Category: The Last Word

“Republican Jesus and Real Jesus Meet at the Endeavor Diner,” fiction by Ron Burch

Republican Jesus says, “So I say to you, Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. Unless you’re poor or an immigrant or you look dirty.” Then he says, “For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole…
“Monster,” a GIF comic poem by Matthew Kramer

*Ed.’s Note: click image to view larger size. Matthew Kramer is a, writer, illustrator, and artist in Providence, Rhode Island. He is an MFA candidate in Literary Arts at Brown University, where he teaches comics. His artwork can be viewed at matthewckramer.com and canttakemeanywhere.com. “The comic poems are a series of soliloquies and dialogues in which everyday aphorisms, thoughts, and…
Two Poems by Jill M. Talbot

A Picture of Me When I Was Young and Dead iThey say this picture is pretty,This picture of which I was dead for.They like me this way. Taking a photo with a laptopAfter a wedding. It’s already gone—I blinked, I moved.I grew teeth, I found a pulse.Am no longer pretty— The way the cashier took…
Four Poems by Martin Ott

Dead Man Lying The difference between life and death is the same broken line between truth and lies. Time defines both. History holds the mantras of liars and recasts them in our history books. The walking dead has never been about zombies. Our reporters hurry to unearth time machines before the damned redraw the circles…
Three Poems by b.g. thomas

big black wall a black woman must not ever assume that a smile means anything other than/ she is being sized up by the other/ to see where she stands/ how strong she might be/ what her heart might be made of/ that’s only if the other is accepting that black people are indeed…
This Is a Dream, a one act sci-fi screenplay by Success Akpojotor

CLOSE ON: A book is received by a black hand, and ensconces on the decorated table. INSERT. COVER PAGE TIME PILL BY DAVID OYEWOLE BACK TO SCENE The black hand opens the novel’s verso page and inscribes a legible and beautiful autograph across it; and returns it, to the Yoruba woman, in her mid-thirties, who…
Three Poems by David Welper

Reversals When I was a kid, my sister helped me button my shirts. We’d stand in front of a full-length mirror and I’d try to figure it out. Try to figure out mirror images. That’s really what she was teaching me. To look at myself. “What you see in the mirror is kinda the reverse…
Five Poems by Wren Hanks

My Binder is a Thundershirt ™ I need something stiff to breathe against like He-Man’s armor. Like the anti-anxiety jacket I velcroed around shaking terriers when I was a dog walker. Back then I zipped my hoodie to my neck. I wore Doc Martens & got muscle-skinny, riding the subway in giant headphones and licking…
“it speak(s),” a poem by Bryan Byrdlong

1. my fellow Americans we all float here, in this milleu in this atmosphere. In DIS gravity be a wishing well a penny for your thoughts and desires to come true, the American dream, but lately I’ve heard talk of an American fear. And so, we are gathered…