Gabriel Olearnik
Outlanders are the salvation of shapes
the tailored jut of shoulders
the square thighs
face-handlebars
centaur-pilots half a century ago. [Read more...]
Tumult
Absent Friends
Fiorella de Maria
For the staff and sisters of the St Joseph Hospital, Jerusalem
I never thought I would be too afraid
To contact an old friend. My hand reaches
For the telephone but I find myself drawing
Back in case the lines have been torn down
Or your number belongs to a stranger now,
Speaking a language I cannot share. And
For all I know, the letter I keep trying to write
Will be left on a doorstep without a house
Left standing behind it. Or it will lie in some
Depot somewhere with all the other post
Whose owners are not there now to lay
Claim to them. [Read more...]
This Is Only a Test
Roger Mitchell
If the TV stares back in blank silence without even so much as a message from our sponsors, do not take it askance. Black static flies like a flag over this age. Salute and report for duty, be distracted, for to be distracted is the noblest aim (so long as GDP is not impacted). [Read more...]
Pity
Sarah Gajkowski-Hill
and we were supposed to recognize this dank silhouette: He--mottled, knotted, screaming shrugged into a lice and tick-eaten rag, wrapped tightly in her unwashed hair? light emanated from his bare footsteps his progress spreading a dim glow miles around, energy prompting boats he stood on to push themselves into the middle of lakes [Read more...]
Still to See
Abigail Swift
I didn’t notice the trees hard-etching the empty November sky as vividly last year. My eyes were elsewhere, and my body a year less tired, less worn, and yet less stripped of the weight that gathers in those long blind years when we feel most wise. [Read more...]
Tears
J.B. Toner
This vale, tsunami-wracked and deluge-filled,
A rocking isthmus ringed with roiling foam,
And huddled under sobbing heavens’ gloam,
Where arks and barks beneath the dark we build,
To fare on tear-seas over earths we tilled
In warmer days before our sunlit home
Was swallowed up to lie with salted bones
Far, far below the stormclouds stirred and spilled—
Charybdis-whirling, roaring, plunging, curled
By moon-pull in a towering lonely tide,
This watered globe, this sorrow-soaking world: [Read more...]
Winter Rain
J.B. Toner
A sad grey dawning, this; a sad grey cloud Bemists the morning’s eye with doleful mirk; And under dreary treetops’ drizzling shroud, Bedraggled crows in lonely murders lurk. The whiskey's all but spent, the wine is lost; The beer-fen on the bare cold floorboards molders; The fridge holds half a jar of apple-sauce; The last butt in the brimming ashtray smolders. [Read more...]
Roads Walked and Barred
David Landrum
1. I pray for him each morning. Denied a place where my virginity could flourish, I became obedient to a husband who joked on our wedding night how I had narrowly escaped having my pretty little thing locked up where no one could enjoy it. [Read more...]
Pride
Gabriel Olearnik
Adebanke
Where are you?
My child my child my daughter
Ade with the cat’s eyes
Where are you?
You were walking amid the marrow-grass and asphodel
When the fronds came between you and the tribe
Now the sun sets
and the red roars begin [Read more...]
Mesquite
Kate Bluett
The mesquite is not a tree although it can be climbed. There was one on the playground, and the pretty girls claimed it for their own. They laughed among its leaves of lace while we less-favored sweated in the sun. [Read more...]
