by Rahad Abir It was a fine morning on Sunday, the first day of the work week, and should be rush hour in Dhaka—loud and boisterous, traffic both on the streets and sidewalks, and different confusing lines of waiting-to-board people, occupying half of the streets. But today, the streets looked…
By Donnarkevic I recognize the black balloons, the same kind used at the office party for my fiftieth birthday. Now sixty, I expected something more creative: black homburgs, melanistic leopards, caviar. I would have settled for farfalla schwarz (black bowtie pasta). Instead, I got first pick from a six-foot sub, Black…
By Cameron Burry “How to Pick Your Dream Profession” By Julian Flowers To find your dream profession, you need to find your passion. What is it that you want to do with your life? Why is that what you want to do? Do you only want a paycheck or is…
By Robert Hicks I expect you to explain it in terms I can understand she told me and I took a moment and looked around at the 4 or 5 stars winking and the smell of city and the sound of traffic and an all-night fiasco writhing on its side…
By Jenny Andrews Thank you all for signing up for the Fourth Annual Revive Your Marriage cruise. You will acquire communicative intra and interpersonal interfacing strategies designed to maximize your marital longevity potential factor. Please refer to your participant participation packet. Within this packet you will encounter supportive statistical data,…
We recently asked writers to submit their holiday-themed haiku to The Penmen Review in celebration of today, December 22, which is National Haiku Day. Here are some of the best submissions: Auntie, In the Guest Room, With a Hamper Looking for places To hide that dreaded fruitcake: An annual…
Fate. Time. Occasion. Chance. Change. To these all things are subject. –– Percy Bysshe Shelley By Michael Keith Emil Barry had the usual debate with himself at the gym–whether to use the treadmill or elliptical machine. Each had its benefits, but the treadmill was less demanding, at least the way…
Sounds heard on a Sunday summer night By Sheikha A. were not coming from the very far beyond shushering hiss of the sea, footsteps heard in sloshes and splatters growing heavier by each advance of the heel. I won’t talk or pine about the moon so white, glaring eye of…
By Angela Carter It was a rainy Saturday morning. The kind of day that softens parents just enough to allow their children to wear pajamas until lunch and watch Fraggle Rock in numb silence for hours. Struck by the contrast of the utter stillness inside my grandparents’ home and the…
Thickly Settled By Christy Bailes Sadness blows west with air so dry I taste bitter dust mixed with tumbleweed and golden brush. What I lost has reversed direction, as if it were the last moment before death. Kneeling to tree roots in rich, summer earth, I inhale New England one…