by Jide Badmus It’s a rainy morning.The earth breathescold on its citizens.I reach for a blanket offlesh that is unavailable. The room is filledwith pieces of you—strands of hair,vestige of scent,mirage of smile &a ghost of your voice.There is a depressionon your side of the bed—but these walls struggleto reconstruct memories.The mirror claims not torecall … Continue reading Cold Room
by Sarah Prindle The sky is grey and heavy with unshed tears. Stay still as the rain pours down, cool crystal droplets falling to earth upon our heads washing away dirt and sweat, a blessing a baptism a brand-new life. & & Sarah M. Prindle Sarah M. Prindle received an Associate’s Degree in English from … Continue reading Rainfall Baptism
by Jen Mierisch I. In the nineteen-eighties, my parents’ house collapsed. Stubbornness split its beams, conflict cracked the foundation, friction wore away its floors. Walls rotted from the constant floods of bitterness and disenchantment. A lack of upkeep may have been to blame, or maybe its materials were mismatched, failed to fit, could hold no … Continue reading The Ruins
by Patrick Karl Curley memories of you before you’re gone; dried petals on the windowsill crackling on the breeze tiny sparks of burning chaff glitter in your eyes light that ripples on loneliness in company by a purling brook & & Patrick Karl Curley Patrick Karl Curley is a poet and performance artist from Sligo, … Continue reading Three Haikus
by Seth Jani No more do the animals routin darkness. They go before usblind and ecstatic, carrying theirprimal secrets.We lose everything with their power.The shine of otherness is our only heart.We cast the fishing line and pull upold tires. It’s not funny like in the movies.This world is unbearably sad.My niece will never knowthe true … Continue reading One Precious Stone
For Cody, for me RECIPE FOR DEAD BROWNIES Buy a box of brownie mix. Set aside the ingredients. Fill the empty box with dirt. Bury the box. Combine ingredients above your brownie box grave. SONG TO LET GO Catch some wind in your hands. Sing a sad song to the wind. Release the wind when … Continue reading Grief Fruits by M.L. Rengots
by Grace Gilbert i. the mind is a room, &&&&&a child against the window listening for snow ii. drowned boy, still missing: &&&&&smooth stone in god’s deep pocket this wet, joyless thing iii. a sunken landscape &&&&&the animal within me makes space for meaning iv. grief lives within me &&&&&a bumblebee trapped between two strong … Continue reading Haiku on Grief
by Sarah Marquez I wonder when it will be my turnto introduce my shadow to the family,my mama in her ideal world–of good men versus bad men,us versus them. Or when the teal dresshung in the closetwill see light. * In the mornings, I prepare timelike a meal.Press preserved breathesbetween my hands.I don’t have many,so, … Continue reading Shadow as Time Swallower
by Brett Stout After she annexed her existenceandthe Crimea, confessions as oxymoron’swere writtenin dead languages onblank Post-It Notesleft in empty carriagesas thebroken dams filled withneon ghetto trashcansand urban rodent predators weresprayingdesigner cologne onme and inthe pages ofmonthly corporate familymagazines, celebrate the revolutionwith blood soaked handsand pinwheelsof death and mass genocide, yellow ochreprimary redblackandlime greenpaint strokes … Continue reading From Being Stalingrad to Nothingness
To remind you how long before whitebecomes invisible –you fold this dish clothover and over as if each splash is wiped with a cry making roomthe way an old love song turns the worldstill from inside, lowers it into this sink though you reach down for the armthat was everything –it’s a ritualwhere after every … Continue reading Poem by Simon Perchik
Dream Noir 