By: The Rhapsodist EVERY GIRL-CHILD IS A PETAL OF WITHERED FLOWERS There were nights I saw my sister eating herFingernails, drinking from her teardrops as theyRolled down her eyes, down her cheeks_ intoHer mouth. She would stay awake all night,…
By: Ian C Smith She says something about money. Wary as a sidestepping crow, I know I should pay attention after cowering from her furious silences. Nightfall, wind creaking in the cracks, scenes from our fenestrated past blind turn around…
By: Jim Bates Springtime misting rainTender garden shoots reachingThirstily drinking. Finch and CardinalSinging songs of sunny joyMusic for the soul. Apple tree bloomingLazy sunshine drifting throughCanopy of calm. Tree Swallow flyingAerial acrobaticsCarnival of flight.
By: Virginia Aronson Kitchen Pirate (Anthony Bourdain, 1956-2018) If I’m unhappy,it’s a failureof imagination. The epitome of coolmen wanted to be himwomen wanted to bed himbooze and smoking and agelooked good on himeveryone knewhis craggy facehis TV showshis deep-felt loveof…
By: James Aitchison Is life day or night? Is new blood morevaluable than old? Is there any soil more sacredthan the soul in which to plantlove and truth? Is what we leave behindmore important thanwhat we have taken? Smooth is…
By Anna Cates A faint mist, reeking of swamp rot, hovered above the boreal gulag. The remainder of charred trees rose from the muck like middle fingers raised in defiance to a long-forgotten god. Ten thousand years would pass before…
By: Carl Papa Palmer Hooked Kristy sent an email, said click this linkfilling my screen with a YouTube videoof a fish in a fishbowl for nine secondsbefore flashing to view kites crashing. Watching, fascinated, fixated, besiegedby nine second clips of…
By: Christopher Johnson Travis Monroe settled into the coach seat, which felt unutterably soft and plush and luxurious. He waved to his parents standing on the platform immediately outside the window of the train, and they waved back. His mother…
By: Abubakar Auwal ecdysis of green flowers finalist BKPW Contesthere— an image of motherland is tuned from the rhythmof our greened fur; a convolvulus one, taking flightto where we plant our names, flower the smiles of gods & metaphorsinto anything…
By Thomas M. McDade I thought I’d regret skipping a goodbye visit to the Windburn Barn so better safe than sorry I drove there. I figured a bunch of college kids would have rented it by now but there were…