“Blue Harmony” by Claude Monet (1893) I’m a city girl, myself,grew up within spitting distanceof the George Washington Bridge,accustomed to the hulking gray of buildings, the rush of shoulders and elbowson crowded sidewalks, and strap-hangingon the subway back in my NYU dayswhen tokens were a quarterand Joseph Papp did Shakespeare in Central Park amid the… Read More “Rouen Cathedral, Morning Sun” by Donna Pucciani
Gathered debris blocks by bricks by bracket placement by brazen bravado mastering the art of evil eye penetration Six spent silver orbs tongue the ancient wound calcified and classified by distinction, rank, number, sign, sigil, creed, color, and other various degrees of cockamamie Velvet wonders and indigo skylines blue cotton candy in a daydream where… Read More “Of Shindigs and Hootenannies” by Scott Thomas Outlar
Waves of radiation unwrapthe pale of perspiring leaves.The hiss of a simmering noonmimics the drone of a machine.The hush of a breathless afternooncoalesce close by the skin.Smell of its whispering hangsin the particles of stupefied breeze.Lights inject entropy intothe pores of an indisposed day.On the parched tongue vaporized sweat abandons a saline taste.In an unconditioned… Read More “Summer” by Amit Shankar Saha
I am different from you as chalk is from cheese Accept… I cannot be you I think differently process information at different speeds adding filters in-between applying logic Stop trying to make me your clone Love doesn’t mean I agree with you whole Copyright © 2024 Snigdha Agrawal. All rights reserved.
Track trade.They made money andThey made money soWhere did the money come from?Economics isCrazy people being crazy.Do not let itGet out of the house.Copyright © 2024 Trade by Dominik SlusarczykAll Rights Reserved
From our first cryon a cold steriledelivery room tableto the last deep inhaleWe are all on a long dark trainWe stop get offstretch our legsWe get back onhoping for a better destinationWe stop to enjoya little life herea lot of life therealways aware that we are still on boardAt points in timethe engine is dragging… Read More “TRAIN STATION” by Thasia Anne Lunger
Scrawls inan old notebook – automatic writingfrom my own ghost, a message readtoo late. Copyright © 2024 Steve BrisendineAll Rights Reserved
It is holiday season every day when you care from a distance or in the arms of a treasure. There is no dissing those grand souls thrown upon a quest to buy a token of pleasure. In rags they dream for a moment of a smile they will soon see on the lips of a… Read More “Looking for Something to Give” by Fabrice Poussin
I was your obedient slave all my life,waiting for your embrace.But you had other lovers.You only stayed a few hours.Some loves aren’t meant to be,or so I thought.I’d given up on you.But last night you stayed. Sleep. Copyright © 2024 Nolcha FoxAll Rights Reserved
—Reflections and realizations on Climate ChangeWhether I come from the landof dark and coldthis late eve it is hard to tellwhich way the ocean does swell,I recognize that the lands do wanttheir own way with all of ustonight the seas do roaras the lighthouse searches for we that soarthere is a basilica just under the… Read More “SUNKEN BASILICAS” by Ray Whitaker
Nestled between rugged ridgesof jagged mountain range,a valley of peace presides.Rock runs deep here.Secrets in stone lie silent,as choirs of pine forestssing psalms to the windand eternity echoes—ancient voices,one prayer. Copyright © 2024 Diane FunstonAll Rights Reserved
Dark out at four p.m.the road a sheet of ice,cars snow-covered likeigloo huts; why go outside?Have to get grub at thestore, drag it back on thesled, the huskies like thework and the cold; I giveeach a pastrami sandwichon rye, their names areMutt & Jeff, their eyeslight up in the dark, theysleep beside my bed andthey… Read More “Mush!” by Wayne F. Burke
This time is a grained glasswhere memories becometranslucent.Darkness is a parchmentwhere past permeatesthe present.Our meeting the plasma,luminescent in lightmicroscope. Inside each membraneyou mitochondrialdynamo.Outside each cell the heatcombusts sleep and curessomnolence.This night is laparoscopicfor a lucid dream toperforate. Copyright © 2024 Amit Shankar SahaAll Rights Reserved
this forlorn looking guy around twenty, steps in front of me and says, “Please, man, help me out. I can’t stay here any longer. This place is too much for me. I need to get home but I don’t have enough money. Can you just help me out with a few dollars?” Checking him out… Read More “WALKING ON HAIGHT STREET” by Jeffrey Zable
I walk the shoresof the grandLake ErieShe pulses and pusheslife and energyThe synergy between water and sunI lovecollecting beach glassshiny pebbles and trinkets bathed cleanThe sound of wavescathartic and caringas they carry meon my trekI scrambletoward a specsomething differentonly to bedisappointedas I follow alongsomeheartless soul’sdebris trailI add it to mytrash bagCopyright © 2024 Thasia Anne… Read More “DEBRIS TRAIL” by Thasia Anne Lunger
Tell memy sorrow,How to restof life,tired,like a jewel thiefin a dead end.How to givesuch a poor guybroken hopesfull of regretsTo make him happy.Like in a cloudfull of rainy sorrowsI’m painting a rainbowfull of life’s joys.Tell memy sorrow.Copyright © 2024 Jasna GugićAll Rights Reserved
Wearing designer clothes and sleek jewelry, she traipses along willy nilly throwing golden kismet wherever whimsy calls.Some think luck chooses theirgoodness or hard work. Perhaps they were blessed at birth? The wise know luck wears a visor tripping over herself favoring both mean and lazy. Luck has a toxic twin called Misfortune covered with gloom.… Read More “Luck” by Joan McNerney
You can count the houses.Before you know it, you come toa vast, undeniable stop atthe last green lawn, last white fence,Throw in some trailers,four stores, a warehouse,a barn, and, with no morethan some elementary mathematics,you have a town neatlysummed up in your head.Everything along the one road.No side streets to complicate it.You can even imagine… Read More “THE SUM” by John Grey
Alice #1At 88Alice decidedto takea fitnessclass atthe localcommunity center when theyasked herfor thenumber ofan emergencycontact personshe saidjust callKloecker Funeralhome.Alice#2 she usedto feedall theneighborhoodcats andone dayI sawa possumon herporch nosein the bowl when Itold herabout itshe saidshe didn’tmind butAlice Isaid theyare sougly andscary looking Alice lookedat mehard andsaid Iam uglyand scarylookingand ifI washungry Ihope toChrist someonewould… Read More “Alice” by Matt Borczon
I watch the river rushing too fast to be caught in random patterns never looking back snaking through the grass and moss creating new paths like my train of thoughts whimsically changing course I cannot hold long The river and I have partnered in many things together ageing finding comfort in the thought soon we… Read More “Inconstant” by Snigdha Agrawal
As the parent who had saved up enough overtime to cash it in and take an entire year off I was also the parent responsible for child rearing Evelyn demanded me 24 hours a day I was happy to give her all that I was and all that I had I slept alone in one… Read More “Tired Mommy” by CLS Sandoval
My mother’s beige suitcase opened when she’s gone shows nothing. Outside, a leafless tree holds the echo of the world. Nothingness smells of mothball. I have my hands full with it, and I begin to understand what it feels to be a mother. Late that night, I swell up with umber milk. It flows, drowns… Read More “The Black Milk” by Kushal Poddar
A murderous moodEnveloped me in darkness.I wanted to kill you in any way I could.Stabbing, beating, shooting –All of them were good.A dose of poison in your Gatorade –Sweet cyanide on ice.The urge to smash your lying faceWas all the catalyst I neededTo form a plan that would suffice.And the sleek brunette you slept withWould… Read More “Love and Death” by Dawn Pisturino
The snow that never falls cannot assuage The sorrow of the autumn’s grim defeat There is no balm For open wounds No gilded cup To slake the dying season’s thirst No whispered words to quell the fear Of failing heart Forsaken soul Abandoned hope There is no honor in autumn’s demise In absence of the… Read More “The Snow That Never Falls” by Michael L. Utley
Chewers 