Tag: HFR Archives

“Equivalence Point,” a poem by Jeff Pearson

My father really died because he wanted to save gas mileage.A bishop asked me to touch his body to feel there was no spirit in there, formaldehydealready nourishing the cells like xylem and phloem trying to escape to the ground.There is nothing like ice, high melting point. Unlike mercury. Like the poisonous vial of slithering…
Three Collages by Erin Case

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. No Taste Pillarist Window Erin Case is an award-winning visual artist based in Midland, Michigan, with a focus in collage. Working in both analog and digital methods, she is regarded for the marriage of surrealism, sincerity, and evocativeness that is present throughout her body of work. While still…
Four Poems by Cynthia Marie Hoffman

[After the operation, my sister needs help] After the operation, my sister needs help getting out of bed. My mother’s bare feet gum the slick floor, bracing. My sister leans into her arms. The dogs’ eyes are wide. The two eyes of my mother’s blonde dog, the one eye of my sister’s whose bad eye…
Fiction: Timmy Reed’s “Minutes from Meeting of Afterdeath Board of Directors”

Minutes from Meeting of Afterdeath Board of Directors 12:00 PM January 1, 2012 Thin Gray Wrinkle In Between Spaces (Room #0) Attending: Skeletons, wights, high and low gods, sense of desperate loss (DESPAIR), TIME, decaying globs of flesh, beetles, worms. Death attended via conference call. Presenters included Lipsticked Fetus and Waxed Tentacle of the Soul…
Poetry: Four Yelp Reviews by J. Bradley

Yelp Review: Boy Scout Troop 43 You will hold a flag, march through sweltering nervous systems: upper arms waggle in salute. There are patches for activities, a business card thin license to wield a knife: this is a tool for picking teeth clean, a magnifying glass to play God; the fire never answers. Yelp Review:…
Three Poems by Robert Balun

Self (American Continuum) I wake up: and my leg hurts my achilles specifically and I wonder if the body is finally eating itself I drink old water and can never catch up it just keeps pouring I switch and ask if this is the coffee promised to us by the management during the labor dispute…
Fiction: “A Stranger Never Comes to Town” by Jessica Alexander

My first brother was a cockatoo on the shoulder of a much older woman, who called herself Madame La Cava, spoke bad French, and feigned clairvoyance. I said, “Know how to hurt what you love?” He held her hoop earring in his beak. She said, “Vous voulez me devorer avec baisers, mon canard.” I said,…
Three Illustrations by Eben Kling

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. Big Flood Double Man Good Joke Eben Kling received his BFA from Montserrat College of Art in 2009 and his MFA from Umass Amherst in 2015. Most recently he has shown at the Miller Yezerski Project Space and Gallery Kayafas in Bostom MA, Nopop Gallery and Artspace in…
Poetry: Suzi F. Garcia’s “Dirt Skirt Divas Present No Man’s Land”

Painted roses on my lips, feather lashes wink wink blink tonight Gloves come off one finger at a time, nails glitter gray. Work the angle, work my angles, get a cheap pop from the crowd, hit a high spot, just a little grunt-and-groan. Take a hit, take a bump, thumbtacks in the fleshy backsides of…