mouthfuls of aural opulence designed for leisure – ripened plums spreading like silk across the tongue Cicada Adagio Susurrus ephemeral sustenance – arousing sighs of lovers cense and caress with a feather breath Petrichor Cinnamon Patchouli an unfettered display tracing temperance on the palate – unbound suspension of savor and spice Leather Caramel Lace …
by Gil Hoy On those windswept weekday mornings, asphalt driveway crusted with snow, my father would get up early, put on his secondhand boots and an old coat, and exit through our front door into the blue hour to get the motor running. That fifteen-year-old station wagon would stall if…
by Loralee Clark This grizzled orchard stares mute; brown-veined pirouettes caught in the swaying of stilled time amid lace-winged muck creeping in with hackberry queens, tawny fritillaries, and the ruddy daggers of decay. I study them: pallid vestals alone in the frost, unabashed in their spiky crystal embraces. If they long for orange-barred heat, quick and passionate to melt the rime,…