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 Alan Berger My pop told me instead of hanging on to crap, flush it. Got it? Yeah pop. My father was a cop. My father didn’t have a best friend. Didn’t need one, everyone was his friend, until they…

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: Alan Berger I could say that the reason I wear full upper dentures is because of my years as a boxer.Or, as I was doing 120 on Sunset Blvd, that I swerved as to not hit a baby bird…

By: Ramprasath “Walter!” Suzi almost yelled. Walter who was digging soil using a shovel now turned to Suzi. “What!” “It is going to be night soon” Suzi said. Walter looked up at the sky. The night was indeed falling. It was…

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: Mehreen Ahmed Not realising how fast time passed, Minah and Sidu, reached puberty more or less together. Short for Siddhartha, Sidu was Minah’s best friend. Their favourite pastime was hanging out in their old haunt, the mango grove by…

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…