July 2010
12 posts
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by Stephen Harper
in contrast to your loger writing
Teep thoughts
by Lindsay Turnbull
Thin sheets, like leather whips, bring comfort to this twisted skin.
in new york.
by Claire D. Hawthorne the twinkling stars amongst us, parallel to those hanging by a string in the sky. with the lights and the sounds of the day echoing further into the night. the busy streets packed even further. with the stragglers of the day and the moon bearing down upon them all. each with a story to tell. the late-shift office workers just getting off from their daily...
i’ve thrown my inspiration the way of the broncos’...
by Roger Mugs
oh i write brilliantly when the sun has been hiding behind the clouds for months at a time and i’m frozen. my down jackets and extra layers of all-humanity-is-suffering-alongside-of-me socks bring out the best in my desire for clouds and trees and something which will bring me joy. the hope on the horizon of the summer they claim will come.
but then i up and moved to where the sun...
like geocities, this too shall pass
by Raf Montero
this electric column will never match the desire i feel to fill these lined acidic pages
She’s Leaving Home
by Ben Nardolilli
She’s leaving home, Going miles away Under the disguise Of a student learning, The only way they’d Let her out of the country. She sat across from me in a corner, I scraped the blade of the knife On the tablecloth, making impressions With my nervousness, our spare time. What’s wrong? I have been here before, A feeling, ”deja...
My Father Among The Chinese
by Russ Allison Loar
The Chinese children watched the funny fat American in the ridiculous sport coat try to blow up the balloons.
He was a tourist in his late 60s, wearing a gray floppy hat. His face was a fleshy sagging caricature of itself, accented by an unkempt bushy salt-and-pepper mustache intended to disguise the steady loss of masculinity from his features.
Someone back home had told...
Plum
by Chris Castle
Plum Cassidy hauled her ruck-sack from her bed and stuffed the train tickets into the side pocket. She looked over the list on her dresser and ticked the last box. All the while the Stooges were playing in the background; ‘TV Eye’ was playing when the first stones hit the window. Eve really did have the best timing.
“Hey, you hooligan! Quit throwing rocks at my property!”...
The Scarlet Letter
by J. Patrick Lewis
Pastor pesters Hester Prynne With an un- Original sin, Now remembered By an A- bominable red Letter day.
some thoughts
by Roger Friggin Mugs
you know it’s not everyday you start your own literary journal and get to writing. it could be, but it would catch up with you very soon should you start a new one even just a couple of days in a row.
because it’s altogether not common, you need to take advantage of it when you can and feel free to write something filled with the brilliance of a thousand slow...
Again / De Novo
by Hugh Fox
Beginning again, escaping from the kings/ emperors, killing the indigenous peoples, finishing with the gods of earth and sky, rebringing back some mistaken forms of Latin (or Anglo-Saxon mixed with Chaucerian French), bringing back the crucified ghosts, a miraculous mother without a flesh and blood lover, always three in one God, the cathedral in the cente, the palace of the ...
I saw your face rise
by Erika Ostergaard
I saw your face rise, like the moon in a cloud cuddled sky, off the couch back after tea. We’d just shared peppermint, a zingy sinus tap, pre-bed. We’re already in pajamas, though, not quite, yet, resigned to the loss of sight in sleep.
June 2010
16 posts
Debut
by Eric G. Müller
I sat at the back of the packed hall, waiting for my turn to perform a duet with the resident flautist. We were last on the program, the highlight of the evening – the finale. It would be my formal debut into the new school community, both as a teacher and accompanist. It would also be my debut playing a classical piece after ten years of rock and roll, but that bit of info I...
Sonnets in Search of Longitude
by J.R. Pearson If you’re just joining us… Welcome to the scene of the crash. To the longitude ticking seconds off held breath. Water measured on fingers. To precise understandings of thunder heads grinding sky & flashes of geode silhouettes pushed inside out in your eye. For an easier analogy: count thoughts gone wind-tilt & swallowed cyclones resurrecting...
Advice
by Gary Beck
There is hope of ease from life’s gift of pain, if we aspire to the sacred and control the profane.
Highway Snobbery
by Jack Chavoor
I pretty much felt cured of any lingering traces of snobbyocity until I saw a Taurus this morning
September 2009
I was driving to work and I saw a Ford Tarus, kind of shiny. Who buys a Taurus? Are they still making them? Would anyone own one besides my 83 year old mother in law? Maybe all Tauruses are owned by 83 year old mothers in law, and it’s right there in the owners...
Nightmares
by Ginger Snapped
I hate when I dream about you, waking up with your face bright in my vision, like the cold edge of the knife you buried in me. secrets, years, and conversations wasted these scars you carved upon my psyche. wasted on loving you, and you know I was the only one who ever really did. I am still the only one who ever really knew you. And I have shut the door on best friends, on...
Reversible
by Karen Schulte * It is barely there the sky, I mean, it is a streak of pewter, the color of my teapot, a battered vessel of early morning reverie. * The sky is a polished sheen of grey; it reveals nothing of itself; I reveal almost all there is to say.., perhaps, more. * The teapot hums its ancient song; water boils ...
Plastic Shoes
by Denise Falcone
Aunt Liz brought her new beau into our backyard by tugging him by his shirt. He was afraid of our dog Buff, but she wasn’t letting go of this one.
Walter. That’s right, Walter was his name and he had black patent leather hair and lots of it too. My sister Mamie thought he was Puerto Rican.
“Are you Puerto Rican?” she asked indelicately.
“Hell no,” he said...
The Yearbook
by Denise Falcone
Sheila pulled a couple of cans out of her gym bag and from a box in the back of her closet, our old elementary school yearbook. I think I had thrown mine away. We lied on her lavender and white bed with the purple heart-shaped velvet pillows and even though the beer was as warm as pee from being socked away for two days, we pretended to be drunk and laughed like crazy at...
Clearwater River
by Jen Stoddard
Beautiful mountain tops surround these forested hills as birds sing and sounds of this river brings peace. My only thought: to find the right fly clever enough to fool a fish on this day. Movement, all in the wrist, straightens the line. The fuzzy fly rides atop rolling rapids of cool clear water. The line suddenly tightens, a fish snags. Fly rod bends, my ...
Exodus 10.1-10.20
By Neil Sand
Crops in the fields, Spiteful jealous Christian God; Here come the locusts.
Downstairs Neighbor Ben and The Girlfriend
by Thomas Mundt
Downstairs Neighbor Ben and The Girlfriend are fighting again. This time it’s about how Downstairs Neighbor Ben hasn’t paid his union dues and has about a month to pony up or he’ll no longer be recognized as an electrician by the State of Illinois. The Girlfriend thinks this is a bad situation to be in, considering Downstairs Neighbor Ben hasn’t found a gig in three weeks and...
The Elves
by David Fox
Once upon a starry night Some elves came out to play They sang, they danced, they frolicked, And some might even say They partied on ‘til sunrise, Until it was dawn, For at that very moment I binked and they were gone. Elves are just imaginary At least that’s what others say But I know they’re for real, For I saw them at play.
A Whim
By Edward Rodosek
Creator uttered a deep sigh, yawned, and gloomily looked around.
“What’s eating Thou?” Spir asked him.
“I’m dying of boredom,” Creator said and added an indecent word.
“How Thou could be bored?” Spir was astonished. “Thou are almighty, Thou could do everything, and nothing would happen without Thou would allow.”
“Yeah, that’s all...
Montauk Highway Madness
by Robert Phelps
For a reason for which I have no clue, I find myself when driving, sneaking a peek into the windshields of cars coming the other way, as if seeking to find some sort of communion with the face in the opposing windshield;
I’d like to pretend that the banality of the grimace, or lifeless gaze of the oncoming motorist is merely a self defense against her being exposed as a tragic...
Ben John NeSmith’s Top Five Haunted Places in the...
by Karl Koweski
Editor’s Note: Originally Ben John intended to make this a top ten list, but while investigating spectral voices in the Hopewell area woods, he came across Calroy Holley, owner/proprietor/chief chemist of the Gaitlin Mountain Crystal Meth Lab. Calroy shot NeSmith in the chest with a .12 gauge, killing the hell out of him. At night, meth cooks claim hearing his voice in the wind,...
Somewhere On Fifth Avenue
by Anne Mikusinski
Somewhere on Fifth Avenue I stop, To catch my breath And get my bearings Wondering how it is that You hold me in thrall Each time our paths cross, Whether we speak or not. Why there is that moment when Everything goes still And It’s just you and I. Until I remember who you are (and who I’m not) And what you have (and what I don’t) Then suddenly...
May 2010
16 posts
Boots Standing In Nothing
by Tyson Bley
He used to be friendly to fish, walked around with a cheekful of them, never swallowed, no sir – just promenaded around supermarkets and other hostile places with them in his mouth, a fan of What Does Not Exist captured on the large Polaroid, captured like a cave with a tail grabbed by the tail – dragged into their sweet midst because you know, they had roots here, and...
Yield
by Kenneth P. Gurney
Delphi made copies of all my poems then went about the neighborhood planting the pages in local gardens. I fear they will not grow as they are not desert poems and this is New Mexico. She believes they will grow frightfully tall as they are poems and what they need is wind, not rain, and we have plenty of that.
Baking Cookies
by Janet Yung
I attribute my culinary abilities to my mother’s calamitous kitchen adventures, years spent trying to put together meals both “interesting” and “nutritious”. Until exposed to other households where pans were not routinely set on fire or pie crust overworked so that coming out of the oven they were almost inedible, and better suited to resole a pair of shoes, none of us knew the...
reflections of a superhero
by RC Ribay
the bank teller from last month: a gun pressed to his temple eyes closed he trembled like a leaf trying to put bills into a bag i have a wife, three kids…please… i approached noiselessly said something witty, something dark and before the crook could turn in surprise i snapped his neck his body fell to the floor in a heap thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou said the teller. the other day...
Yum Yum Noises
by Ricky Garni
I imagine a terrific suspense movie, and the kitchen is filled with cookies. Every time something awful is about to happen, someone says, “I could use a cookie.” The others agree and forget about everything else including suspense and everything. The next thing you know everyone’s moseying into the kitchen and grabbing a cookie from a big stack of cookies. Everybody is eating...
Steelheaded
by William Doreski
At school I discover my hair has turned a dark rusty brown textured like old steel shavings from the arson of the machine shop in Powder Hollow in the Sixties. The pain of that fire still lingers in my joints. A propane tank exploded twenty feet from me as I wielded a three-inch hose, and half a mile away my father tumbled from bed, thinking the world in self-pity had blown...
Catching the light
by Cath Barton
I saw Joan Crawford last night. She was the ringmaster at the circus. Yes, for real, not like in that film.
Me and Effie were walking down Mid Street when I saw the poster. Fluorescent, shining at us out of the grey of the Highland afternoon. “Edwards’ Famous Circus: One Night Only.” Eff stopped dead. Like she’d seen a ghost. Well, you’re heard of Edwards’ Circus, haven’t you....
Back into the luggage
by Michael Estabrook
I had 2 copies of my latest poetry broadside out and ready: 4 heartfelt romantic poems gushing with love for my wife, nestled among roses on pretty yellow paper. I wanted more than anything to give a copy to her and to her best friend while we were all comfortably together on the last night of our vacation before flying back home in the morning. I was eager for them to feel...
Saints In Waiting
by Russ Allison Loar
If we were saints Living the lives of abandoned insects Under parked cars With our antennae finely tuned Into God’s frequency, We would praise the glories Of our tiny lives, The stray fast-food crumbs, A patch of dew-laden crabgrass. Behold this mighty river of asphalt, My children, And fear not the larger beasts. We are the chosen, And through our selfless...
The Internet as a Tool for Peace-Making
by G David Schwartz
I.
Almost twenty years ago, my daughter Sara wanted to subscribe to an online service. It was a term that meant nothing to me. Online, it turned out, meant you did things on your telephone line. But what goes through your telephone is not your voice, but things you type on your computer. I was happy to have a $3000.00 typewriter. It seemed silly to me why anyone...
The Dealmaker
by Erica L. Windle
Sweat rolled down Sunny’s back as she inhaled deeply on the cheap cigarette she was smoking. Since her mother killed herself, she had been forced to start smoking generics. They tasted like shit, but it was easier to smoke them than to quit altogether.
The afternoon sun blared down from the sky hatefully, but Sunny made no move to return to the air-conditioned house. As hot...
vision
by Lauren Hughes
every now and then I have this vision of us on some future night, sharing farewells across barstools and whiskey when I finally come clean; and call me a coward but honey you know you know I won’t give in until my last chance cause I walk through this world alone beside my pride, the same as you. and all these years I spent waiting for that moment, they’ll pour out...
A Shred of Innocence
by Konstantinin L. Gelante
Though light shone through the windows of your house, on Fridays we’d escape; (ignoring the weather). Hurry through fields with automatic sprinklers trying to escape the encroaching dark. Longing for the sunshine we knew would expose our every sin.
Born Again
by A.O. Laris Shunned. Exiled. Despised. Hated. Trembling through long tunnels of despair a lost soul counts each brick, made of every misery known. Enduring all that time could lay upon the shoulders, the weight became too much, and the thought of the sun rising to glare upon yet another day of pain became a thought of dread. Long and sullen the ages became the eyes, and the hollow stare...
B.O.D.
by L. Johnson
It’s a horrible feeling to wake up not knowing where you are, or how you got there. I know-it happened to me. I didn’t know where I was, or how long I’d been there. I knew I’d been asleep, but for how long, I didn’t know. I was sweating profusely, my sense of space and time completely gone. ‘What the hell’s going on here,’ I thought. To my left, there were banks of machines, their...
dreams of a secure future
by Roger Mugs
in kindergarden we learned to sit in semi-circles ignoring those around us for the sake of the leader mindlessly following hoping the economy holds together.
April 2010
16 posts
Infinite wisdom
by Roger Mugs
Grilled cheese is just a gringo way to say quesadilla.
More submissions this week. That’s a good thing. But we were one good one shy of a full deck. Don’t forget to submit yours.
Numbers
by Erik Thornquist
Get the actuary on the phone. He (and it has to be a guy) has every thing divided in that ‘one for you, one for me’ style which fails to account for a different kind of error. Say the mill goes bust. A kid sees the layoff in his father’s eyes and rides across town on a second hand BMX that was last year’s Christmas. In his hand a rock as jagged a...
I Am an Old Man Now
by Ellen Dukes
I am an old man now. I am the chair in the room Where I am sure I will cut my soul from me. I am an old man now. I know comfort, grainy as sugar in my blanket. The granules become my skin and wear trenches where sweat can form rivers And the faulty dam of my downy hair knows no roots. I am an old man now. My dog grows flowers next to the porch, flowers that have...
Extract from Unfinished Project, Chapter 3
by Paul M H Buvarp
“I think I’ve been here once before.” Cecilia says, looking around. We’re seated at a table for two at a small, dress-down café in my neighbourhood. It’s the kind of place where you order a ceasar salad and green tea. In the back there is a lounge section with bookshelves and a small - no, tiny - stage. The books have worn pages and scratched...
Write with me!
by Collin McClarnie
I know that this fire
Will subside, at some point
I think… I also think not
Our love is a product of, of everything. Did we make these moments, or just write them once we found ourselves in them. I can not believe that we could have created them, and I know that I could not have written them so beautifully with anyone else. It’s your hand in mind –with fingers interlocked,...
Poetic in no way at all
by Russell Weil
The second worst way to begin any epic tale is with the words “Once upon a time…”, and while I’m unsure of the worst I can be fairly certain it has nothing to do with describing what the princess is wearing.
Leather pants.
I discovered her on the ides of July sometime after most morning-only kindergartens let out and it was immediately obvious her pants...