Category: Poetry

Side A Poem: “Middle Pain” by Naomi Bess Leimsider

Middle Pain Up against the faceless ghost clock again. Time is of the essence. Waiting for the one-sided middle pinch, that sets it all in motion. Cycle in. Cycle out. So, so smooth the way it sheds and grows. How it all goes. The inner mechanism slows and shifts. Only able to harness stillness, can’t…
Dan Alter: Three Poems for Haunted Passages

[When didn’t I know] When didn’t I know about the ashes, the attack dogs. We breathed itin & out like gray moths beating on smudged glass. Numberscheaply inked in the butcher’s arm who sliced kosher beeffor my father. The war ended, grass grew back over pits outside Kiev. Marcu walked toward Harry with his arms…
New Side A Poetry: “The Bird’s Heart Stilled by the Roar of the Inferno” by Nwodo Divine

The Bird’s Heart Stilled by the Roar of the Inferno*For Ikenna, whose father was killed in a Boko Haram terrorist attack. He used to call me his little eagle. He’d hoist me high on his shoulders. From that perch, I could see the line where the burnt sky met the thirsty land. He said an…
Five Unfinished Poems for Edward Hopper: Haunted Passages by Matthew Thorburn

—Gas, oil on canvas, 1940 1. This gas man seemslike a banker in his darktie, brown vest, brilliantwhite shirtsleeves,his jacket maybe slung over a chair in the smallwhite station. He tidiesthe rack of oil cans.Turns them label-side out.Bald, unsmiling, alone, not lonely, he lookslike you. And the redenamel pumps waitin silence, heads turnedto look for…
Side A Poem: “Wandering” by Peter Leight

Wandering (Sailing) It’s a small boata child among boatsit only takes a second to walkfrom the front of the boatto the back and backagain under slender stringsof smoke rising over the boatover the water spreadingash on the waterholding onto the ropesto keep them from flappingor lifting sheets of smokethat soften without accumulatingor dissolving while the…
Haunted Passages Poem: “In the Dark” by David Cazden

Doctors gaze at Mom’s CAT scanthe way astronomers lookbetween galaxies.For space is mostly darklike our old staircasewhere I’d turnby the dim-lit landing,angling to the last steppast my brother’s closed door.Once he didn’t make the turn,winding up on the roof―legs over guttersamong boughsswaying like drunken angels.The last day I see Momin the memory wardshe has forgotten…
New Prose Poetry: Excerpts from Girlfriend by Barbara Henning

When my longtime yoga teacher, Genny Kapuler, read what I had written about her, she said, “I feel honored to be one of the beads in your mala, one of your sisters.” I like to think of this book like that, as a poetic prose meditation on my friendships with girls and women. I started…
Haunted Passages: Six Poems from The Witch’s Flight by John Schertzer

The Witch’s Flight 1 I see you rounding the cornerwith your flag. You made it yourselffrom a table cloth, put some knobs on it, bright colorscalled yourself a beginningof something still undefined still nowhere to be foundand I am there beside youwaiting for it to happen. The Witch’s Flight 2 I saw you rounding the…
Poetry for Side A: “At My Grandmother’s Ninetieth Birthday, My Uncle Tells Me How He Came to Accept His Bipolar Diagnosis” by Amy Saul-Zerby

At My Grandmother’s Ninetieth Birthday, My Uncle Tells Me How He Came to Accept His Bipolar Diagnosis smiles and says he realizedthat it’s actually really simple: when he takes the pills, he’s fineand when he doesn’t, he’s not. If I had high blood pressure,I’d take medication for it, he says, and this isn’t any different.A…