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: Brooksie C. Fontaine The young woman had an unfortunate pageboy haircut that didn’t at all flatter her rotund face, somewhat emphasized by her slightly bloated skin. The pale, ashen clay of her complexion made her resemble the moon. “She…

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 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…