Category: Poetry

“Requiem: Fin Inn,” a Flavor Town USA poem by Avery Gregurich

for M.T. Let’s debate ovals, acoustics, the moral virtues ofcurveballs. We’ll do it loud, live, staggering atopthe trusses of the river bridge. We’ll poke our facesin front of the lights off the dam for effect. A sunfloweron the shore will serve as moderator. First we’ll finish thesefrog legs, but I’ll give you cheap smokes, sure,…
Bad Survivalist: “On Catfish,” a poem by Ryan Keeney

At nine, Dad taught me how to gut a catfish. Thick-skulled, even out of water they are survivors, known to flop and thrash for hours before succumbing to suffocation. If catfish could speak what kind of wretched pleas would drift from their cavernous mouths? The first step: nail the catfish to a board. The nail…
Three Haunted Passages Poems by Sheila Dong

fruit i adopt a cat from the shelter,then forget it in a box.the way it stareswhen i remember. the wayits head rolls off,a softened apple. noblood or rot.just another donation.on the night bus i feelsick so i get offtwo stops early to walkin the light-lack, touchingchainlink and weeds. thingsfall from branchesand roll toward me.the bus…
Matthew Feinstein: Two Fraternity Poems for Bad Survivalist

Portrait of Pledge Being Left in the Middle of Nowhere on Shrooms It’s Fall. The Pledge Master has me blindfoldedin his car. We are going somewhere. A place I hopethat’s not too hard for my mother to find. But I canalready feel the rumble of winding roads beneath me,and although I’m mostly blind, specks ofmoonlight…
Ricky Ray Poem: “The Dream” for Haunted Passages

In which the monster emerged sludgehearted and fond of hares.And triplets were born of a wish that blew itself apart.Candleflame ignored the wind.Her face, thirty years on ice,the one my waking mind can’t find in the crowd.Water in the streets so high you could swim.I was a woman.I was a wolf. I could hear hunger…
Fred Gerhard: Four Poems for Haunted Passages

Chill November On a chill November afternoonmemory of colorclings to skylike pitch dark twigs alivereaching for a summer sunlong gone a poorly dreamt expanseof slate fogpearly mistfar away and departingour livesour graves leaves space forautumn hymns in thelow quiet tonethat falling breezesknowand hum where we would gobefore we let goand throwour shivering limbs aliveto the…
Flavor Town USA: Five Capsicum Poems by Steven Ray Smith

Tabasco I repeatI was not named afterthat vinegary tincture you sluice upon your cackleberries You and I have not metbut let me say to you tooit was named after meAnd let me give you some advice Copyright patent and trademarkyour quirky relish and the cut of your compact jibbefore the patrons and partygoersand those with…
Two Poems by Ori Fienberg, Originally Published in Vol. 10

Novelty Trade Treaties There’s no way to make a profit on a callfor international unity, no way to solve adistribution function without a point of sale;you have to learn to accept, you have tolearn to just say, thank you to thank you;it’s an ill-wind that blows no ships into portto deliver this gentle tyranny of…
Flavor Town USA: Three Poems by Jennifer Martelli

We baked pearls made of denture material in a blueberry pie —Efferdent Commercial The first satisfaction is the fork breaking the flaky lattice crust. No, I’ve misremembered this commercial: the first satisfaction is this: the fork digs deep into the purple fruit filling, doesn’t break the dough, fishes deep down into the pie, the berries,…