Category: Poetry

New Poetry: “Stature” by Albert Hwang

When I was eleven I made a statueof my grandfather. My teachersaid we could pick anyone.Most of the boys picked quarterbacks. I painted his hair whitebecause I didn’t have gray.I asked my teacherhow to do his skin.She said, “Yellowlike you.” I lookedat my own handconfused. How did she knowwhat my last name 黃 meant? Something…
Five Poems by Jenny Grassl for Haunted Passages

These poems are based on my engagement with The Thunder, Perfect Mind: a poem written by an unknown woman from Egypt in the fourth century. Pagan and Christian ideas were merging and transforming in the divinities of the goddess Isis and Virgin Mary at this time. The epigraphs are taken from the Egyptian poem, and…
New Poetry: “How to Help” by Kim D. Bailey

When momma cooked supper I washedthe dishes, while my sister dried, caressingthem like a crystal ball, and we sawour unmapped futures.Babies are made this way, we clenchour teeth hold our breath hope for more, sometimesless. We got what we prayed for, morethan we expected.Momma can’t wash the dishes anymore.We wring our hands, howl at windmills, feelthe earth fall upon…
Original Poetry by Britt Bustos: “If I Were a Scientist”

would’ve made foaming volcanoes instead of tri-fold book blurbs at sixth-grade state-mandated science fairs. I would propose hypotheses on how much anxiety affects comorbidity with eating disorders, the same way I feel when chewing thin split nails could be the way I crave seaweed-stained fingers in between my teeth. holding back coughs searching for…
Poetry from the Future: “A Wave” by Jared Sagar

Sometimes a whole year slips by. Verity said the Inuit died as ice closed around their meat-holes. There is always skin, skin on ruins, trawls in chlorine. I wave moronically at widow peaks, a window’s orange fire, at bone receding cringe, pink telluric kids inspecting jetsam in the illusional pool. My reptilian friend, welcome, can…
New Side A Prose Poetry: “A Meditation on Birds and Other Things After Watching It Was Just an Accident” by Sarah Dickenson Snyder

A Meditation on Birds and Other Things After Watching It Was Just an Accident I know very little about Iran, and yet there are familiar crow sounds in the beginning of the movie where cars dart on busy roads and one man digs a dusty grave in the desert. Nothing feels safe there. Crows squawk…
The Future Has Poetry: Three from Arcanum by Daniel Beauregard

a drunkeneye roamsthe hearthwherean idiotsitslike a fishout of water the fire is unlitand the idiot is cold what an idiot! * down by Frog Lakethere’s an old stonethat looks like acat’s head a deflated balloondecrescendo out oftime with raven’shair the bubbles go downby Cat’s Head Lakelooking for valveswith which tospeak a moderate shift insediment yields…
Poetry from the Future: “Landlords” by Grace Lynn

Here’s how you inherit the future. You stand here searching for lost parts but only find people rehearsing gravity. They make syllables of promise then rise into air. They are pretty & distant & will remain this way. Will let you down but never remember. If speech heals silence, it’s only in your head. Only…
Two Haunted Passages Prose Poems by Jason Davidson

Chamomile I dreamt last night of the stubbed toe. On my way home from the election, I stop at the smallest bank. After I step inside, I yell somewhat loudly: This is a stick-up, everyone put your hands in the air right now! The head teller is a woman with purple whiskers. She says: Sir,…