By: James Aitchison “The sanctity of the first uncorrected draft.” This, Jack Kerouac taught Allen Ginsberg. Well: weren’t they both daft? Not for Jack the careful fix, No, he wouldn’t need it; No moving finger canc’ling half a line; He’d…
By: Casey Robb September 1961 The storm is blowing in all black and swirly. I am dancing in the street, twirling, like the clouds. Carla has arrived. Her wind lashes my back, my yellow slicker flapping like a feral thing….
By: Paul Beckman 1 The noise in the closet keeps me awake. It’s not a noise I recognize so I call the desk clerk. He comes up to my room in quick time. He knocks; I open the door as wide…
By: Paul Beckman I almost passed my father on the subway (#6) this afternoon. I was moving—making room for the influx when the line stopped with me looking down at him. He was wearing a Yankees hat, a parka and…
By Art Gatti Shortly after arriving on Bank Street in Manhattan’s all-but-deserted West Village, I took on the family of a hippie earth mother from Princeton and we squoze into my tiny apartment and tried not to step on each…
By: Paul Beckman Sarah safety-pinned on her dress a piece of cloth from her mother’s apron, a corner off her father’s tallit, and a piece from her brother’s baseball uniform. Then, leaving the hotel, she took a cab to the synagogue….
By: Milton P. Ehrlich Ever since we parted, my throat is parched for your chocolate-covered cherry eyes that see what no one else can see—your mouth, the taste of a sea of mahogany mousse, and your belly button a bright red…
By: Austin J. Dalton This won’t be the last time. As is probably common, their romance begins as a friendship. The relationship is born in November and it will die in the coming September. Heretofore, J is acquainted with K –…
By: Brooksie C. Fontaine I woke up to find a bear in my bedroom. It took me a second to realize what I was looking at. The thing was an undulating mountain of coffee-colored fur, producing loud, eerily human snuffling…
By: Ellie Kelazil Betrayal I don’t remember who I am when my closest friends tell me they would leave me (because blood is thicker than water) and I find all my accusing fingers falling short of their target and pointed…