Poem
The Day After
Puma Perl
The Day After
My messages
all sound the same.
I’m sick
I can’t believe it
I’m crying
I don’t know what to do
All of us caught,
unprepared, unarmed.
Yesterday,
I deliberated for hours,
trying to cho...
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Poem
The Elephant’s Tale
Maggie Dubris
THE ELEPHANT’S TALE
An excerpt from BrokeDown Palace
But what was it like, really?
Those wild west, blow-your-head-out times that everyone wishes they were a part of.
Like a pot, like a plow
"There was hero...
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Poem
A Glance Like Flashing Lightning
Marc Olmsted
"Homage! Tara, swift, heroic!" - Chapter III, Tara Tantra
Facebook cyber-chat filled with bad
news and petitions
My answer to depression is
sleep and caffeine, whichever works first
Still. I shake off the blue...
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Classics
The Twilight of Freedom, a poem by Osip Mandelstam
Jenny Wade
Let us praise, brothers, freedom’s twilight,
The great diminishing year!
A heavy forest of nets is lowered
Into the turbulent waters of night.
You are ascending in desolate years,
Oh sun, judge, people.
Let us prai...
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Story
A Christmas Miracle, Sort Of…
Ron Kolm
It’s a cold morning, two weeks before Christmas, and I’m walking across 57th street on my way to work when I noticed him up ahead, shuffling along the curb -- silver hair, blue jacket and white sneakers – not dressed f...
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Writing
Three Poems by George Wallace
George Wallace
These three poems will appear in George Wallace's latest book, "Shadow of the Slow Decline" (Blue Light Press, SF Ca), scheduled for release in the spring of 2017.
SHE LIVES IN A LITTLE PLACE OF BOATS
Like a...
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Story
Once Upon a Time in the East Village
Jim Feast
Clarissa felt as if she had gone from starving on a diet of bread and water to gorging on a bountiful smorgasbord. In Oblong, where she grew up, any glimmerings of culture were hard to discern. Her one friend in school, a f...
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Writing
Killing the Dogs of Kathmandu
Jason DeBoer
Killing the Dogs of Kathmandu, by Jason DeBoer
An excerpt from Annihilation Songs: Three Shakespeare Reintegrations, available now from Stalking Horse Press
Editor's Note: This is one of the more interesting pieces that...
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Story
The Swimmer
Liza Béar
New York, July 1 2016. We’d arranged to meet in the lobby of her hotel, a newfangled glass & steel construction with river views and sports facilities. Seated with chin propped on fist, almost in a Rodin Le Penseur pose, w...
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Story
Dr. B. Said
Larissa Shmailo
As I contemplate my treatment by the psychiatrist J. B. M.D. over a span of twenty years, I recall some of the things the good doctor said and did.
Dr. B. of Connecticut, of the upper classes.
Who carried bedpans as an...
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Poem
Two Poems by Stephen Berk
Stephen Berk
The Family Tree
To all the sons and all the daughters of all the mothers and all the fathers who blessed their children with the demons that drove them to greatness:
Happy Mother’s Day Mother, this two-dollar gift ca...
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Story
The End of The World
Vincent Zangrillo
New York City—8/8/84—Day to Night
Mark wanted to see how fast he could burn through the 10,000 dollar inheritance from Grandpa Dave, who sold schmatta to Hendrix on St Marks, and who despite his gnomic wisd...
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Poem
The Large Ladies of Lands’ End and L.L. Bean
John J. Trause
The Large Ladies of Lands' End and L.L. Bean
"I have been heavy and had much selecting."
--Gertrude Stein, Lifting Belly [1915 - 1917]
Because I am not satisfied by the limited palette of...
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Story
SLEET
D. James Smith
Sleet, the first he’d seen in California, and not much of it at that. At five thousand feet in February, it made sense, though. Nosing along in his pickup, he’d traced the lake created by Pacific Gas and Electric, part...
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