By Gil Hoy SometimesYou have to say Farewell to another To say helloTo yourself.
Poetry Posts
Conjuring Bread From Earth
By Pamela Wax —for Rob …at the still point, there the dance is. — T.S. Eliot There you are, baking breadbefore sunrise, kneadingits knots and sinews like a masseuse.You divine the dough’s perfect balancebetween a big-belly Buddhaand a contortionist, nudging…
Waking on My Birthday (After Liu Yong)
By George Freek The moon is a crooked thumbnail,clawing through a hollow sky.I stare at the stars,obdurate as quartz or leadlike the mattress of my bed.The moon is hidden bythe withering leaves of a tree.Sympathy is rare.Compassion is a mystery.I feel like the crumbling ruinsof a marker in a cemeteryto…
Failure to Fit
By Joan Mazza He said if you married a woman youngenough, you’d have time to mold her, fold herthe way you wanted. Origami tongue.He could train her like a vine, clipped and trimmedlike topiary. Mowed like a lawn.Younger was better, though a certain kindof clay was needed for her to…
A Statement on Religion
By James Croal Jackson Perhaps divinity is in devotion– pages of textover thousands of years, eternal ramblingin the clockwork ticking the days to etch instone the wings I’d searched away, blindfaith in running water, erosion of the endlessnights I’d stay awake to eke out meaning.
Who We Are
By Jimmy Pappas We are bats at the mercy of young boysthrowing baseballs high into the nightsky under a streetlight causing us to chaseafter the movement only to swerve awayat the last second still searching for moths. & We are magicians’ helpersprivy to the secretsbut never findingthe adulation we crave….
Memory with Water
By Jessie Raymundo For now let’s talk about sinkingcities, said my motherwho carries a pair of Neptunesin her eyes & paints about phantoms in Philippine poetry. Gravity is whenthe psychiatrist assessed you& heard a heart murmur like rain.In an instant, you were in the sea: a merman sticking his headabove…
Proofreading
By James Croal Jackson I know I know if I can understand you I am an asshole but I want you to do well I want you to write in the sunbarefoot on brick with…
Mementos
By Jen Drociak I’ve never been much of oneto collect or save mementos;intact slipper shells,angel wings,or even the elusive sea starwashed upon the rocky shore. a perfectly-rounded stonesmoothed by the pummeling ocean wavesor a piece of sea glass, once keeping time in a bottle. Nor even a flower, some may…
The Things We Owe Each Other
By Jimmy Pappas (This poem contains suicide.) Everyone owed me a call.That’s what she wrote,her suicide note of sortsposted on a sticky padattached to a boxof Christmas presentsshe never mailed out. That’s how it all works,isn’t it? We owe each otherthings: the book we borrowedlong ago that we kept holding…