by Anthony Mohr In 1961, when I was fourteen, downtown Los Angeles was a gritty place to flee at sundown, full of drunks, addicts, and prostitutes. My pal Robbie wanted to take me there. He loved it. He’d walk down Main Street, wander through pawn shops, and meet what, many…
by Julie Worsham (This poem contains sexual abuse and self-harm.) Man, I don’t wanna go to this class todayThe teacher’s always talkin’ bout how I need to apply myselfI guess she don’t understand how badly I want to fade awayJust curl up in my bed, cover my head, and forget…
by Brian Reickert The sun flicked offlike it was on a switch,and the darknessand the cold were instantand absolute. No one expected it to happenlike that, not one.An event utterly without precedentor warning. Every law and book, everyprophecy and prayer,every theory and model, alloverturned and swept away, and no one…
by Thomas Weedman It starts when I lose my keys at work and unexpectedly find K in my apartment bed. She’s a nubile barista I serve coffee with. She’s half my age and size, part-time bassoonist, but like me, a full-time flirt. Out-of-my-league, she and her touch-me-please mestizo skin are…
by Adrienne Monestere She was carvedfrom wooden shaftsof blackwood and pink ivory,mulched and pulpedin collated swank.From bolted margins she’s parted from her shieldrebelling against the jotter, torn to an asphalt schoolyard,mutilated to a ball, beaten and launchedwith their wooden bats, smashed in a recess game.Humiliated, frightened, risingthrough ridicule, she lies wrinkled,rumpled and tramped. She limps towards…
by Antonio Eramo I wake to clanging bells behestand rush to places I detestI pour my roaring youth awayentrapped in “no” from yesterday to know thyself is just a conI knew her once and now she’s gonethe same paths as the day beforeI walk today and feel unsure
by Aysel Atamdede A single spotlight pans across the empty stage, a pale circle of light in an otherwise blackened room. Beyond, the auditorium sits silent, the seats waiting to be filled. On the stage, a solitary dancer stands at the ready. Clad in a dress of midnight blue, she…
by daria smith giraud My beaded bob clang like percussive clear quartz crystalsagainst the humming of taxi hornsair lifting my body on small brick fencesLeaping from curbed sidewalks into the air I loved New York in the summerTimes of music, drums in the park,rays pizza, papaya dogs and orange juliusNighttime…
by Eliza Astère the skies of June are tied to my heart with a dainty silver stringeach grey cloud misty on her owngrieving the loss of the earth as it was knownwhile silver linings flourish like flowers deep in sorrowso goes my gloom, in a promise:may the hopes yesterday guide…
by DC Diamondopolous Pa decided to join the Bonus Expeditionary Force. After dropping Ma and the youngsters off at Uncle Vernon’s, he let me ride the rails with him from our home in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, all the way to the Washington Freight Yard. Pa and thousands of other veterans were…