By: Joe Barca There’s a certain heartbreak in clothesthat lay folded too neatly, in a wardrobethat’s missing an owner, in a ghost thatinhabits a closet. He lives in a home that is wounded. The floorboards are quietly weeping. He is half…
By: Joe Hefta Lately I’ve been keepingTo myself, broodingDown in the basementDown in the workshopLooking over my tools andWondering, worrying whatWould you do with this or that.With suspicion. The awlBecomes a cause for concern.The tape measure has alwaysBeen threateningIf you had…
By: Fred Chandler In Sequester When the lone eyeCaught those childrenBowing their headsIn a blur of a shadowIt was of some signOf an equinox passingNo squeals or laughterJust silence of sleepingIn white beds still madeStill birds frozen flowers ### Intense…
By: Monica Carroll Skin burn scar made Must. Slower at the tail. Nerve gives out, then I rush. Feel slower. We’re after second, not third. The kickback still surprises me. Who is pushing who? The skin or the steel? Hold…
By: Sarah Lao In/Retrograde Say it is night, and outside, there is a man lying dead under the streetlamp. Skin tight jaundice stretched over tissue/socket/bonelike the dried pulp of paper-mache, there’s hyacinth blooming from skull—an expired milk carton evaporating to…
By: Linda Imbler Walking Alongside My Pen Blue inked penMy favorite tool.I, writing thoughts with coolmeanings unlocked,senseless garbling overruled.Mood on the upswing,old versions slipshod,new directions taken,my final declaration.Best grammar roped in,bad syntax shakenwords skip down the sidewalkbypassing all mind blocks.Maybe…
By: Sunil Sharma The sunset on a clean beach is a haunting poem. Dad said once. I could not understand then. Now, I do. Indeed. Such a sunset is sublime…like poetry. The lines flow. The colours, vivid, fuse. Energetic. It is…
By: J.L. Smith America America a patchwork quilt, a coat of many colors, unravels at the seams. Frayed edges, bare in patches across its broad surface. Fabric squares, once crisp, cobbled from many origins, promised comfort for all who sought…
By: Cynthia Pitman The Girls of Summer Splayed on striped towels,strapped tight in polka-dot bikinis gritty with sand,sweating from the sweltering heatand burning a crispy-crust redfrom the hot beach light of the white-bright sky, we lined up side-by-side,one after another,as…
By: Marc Carver BEAUTY I found the most beautiful woman I have ever seen she sits perfectly still all white. Even without eyesshe looks right at me.That face could tame men even make fools of them if she wanted.How could…