Author: Heavy Feather

Fiction for Bad Survivalist: “If, Then” by Iryna Somkina

Prologue: SPLIT SECOND “I pierced it myself”. He lifted his shirt to prove it. We weren’t that close—not really. But we shared the same side of the joke more often than not. He once teased me for not getting a kiss I wanted. I got him back—called him by that dumb alias he picked up…
Poetry from the Future: “salamander exfil” by Dennis Hinrichsen

slept in the hostilewoke in the hostile buffalo nickel on a hard rail glooming more and morethe gesture jackals behind every door midnight moonlight with too much metal in it when will it be cowboy again? lariats of oxygenand a straight shot wordwordwordnot this crawl space antler cowering I am myself as potent as a…
Review: Matt Martinson Reads Kelly Krumrie’s Genre-Defying Book No Measure

I remember reading Martin Heidegger’s What Is Called Thinking? in grad school, with his near-constant refrain: “The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.” He saw a world in which human industry was advancing even as the ability or willingness to ask the big questions about life was…
New Poetry by David M. Alper: “Press 3 to Listen Again”

You have one new message. It came in at sunsetwhen the sky was a smeared fruit color. Hello. Here I am—your first language,the one you planted in the school playground,the rusty swing set, the dusk train stop. I remember your lips sometimes.When they were learning, they forgot me.How teeth molded me like freshly baked bread…
Poetry Review: Dawn Macdonald Reads Aisha Sasha John’s New Collection total

Aisha Sasha John is a dancer. Aisha Sasha John writes in ALL CAPS. Aisha Sasha John is a wise woman/wise guy; is funny/not funny. Aisha Sasha John is not on the Internet as much as you might expect for someone who writes as if large portions of the Internet are being continuously generated out of…
Haunted Passages Poetry: “Aubade to the Weight of a Soul in the Morning Air” by Jenny Maaketo

I packedso high in the lightI practice for whatuntil what is an objectTo cast becomes invisible To cradle light spindle refracts rays switchgrass the grass switch my wrist with you and to hold notuntil as lightly as I find I among the mountains air I will to be you here the cast touch is caught…
“Flag of the Patriot in the Country of Dignity”: Peter Mladinic Reviews Mark Danowsky’s Poetry Collection Take Care

In this world where there are more machines than at any time in history, and nuclear weaponry, and divisions between and within nations, the poems in Mark Danowsky’s Take Care, dedicated to the caregivers, are in their own way political. We hear them, see them, feel them. The thrust of some poems is vertical, others…
Fiction Review: Ria Dhull Reads Osvalde Lewat’s Novel The Aquatics

Osvalde Lewat’s debut novel examines the laws and social structure of Zambuena, the fictional African country within which The Aquatics takes place. Zambuena appears to be a thinly-veiled Cameroon, Lewat’s home nation; the fictional country and the real country have numerous similarities: a French colonial history, a Christian majority, ethnic diversity, and social restrictions, notably…
Three Original Poems by Choiselle Joseph

Hummingbird, or, First Blood at Witching Hour The night I first retched hummingbirdfeathers my mother said it was normal. Two a.m., both hands tremble-clingingto porcelain, the beak lodgedin my abdomen. Propeller wingsbuzzed against lining, bowlfilling with bile. She stroked my back, okra-slimylike a newborn’s cheek. Peachand lime-green clods of plumagelaunched from my throat. You get…