Tag: HFR Archives

Two Poems by Rob Cook

My Bugs O daddy long legs in the orchids and wisteria, how you make my cock-cells swell! O caterpillar cubs folded in the fern petals, you are lovely as shoulders tied with ribbons and valentine nettles! That’s what she slipped into my ear when I told her my life was ruined by insects. “They said…
Two Poems by Jeremy Griffin

Pink Hibiscus You buried the hibiscus in the swath of untended earthwhere each summer morningthe mangy calicowho suns itself on the sidewalkshits and then kicks it overwith sand as if it’s even possibleto disguise what we leavebehind. You aerated the crumbled earthwith the shovel blade, churned itover on itself like the tracks of deadskin carved…
Three Poems by Phil Spotswood

growing up on TR84 You are shown a series of pictures by the visiting Earthmen: a blank crucifix, a doll with a missing eye, and a sunset bleeding in the ocean. The crucifix and the doll mean nothing to you, for they are products of a life sprung from the bones of an elephant graveyard.…
“Everything Is Good Here, Too”: Fiction by Jen Michalski

Your sister calls. You rent a car and come as soon as you can. Grass peeks between sidewalk squares outside your mother’s house, squares no longer able to hold the chalk of your hopscotch, of your sunflowers and stick figure ribbon-haired girls. A water-rotted shingle, a twisted drainpipe, hint at chaos within. A collective wheeze,…
Fiction: Miles Klee’s “The Milkman’s Exhaustion”

Conventionally handsome, but why the fuss over that? He’s nothing special, nothing unique. There exist a million men who have his kind of beauty. Perhaps that’s why it is in such high demand. His truck runs perfectly, never stalls. Purrs at the curb like a big dumb cat. Milk bottles clink in his milk bottle…
Two Stories from Gary Oldman Is a Building You Must Walk Through, a novel by Forrest Roth

The Signature of a Gentle Man As Sid Vicious You and I stare at the signature of the Gary Oldman your famous sister met in Los Angeles. That is: the handwriting your famous sister procured with or without the real Gary Oldman, which, at first, appears to be independent of an ordinary human hand—if there…
“Storage Failure,” a one-act play by Austin Bunn

YOUNG AUSTIN (seven), backlit, reads a book and crosses the stage to a chair. He is very much not looking where he is going. A silhouette, an outline, a memory. SOUND FX: a swarm of bees, slowly intensifying. AUSTIN (now), in aisle. He wants to tell you something. AUSTIN: That was me. In the backyard…
Four Paper Targets by Jennifer Davis

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. Mischief Robot Spaceman Tears Jennifer Davis is a painter from Minneapolis, Minnesota. More: jenniferdavisart.com.
“Mouth Light,” a story by Ben Segal

The shape of his teeth formed a border and strangers crowded gladly. It was nice but Eric’s jaw hurt. Then darkness, bowing, handshake lines. Eric’s smile was tight-lipped but real. He’d be off again before light. He traveled mostly to the boring parts, unloved towns and shacks in factory shadows, other exurban depression sinks. It…