Tag: Poetry

“A Flag Unfit to Fly,” poetry by Tim Kahl

A Flag Unfit to Fly The flag stayed up way too long and no oneknew how to properly retire it. It had beenraised too quickly. The young men in cargo pantshad not seen the skit about flag etiquette.They faced the flag and held their breath,sensing a vague feeling within themselvesit should not hang in the…
Two Poems by Nina Knueven

I Knew I Was O Positive When the subcutaneous purple balloonslocked up, guardingmy perforated veins. Universalresponsibility doesn’t articulate from head to toe,but from the thoracic cavity itself—flushing and swooshingin hostile torrents. Needles glint and bags are gratifiedwith new feed—teethy eyesmoving like meat grinders.Visceral tissues pump & pumpto catch up—inflating, deflating,& I’m turned on, thinking of…
Three Poems by Matthew Broaddus

It’s Good to Be Ashurnaspiral II The dunes part. Enter oasis. I emerge from the desert on my immaculate Bactrian, sipping an adult beverage from one of those neon crazy straws and tipping my hat to no one in particular. My pride of lions, cast in copper radiance by the god Ninagal, tails me and…
Two Poems by Vincent Poturica

The Unknowable A small German boy splashes inpuddles of radioactive measuredcalmness. The puddles are not,in fact, radioactive or measured. But these adjectives seem the mostappropriate signifiers in depicting thespecies of calmness the German boyfeels while splashing after waking too early from a troubled dreamstarring clowns without eyes or mouthsbut only brilliant red noses much largerthan…
“A Growing Crisis,” a Presidential erasure by Tara Campbell

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. Tara Campbell (taracampbell.com) is a fiction editor at Barrelhouse and an MFA candidate at American University. Prior publication credits include SmokeLong Quarterly, Masters Review, b(OINK), Booth, Spelk, Jellyfish Review, Strange Horizons, and Heavy Feather Review. Her debut novel, TreeVolution, was published in 2016, and her collection, Circe’s…
Five Poems by Alyse Knorr

Wolf Tours: Day One The wolves have eaten the children—or so say the clients, unaware of the existenceof Junior Wolf Tours and the mandatoryseparation of young and old. At the small ones’ camp they die daily in games of Graveyard,which, according to the wolves, prepares themto be unafraid of silence and stillness—betterhunters, all. And despite…
Haunted Passages: Three Poems from Letitia Trent’s cinematic poetry collection Match Cut, now available to preorder

In Letitia Trent’s latest collection, her poems weave wraith-like through the breaths between cuts, lingering in spaces often left offscreen. The work approaches deified films from the perspective of women, framing lost and forgotten voices against the overpowering mythos of the auteur. Match Cut cherishes its cinematic muses as much it critiques them. It doesn’t burn down;…
“Trial of the Hippocampus,” a poem by Sarah Cheshire

Her: uproarious laughter— a narrow staircase—Me: cheap cologne— wilted rosemary on the windowsill—Her: distant voices— strong hands— breathlessness —Me: mildew— snow— a single half-burnt candle— Them: but which came first, the beerOr the laughterAnd was it you who let his rosemaryWither—(And when you say your rosariesDo your sons prayFor him like his…
“Contact Improv,” a poem by Jack Meriwether

I just want to go where nobody’s gone before.All the people here look so tiredBut that’s what keeps them together.I used to believe in perfectible beautyNo I used to think the world couldn’t hold meNow I know it can’t.She said slide your hands over each otherThe surfaces becoming floor and bodyAnd floor and bodyInterchangeably.She said…