Category: Poetry

Poetry: “A Slow Pickling” by Tara Boswell

a drowned and legless female {insert your animal here}how sweet watch her commitment to being a life raftno just a life vest c’mon you always wanted my hands around your neck right after I flip the kitchen tableupending everything we were preparing for breakfasttake notes one clove of garlic in each cheek take your medicine …
Poetry: “Civil War Re-enactment: Kure Beach, NC, January 2017” by Suzzanna Matthews-Amanzio

The artillery drumfire of a civil war re-enactment—a frenzy of smallbirds, cries syncopated, rise—scattershot from the twisted branches Trees lie beyond the dunes—Carolina live oak—from the beach we seethe canopy stunted, flat—feruled by headwinds There is history that seethes beneath the sea—that keeps lapping at theland Shading our eyes we can see the shore stretching…
Poetry: “The Beautiful Ex, Who Was Once on TV” by Kyle Kineman

I still smell the sweat of machineson your chest, the grease of your night-shiftpalm, you were always oil on canvas,a James Dean in altar boy blues. I knowI’ve looked at you too many times latelyin the photos you’ve posted. You look good—your wet white shirt outlining every church boybulge as you emerge from some Malibu…
Poetry: Sarah Duncan’s “Umpqua”

*For those killed by Chris Harper-Mercerat Umpqua Community College The school is closed. The school is open tobodies, warm and laughing. The school isonly open to ghosts. There are 10 ghosts 9wounded, 10 dead 320 millionwarm, wounded. The gun is coldand apologetic. The gun is warmand laughing in cold hands, white boyhands in a…
Five Poems by Liza Flum

Daily Action Today I call my representative.I call the one who representsmy representative: Representative,youfloating somewhere over my shoulder, crow on the telephone line, squat black spanof my hand in the polis, what little markdo I make on the whitelandscape of this world that asks for my bloodand asks and asks as the bandageasks the woundtill…
Erasure: “Genesis 2, 3” by Demi Demirkol

*Ed.’s Note: click image to view larger size. Demi Demirkol is an LA-based poet and artist. She is the author of I Have One Daughter or Maybe Millions, a self-published series of erasure poems paralleling archival erasure with bodily violence. She has participated in poetry workshops at University of Tennessee, Knoxville and University of California,…
Three Poems by Jared Joseph

As She Added the Dirt to Her Beauty She added the alphabet to her Fabulous muscles I died there. Before that I was a ghost Now I am a ghost. The wounds don’t heal Does the skin break As she adds the dirt to her beauty She adds the eyes her body. As I died…
Poetry: Al Ortolani’s “Buddhists Call It Monkey Mind”

Take toothpaste for instance―white foam splatteredon the mirror, on the vanity,on the chrome faucet.Each time you spit,lather drips down your chin,runs the brush onto your hands;you can smell mintthe rest of the day on your fingertipsWhen you wokethat morning, you were justanother sap with halitosis;by noon, you’re a reformer.Purpose evokes response.You begin to petition.A man,…
Poetry: “is it god inside you?” by Charlie Waddle

On election night, it is latewhen the gathering, that is no longer a party,ends. The walk home becomes mostly silent.November night has no concern for union’s fractured stateit waits for morning, washes light awayFails to consider that darkness cannot be safe You are not safetelevision warns. The ocean is violent, even if its fury arrives…