Category: Poetry

Three Princess Poems by Frances Donovan

What Snow White Swallows ginger snaps /a matchstick square pizza in the school cafeteriaher body spreading in the mirror / grotesque the white cheek of a poison applethe red cheek of a poison apple cookies from the keebler elvesgrow up fast /her fault her fault her fault arnold whole wheat bread /sweet bliss of chocolate…
Two Poems by Julia Cohen

Passover Lullaby for Elijah, April 19 2019 / Elegy for Chabad of Poway SynagogueApril 27 2019 A sinkhole of humansA marquee of humansA nomad of humansA lake of humansA smuggle of humansA kibbutz of humansA pollen of humansA grenade of humansA hammock of humansA Shirley Temple of humansA bloviation of humansAn occupation of humansA foliage…
Artist Spotlight: Four Visual Poems by Sarah J. Sloat

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. Sarah J. Sloat reminds us that even in our digital culture writing is about texture. Combining words, images, and erasure, her work exposures the landscape residing within every page. Sloat is a poetic detective that looks behind the whiteness. At her hand, the line of text moving…
“To Be in a Time of Extinction,” prose poetry by Violet Mitchell

—after Etel Adnan To find a list with macaws, to read of the eastern cougar, to try to imagine the sound of its growl, to set down the list and your diet cola, to check the time, to check the calendar, to find a pen, to write a grocery list, to forget detergent, to…
“A Flag Unfit to Fly,” poetry by Tim Kahl

A Flag Unfit to Fly The flag stayed up way too long and no oneknew how to properly retire it. It had beenraised too quickly. The young men in cargo pantshad not seen the skit about flag etiquette.They faced the flag and held their breath,sensing a vague feeling within themselvesit should not hang in the…
Two Poems by Nina Knueven

I Knew I Was O Positive When the subcutaneous purple balloonslocked up, guardingmy perforated veins. Universalresponsibility doesn’t articulate from head to toe,but from the thoracic cavity itself—flushing and swooshingin hostile torrents. Needles glint and bags are gratifiedwith new feed—teethy eyesmoving like meat grinders.Visceral tissues pump & pumpto catch up—inflating, deflating,& I’m turned on, thinking of…
Three Poems by Matthew Broaddus

It’s Good to Be Ashurnaspiral II The dunes part. Enter oasis. I emerge from the desert on my immaculate Bactrian, sipping an adult beverage from one of those neon crazy straws and tipping my hat to no one in particular. My pride of lions, cast in copper radiance by the god Ninagal, tails me and…
Two Poems by Vincent Poturica

The Unknowable A small German boy splashes inpuddles of radioactive measuredcalmness. The puddles are not,in fact, radioactive or measured. But these adjectives seem the mostappropriate signifiers in depicting thespecies of calmness the German boyfeels while splashing after waking too early from a troubled dreamstarring clowns without eyes or mouthsbut only brilliant red noses much largerthan…
“A Growing Crisis,” a Presidential erasure by Tara Campbell

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. Tara Campbell (taracampbell.com) is a fiction editor at Barrelhouse and an MFA candidate at American University. Prior publication credits include SmokeLong Quarterly, Masters Review, b(OINK), Booth, Spelk, Jellyfish Review, Strange Horizons, and Heavy Feather Review. Her debut novel, TreeVolution, was published in 2016, and her collection, Circe’s…