Archive

Moonlight and Cookies

by Stacey Bartlett

She used to think she would find peace when her children were older, when people stopped being so difficult, if she lived in a different house, on a different road, or in a different country….

from street diaries

by Lorin Drexler and Beth Hyatt

this was an accident
i was drinking
yeah
i was using
but that’s not why this happened

one-channel separation

by Danielle McMahon

I was born into that
conventional system—
powdery, crumbling, the constant
switching…

“The Gift” & “Ripening”

by Michael T. Young

Every summer my wife plants celosia in the yard,
a flower whose name is Ancient Greek
for burning….

3 Visual Poems

by Francesca Leader

“Mommy,
Mommy,
Mommy!”

“Did you know
All rain
Starts out as
Snow?”

Thick Shells

by Katie Robinson

Thick shells are a sign of a happy chicken, but our flock would never support that claim. They squawk at their gate with such conviction that I’d swear there’s a rooster among these hens…

Life Shimmered in Defiance of the Night

by Katie Robinson

I am one for the structure of bedtimes without fuss so children are well-rested for school. This day, though, after struggling through uninspiring monotony, I threw the rules out the door…

3 Poems

by Diane Pohl

Poem about that little table
in our building lobby

Sometimes –

Kashmir in posts and poetry

by Jhilam Chattaraj

In Kashmir, I bathe in the bright light of spring. I see valleys emerge beyond the shadowed routines of blood and war….

proof

Art by Susan Barry-Schulz

The Art of Minor Incarnations

Poem by Vikki C., Art by Robert Frede Kenter

We begin with a single stroke, expecting more. A smile or a furrow of implied grief
that common expression fails at….

Dear Sister

by Diane Webster

You email me two selfies. One with shagging hair; one after your haircut. I don’t notice those differences. I am disturbed by how old you have gotten…

Dear Woman at Her Desk

by Diane Webster

You sit like a young chicken on her nest. You don’t know what you’re doing with all the adult chickens. You were told to sit there until it happens….

Dear Farewell

by Diane Webster

You come early. In grade school. My best friend, Ann, was moving away to Washington after school let out so we vow to write each other during the summer. We keep our word. I write. You write. Until one time you don’t….

Mob in the Mirror

by David P. Miller

My kitchen window’s rippled glass: my picture of near-budded forsythia, pine top, flicking chickadee. A mild hallucination of view.

it’s 2 am, do you know where home is?

by Ethan Cunningham

1,000 mile trek. stretches of tawny sand. of swaying wheat. gilt. mcdonalds
drive-thru. 5-minute stop. scalding coffee like chocolate ash….

Buddy’s Lament

by David Summerfield

On a riverbank strewn with line bait and tackle, under a midday sun on a polyethylene lifeless stream, amid litter of goodyear, mcdonald’s, red bull, and nestle…

Art

by Cyrus Carlson

Weather Report

by Leigh Doughty

It was morning and light streamed through
the window as I sipped on my instant coffee.
The weather reporter’s mouth…

The Archivist

by Lucy Rumble

It’s time for my shift with the dead. For cotton-laced breaths taken through the mask I bought during Covid, repurposed…

From Hands

by Sam Rasnake

I wrap my body into the walls
and this could be anywhere
but here—and is…

The Invisible Man Hits Rock Bottom

by Kip Knott

He could see that as he grew older he was drinking far too much. He could see that his drinking was beginning to impact the way people saw him. He could see that the fact of his own nothingness…

Am I a ghost in the dollhouse?

by Fizza Abbas

I am a manufactured product,
whom they sweetly call the adopted child.
I want them to know I’m not special…

4 Prose Poems

by Erika Eckart

The disappearing mothers of victorian baby photography

They blend in, scaffolding the still wobbly child in the foreground who despite their efforts is a little blurry, unable to stay still the length of time the shutter needs…

Dream Mansion

by Swetha Amit

I stood at the entrance, watching the girls wearing pearl earrings play with dolls…

Bureaucracy

by Ariana Leon Krieger

They’ve transferred me to another part of the Department, piled high with folders, and had me fill out the dreaded hiring packet once more. Single, no dependents, the bare minimum exceptions…

Coloniales Indicia

by Rina Olsen

in a prologue to this, a girl stands outside of the schoolhouse pounding dust…

Moonburn

by Christie Grotheim

with ten minutes to spare
until totality, after fighting traffic for hours,
on-ramps inching onto an interstate crowded with…

songs of water

by Adesiyan Oluwapelumi

memory is a pool of water.
an ocean drowning us into its depth.

The Expatriates

by Koss

Clever and quiet, he burgeons in the freedom of extinction. The Caspian tiger bides in rumor….

from Into the Chalice of Your Thoughts

by Ann Fisher-Wirth, Wilfred Raussert, and 4W International Women Collective Translation Circle

Nobody but you
can cross the street
and enter the field…

Peace waits to be unpacked

by Michele Worthington

My daughter brought her bones home
for me to store.
I tried to reason with her…

Issue #10: Spring 2024

Cover art by K. Albasi

Contributors: Sam Rasnake, Rachel Coyne, Sean Ennis, Erik Kennedy, Anna Abraham Gasaway, Joshua St. Claire, Katie Beswick, Taylor Franson-Thiel, Sheri White, Martheaus Perkins, Athena Melliar, Jenny M. Liu, and more.

See How They Fly, I’m Crying

by Sam Rasnake

“It is a heartbreaking time to love this
wretched world and fellow humans.”
– Alina Stefanescu

Art

by Rachel Coyne

UNCONTROLLED FLIGHT INTO TERRAIN

by Sean Ennis

Oh, achy days. The whites of my eyes are virus gray. The dog is nervous. I’m screaming at myself to find peace.

Low-Carbon Warfare

by Erik Kennedy

The quotes in this piece (and it’s all quotes) are drawn from various genres of writing on war and the environment…

Child Shooting

by Anna Abraham Gasaway

Toddlers can make guns out of anything, banana gun, cheese sandwich with a bite taken out of it-gun, spoon gun….

Donna Summer

by Anna Abraham Gasaway

Donna Summer shrugs with her sparkled shoulders and asks Why would I be culpable?

Once More with Feeling

by Joshua St. Claire

Thank you for calling the Gigantomachy Corporation customer service hotline….

Erumpunt et Operimentum

by Taylor Franson-Thiel

The people of Pompeii died before the lava passed over…

For What Would You Kill?

by Taylor Franson-Thiel

There are animals which must eat, deserve to devour, and consequently become killers….

In my Dream I See a Monkey

by Taylor Franson-Thiel

It starts near a stream, as many dreams do. Babbling softly at me, words of safety while a fog rolls in….

The Mothers

by Taylor Franson-Thiel

Of whom we know nothing.
Of whom we do not even know the birthplace.
Of whom we know almost nothing. 56 years, one town….

The Welfare Queen Pyrate Code

by Martheaus Perkins

1. Every Black woman has a vote of affairs of Black bounty; has equal title to the freshest provisions…

Please wear your life jackets

by Athena Melliar

In the end, this isn’t final, if it just casts off its lines
and even more than that, its lie…

Captain

by Jenny M. Liu

Right down the line
is a gravy boat
filled with starch…

Endless Waves

by K. Albasi

searching tides
the last, faint reach…

Entangled

by K. Albasi

these lines
of our story
yet obscured…

meetings

by Lance Manion

Watching her disrobe felt very much like watching a snake shed its skin….

Art

by Cyrus Carlson

Bisecting Planes

by Court Ludwick

This is a eulogy for the x number of spiders who will crawl into my mouth over the next sixty some years….

Revenge of the Spider Woman

by Marlene DeVere

I have absolute power and free reign over this terrain. I am queen of the realm.

Ode to Fire

by Heide Aungst with artwork by GoldFaceMoneyWatch

Nature holds
infernos within…

2 Prose Poems

by Sam Moe

Content warning: suicide ideation

2 Prose Poems

by MK Aisenberg

Playing out below me, O brave new world. Fog and Scotland drift. I’m awake and watch my fellow passengers sip on orange pulp…

This Rough Bed

by Carla Sarett

Morning waking in London and you no
longer near me…

Birds

by Carla Sarett

After Father’s death, heat overtakes us, the skies sulk. London’s graveyards are full…

Found a penny – heads up

by Wendy Mannis Scher

a cloud of desire in the left breast on closer surveillance reveals possibility–a benign growth…

2 Prose Poems

by Howie Good

I’m a cancer survivor – for now, anyway. Every three months, I must have half a dozen tubes of blood drawn…

[he was not an easy man]

by Ivan de Monbrison

he was not an easy man
my father
he never smiled
he never spoke to us…

AFTER

by Michael Kerr

He began a new life after his near-death experience. Part of him had died while another part went on living….

A Story of Two Ghosts

by Shawn Rampaul

When I died on the 5th of September 2022, I entered the vagueness….

A Meditation on Loss

by Nam Tran

*For optimal experience, listening via speakers is recommended.

THIEF and JIGSAW

by Liz Manning

Both of these pieces are about the experience of my father’s dementia.

This Knot

by Martin Indars

This knot jumped from a board I was cutting.
It dropped to the floor, circled on its edge, slowed and fell over….

2 Ekphastic Poems

by Peggy Heitmann

I imagine my hand
lightly resting, bolstered
by yours as you hold
your brush above the canvas.

Issue #9.5: Winter 2022

Cover art by Mels

Contributors: Christopher Shipman, Jason Sebastian Russo, Anna Spence, Ben Nardolilli, Kenneth May, Mels, Jayadratha Suna, Pitambar Naik, Eileen Oldag, Suzy Eynon, Conor Barnes, Melissa Nunez, and Mark Spitzer.

My Father’s Grief

by Christopher Shipman

If in the forest it grew it could carve a door. Could build a bridge to cross the river. Could forget its haunt of snakes. If any eldritch shape could uncoil. If it could fashion a field beyond it. If in that field a dance of wind in the grass….

SORRY and Other Poems

by Jason Sebastian Russo

sorry I called your salad transgressive
sorry I thought you said “garbage sale”
sorry I vowed to love you “like time loves a face”
sorry I hissed “redefine elegance” between reps
sorry I said “form is emptiness & emptiness is form” instead of “those jeans look great” …

A Critical Path to Forty

by Ben Nardolilli

Looking at my life and thinking, “oh cool
a bored sticky child made this”

A mouth and an eye, the reflection is really
affecting me…

2 Poems and Art

Poetry by Kenneth May and Art by Mels

There’s this construction worker
who walks around and writes stories,

from southern California, grew up
picking tomatoes. He scoots in…

Elegy for the Bundles of Hunger

by Jayadratha Suna, translated by Pitambar Naik

Oh, maidens, you can’t walk your way in a dream
oh, young men, you can’t live only on hope; come, let’s
go to collect mahua flowers…

The Tattered Map of the Nation

by Jayadratha Suna, translated by Pitambar Naik

Mountains of welfare policies remain
on the A4 size paper
yet under your nose millions are dying
no artist can portray so lively
what colour is the hunger…

Kiss Moon Kiss

by Eileen Earhart Oldag

Li Po leans to kiss
the Moon reflected in the River
his Body is there where the boat left him
drowning in longing
Adrift he gazes
up into the unreflected universe…

Ten Minutes After Close In the Cafe Washroom

by Conor Barnes

When you had the panic attack it was on the floor of one of the washrooms / They were still gendered then but you can’t remember which / All the customers were gone / It was your first job and you messed things up more often then you go them right…

The Host

by Conor Barnes

(for David Jones)

my riders are from my cousins court / on elk and boar and dragonfly / I come to ask the king under the willow tree / I come to claim his daughter…

Silver Stills

Visual Erasures by Melissa Nunez

living
fossil
long
shining leather
war and
war down
the ache

Shojo Smoking

by Francesca Leader

I first tried to create this image almost 20 years ago, in 2004, while living near Tokyo, Japan as a student. My method is usually to start with a pencil sketch, then layer on gouache and/or acrylic paint, then go back to pencil again (sometimes brush pen) to outline and shade at the end.

I Love You

by Zainab Kuyizhi

Before I learned of my life as an edgeless wound
stretching across walls of lies, I’d listened to men

open my heart to doors of desire with many
tongues. I begged for silence each time they said…

Deaths of Getty

by Stacey Yu

At six I witnessed death for the first time and it was a duology. First came true death: my dear fish Getty afloat in the tank, and second came sepulture: the toilet bowl. Getty was a slice of orange…

Cat Lover

by Stacey Yu

When I feed my cat I crouch very close,
sit on my haunches to watch her eat,
see her head dip then snap back quick
to stare at me, kibble mashing in tiny teeth,
eyes slightly annoyed but otherwise empty….

Aquamarine Taxi

by Stacey Yu

On a day so hot the sidewalk sweated,
my grandma hailed a taxi the color of aquamarine.
They looked like that in Shanghai back in 2004…

Still Has

by Tanvi Jeph

Home is not the same without you, but
The stairs are painted with the mark of your footsteps
The glass is stained with your bindi gum marks…

Art

by Rachel Coyne

I like layering paint onto the paper — I create a more abstract background painting, then add the images on top of that. It creates a bit of randomness in the process and adds mysterious shades and lines.

Tart

by Marceline White

Lemon. Sour pucker face. Make lemonade. Oh how my grandmother loved that bitter fruit sweet skin. Thin veins on her arms made a red and purple map. Collapsed like tunnels, her blood unmoving under the rubble. She ate lemon cake for breakfast…

In Dublin on the Hottest Day on Record

by Marceline White

The budget hotel near the bus station now seems like a bad idea. Down alleyways, the familiar smell of urine rises this hot, humid day, reminding me of home. Turn towards the river in search of a breeze. Small children wrap around worn, weary women…

Parted

by Marceline White

fade away
fine summer
fold
my
heart…

Evening Farewell

by Marceline White

lightning
in sunlight
the bird
stars
the stream…

home

by Sylvia Santiago

‘Home’ such a scattered, damaged,
concept
can we expect even a pair of magic shoes
to take us home…

end of meaning

by Sylvia Santiago

the end of
meaning
my heart beat
a squall a poet
out of water…

Full Vigour of Isolation

by Laura Davis

Throughout the pandemic, I had been working on a series of visual poems inspired by the Victorian classics, Brontë, Dickens, Gaskell and so forth, and found myself unable to leave Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native, and its themes of landscape, belonging and return…

Busan Nighttime Feeling

by Karis Ryu

Imo clucks her tongue at a group of white-shirt black-slack uniformed high school boys huddled so closely together it looks like they are smoking, dirty dambae nyeoseokdeul, but they are only reveling in their ice cream cones…

Ruminate

by Adeva Jane Esparrago-Kalidas

The work ‘Ruminate’ started with one panel. That single panel seemed lonely- in a sense, so I added three more. They all depict different women in different instances, with different expressions.

4 Erasures: Wilderness as…

by Kara Dorris

Red cloaked & microscoped, a lady is never so well dressed as when you cannot remember what she wears. The non-secret is we forget lady(bugs) can be predators….

A Toad of a Man

by Wendy K. Mages

Silently, I watch. My new boss, a toad of a man, croaks thinly veiled threats disguised as braggadocio. His tongue darts in and out; at any moment he might trap and swallow one of his lowly staffers, his prey…

Crossword Poems

by Koss

I think a lot about time, how people pass it, and how we perceive it, the artificiality of it. Also, how art comes from ordinary moments and might be found anywhere (including in puzzles).

5 Collages

by The Nutshells Writing Collective

As an exercise in letting go and flexing the collaborative muscle, we created platforms for freedom of expression where each individual added their own layers and interpretations onto shared works.

Renga [absconded water]

by The Nutshells Writing Collective

The renga was built through a fluid process in which we did not know who had written the preceding part to which we were responding, and for the first half we were unaware of where the piece stood in its entirety.

Lion’s Tooth in the Wind

by Bethany Jarmul

Two hundred ovulation tests dipped in urine in a plastic Tupperware container once used to hold black olives. Nineteen negative pregnancy tests that taunted me with their one pink line. Twelve months of menstrual-cycle data—disappointment marked with blood drop icons….

Mother of a Black Boy

by Gina Maria Manchego

Life is different when you’re the mother of a black boy.

Late for dinner.
Wringing hands.
Racing thoughts.

…where could he be?

The Kid’s Secret Garden

by Linda McMullen

The kid’s birthday was coming up, a mere month away…I thought, well, a cake, and a little something nice…I thought about how we’d unearthed a copy of The Secret Garden…

Musing on a Female Atlas Moth

by Nancy Himel

She hangs from the skeleton
of a cholla, placed in that exact spot
by her keeper just three days ago. By day
she hangs unmoving except for her wings
eight inches of captive beauty…

Monologue of the Hand-Drawn Map

by Maggie Rosen

A trapezoid of power.
The lines are cursive, flowing, written with names long
dead. Sheridan, Williams, Spell. 139 Acres….

Something Went Wrong Please Try Again

by Maggie Rosen

Near where Parker’s Ferry Road and Round O Road meet
and
the Edisto river curls into a horseshoe.
There,
my ancestors forced people
to build and maintain a plantation….

Family History: An Exam

by Lane Chasek

Instructions:
This exam is to be completed on your own sweet time. Use a pencil, No. 2 or otherwise, or a pen or charcoal stub or your blood. Convenience is king. Paint brushes work too, especially for those with a taste for color. Answer truthfully and answer correctly if you so choose. No peeking, please.

Lot’s Wife

by Refael Paul Arenson

Black lava startles.
Fingers and knuckles
Clutch cobalt sky.
Rocks and bones bleached,
Skulls picked clean….

Exquisite Corpse of the Night Woman

by Melissa Lanes Brownlee and Cherry Lou Sy

The woman cloaked in stars dances under the waxing and waning moon, flowers sprout from the earth as she steps in a rhythm long forgotten by man. Her thoughts flow to a time when there was no moon, no tides, no stars, no flowers, the dark, an embrace…

Issue #8.5: Summer 2022

Cover art by Gustavo Gómez Mejía

Contributors: Elizabeth Joy Levinson, Jen Schneider, Wren Donovan, Tim Walker, Charles J. March III, Gustavo Gómez Mejía, Howie Good, Devon McConnell Bacon, Mike Wilson, Pam Sinicrope, Matthew Bullen, Halle Preneta, Claire Hampton, Moshe Wolf, Ami, Linda M. Crate, Francesca Leader, Philip Wexler, and Mark Spitzer.

Our aim was true.

by Elizabeth Joy Levinson

It was a massive complex, with more units than we could count, our own roads to walk down, our own security. I did not know this was more cage than castle, did not understand that a person could live other places and not see an entire family’s belongings strewn across the grounds, even their bras, their silks and laces, even the basket from the dishwasher that held the silverware…

on daily routines, stocked & stacked :: i’d really like a bowl of soup

by Jen Schneider

1 :: she’d man the diner daily. from the stroke of dawn. for a group of irregular regulars. her strokes predictable. navy button-down. black trousers. our steps varied. stewed & stirred from overnight shifts & morning meters. clothed in cranberry wools, brown plaid overcoats, & cotton tees. …

Margin of Error (for Ana Mendieta)

by Wren Donovan

In D.C. I saw a work of art at least two times removed from its creation: A grainy film on repeat, of a woman digging rock, a self-sized hollow where she rested, fit her body (nude) into the space she’d carved out in the stone. Beside a river. She is no longer living, she died young. Cause of death uncertain but suspicious. …

On the Other Side of the Fence

by Tim Walker

It always makes me thoughtful, driving on the 101 freeway past the prison at Soledad, past the chain link fences and razor wire, the guard towers, the buildings—many buildings, laid out in a kind of campus, with lawns and exercise yards and flag poles and parking lots….

Blowing in the Wind of the Chi

by Charles J. March III

I was like an oscillating leaf that’s blustered up the street, constantly bungling back and forth onto my falling face, and then propped up again by gusts of God, with moments of brief flight before sojourning on again, whilst staying out of harm’s way and trying to do what’s right, in a city that’s first (in my heart/mind). …

3 Digital Assemblages

by Gustavo Gómez Mejía

This A-B-C triptych is part of an ongoing series offering dialectical visions of our tech-driven world. Angels, sphinxes and readymades–alongside third-party archival materials or bot-curated artistic excerpts–are supposed to allegorize the special presence of sponsored contents and more mundane promotional posts.

The Texture of Experience

by Howie Good

The heat has been rising all day to an incinerating pitch. At the designated hour, I arrive at the address on foot, exhausted and dusty. It’s an old, dingy residential hotel on a sunbaked street in a rundown neighborhood prowled by starving dogs, their every rib sharply outlined. When I look up…

Fog Area

by Howie Good

Anyone who knows me knows I dedicate at least part of each day to thinking my own thoughts. I like to walk while I think. I’m thinking while I walk about the echoes of Socrates in Plato’s Cave. A yellow road sign says Fog Area, but there is no fog. Trees have begun to put out leaves. …

Residue (Photography)

by Devon McConnell Bacon

My work reflects both life and death and how they interact. The dead plant’s skeletal remains appear to still reach up and out toward the sky. A reminder of how it once lived. The spirited young bird rests in its presence singing notes of life and happiness. The process that I used removed all other information allowing only what I wanted to be seen. …

Tornadoes

by Mike Wilson

I’m teaching an unwilling teenage girl how to
search courthouse property records when I see
Aunt Jo
she’s lost weight and regained her
sanity in the afterlife and hugs me with
sunshine rarely felt in the world of clouds…

Pampered

by Mike Wilson

on top of a white maple table
a kind mother has arranged bottles
tasting of green heat and orange sweet
by a soft daybed that is my nest
in a room of milk with moonlit
eyes…

All Bodies Are Fragments

by Pam Sinicrope

Down:
1. increasing in size and changing physically to maturity.
2. the universe seen as a well-ordered whole.
4. caused (someone) to feel mild astonishment or shock.
5. timing of a set of things within an interconnecting network.
9. outer covering of the body of a person or animal.

Swan-Neck Deformity*

by Pam Sinicrope

She used to be beautiful on the gold-dappled pond,
feathered and light,

long loping limbs, folding and unfolding.
She took her gifts for granted…

Hot Frog Action

by Matthew Bullen

Nobody sees the frog under their feet
as he pops the valve of an inflatable pool
toy. One shaped as a palomino, naturally.
This is how knights fought in medieval times,
you know.

I Fear What Men Say

by Halle Preneta

I persuade the King
it is no misfortune for me to die.

They spoke to each other in hurried whispers:
“No. I love you–
I will not leave you here to die alone.” …

Dragon Tree

by Claire Hampton

I find Dragon Tree at the hardware store, serpentine emerald tongues acid yellow, fresh against smooth orange ceramic. I place my prize on the mantle and it is the beating heart of my home. Visitors awe at its vitality, how wonderful, how perfect. How it feeds me. …

Traveling to a Foreign Place

by Moshe Wolf

We stay in our own lane, especially at night. It is cold even for January. In my head, I wonder about the low-hanging full moon that follows us out the door. The Celts call it Quiet Moon. The limo driver enjoys our silence….

Today the World Ends, and It Is a Friday, Mid-March

by Moshe Wolf

Today the world ends. I’m not talking apocalyptic tidal waves, raging fires, or record-breaking temperatures. If you want a poem with spit-firing volcanoes and rock-tossing ground shakes, look elsewhere. Today the world ends, and it is Friday, mid-March….

As Our World Finally Starts To Explode (Video Collage)

by Ami

Created from a handmade collage (paper, glue, scissors), then photographed and adjusted accordingly in photoshop, then from there, transformed into multiple videos using a group of images of the same collage to reach very different ends.

i want to feel at home

by Linda M. Crate

there’s this war inside me, i don’t know how to ignore; it wants to tear down all their walls and break their ceilings—i cannot escape the thought that i shouldn’t be living life this way…

The Last Room

by Francesca Leader

In the house that is your life,
You went from room to room,
Turning off lights, locking doors, one at a time,
And left those parts of your life forever behind….

Infinity

by Philip Wexler

The loop extends
endlessly
making
mortality
a part of
the infinite…

Book Review: The Bad Boys of Poetry Get Away with Everything

Book Review by Mark Spitzer

This is that very tradition re-envisioned for a twenty-first-century pandemic corndog in which “getting away with everything” means… well, that’s the question underneath the microscope. En route to address this mystery, we hit all sorts of glittering veins radiating lines like: “it’s a turtle eat / turtle fuck / terrarium / out there;” “sometimes stars / are sharks lost / in any river crossed;” …

Issue #8: War

Cover Art by Irina Novikova

Contributors: Milena Maksakova, Galina Itskovich, Dani Salvadori, Tal Nitzán, Irina Novikova, Paul Ilechko, Charlotte Hamrick, Ariyo Ahmad, Beppe Cavatorta, Ann Pedone, Ceridwen Hall, Melissa Wabnitz Pumayugra, Gabriela Denise Frank, Lorelei Bacht, Michele Worthington, Jan Ball, TS S. Fulk, Maud Lavin, and Erika Lutzner.

History of Literature

by Milena Maksakova
translated by Galina Itskovich

Today, Russian aviation
Bombed to ruins
My Uni
There, I studied
History of Russian literature…

Exercise In Dreaming During the War

by Galina Itskovich

I am one of the bombs in the cluster. The bomb next to me looks like the metal version of Humpty-Dumpty, with its blotched face of unhealthy yellowish white…

The Bear in the Hut

by Dani Salvadori

The Bear in the hut awoke from a dream
that far and beyond in the thrice ninth land
lived a maid whose hands of flowing water
would make all Bears much younger. …

[The weak, forgotten, soft-hearted saint]

Written and translated from Hebrew by Tal Nitzán

The weak, forgotten, soft-hearted saint

omitted from the list of saints in the scriptures

whose voice is not heard

who does not speak the language…

The Chess Game (Visual Art)

by Irina Novikova

Now I am coming to a certain mythological component in my work, since the beginning of 2021 I have been constantly writing Sirens. For me, they are like half-humans, half-birds, it’s like a dream. Poets and many creators describe that they would like to have wings and fly, the poet Maxim Bagdanovich has a poem “My soul is like a wild hawk.”

Documenting the War and Other Poems

by Paul Ilechko

The invasion began on a Tuesday morning which for some reason felt strange as if something so important would have been scheduled for the beginning of a new week…

Swoon Tryptic and Additional Photography

by Charlotte Hamrick

Paper snowflakes / wood shavings / well-worn muslin
Doll-baby hands / damascene lips / doleful eyes
Minutes live then fly / away on the wind…

Map of Survival

by Ariyo Ahmad

Let’s start by getting hurricane lamp
To throw a pale and feeble light on our path
And then arrange our bodies
To be able to trek the journey till end…

A Testament of Ruin

by Ariyo Ahmad

In this poem, you will see bodies struggling on words, but the living don’t understand the

linguistic approach of the dead, but I guess they are foaming on a question again and

again, why were we tried with genocide?

From “Nymph”

by Ann Pedone

And three days later, out on the shore alone, she will / confuse the sound she hears coming down the mountain / with the mountain itself. (Understandably) She will note / that sound exists only to parody our sense of mastery / over the earth…

Conditions

by Ceridwen Hall

USS Squalus, 1939/Present

They hammered reports against
the steel hull of the conning
tower, repeating themselves…

Kings Road

by Melissa Wabnitz Pumayugra

That year when my baby brother joined the Marines, I did not know he signed up, I did not know that the decision to take up arms was cemented decades earlier as we grew taller and cut teeth. …

The Warrior (Visual Art)

by Gabriela Denise Frank

I created this collage during lockdown while taking a class on Jungian psychology and creativity with the brilliant and delightful English artist Eleanor Crook. Formally, this piece combines an inkblot (the wings) and a mixed-media collage (images, found text, iron-on patches, a postcard remnant).

a star-strewn mud-pile

by Lorelei Bacht

blood-moon-tinted silence on the front

one by one
stars needlepoint themselves

meanwhile boys dream of beforehand
sleeping like beasts…

Numbering the Dead, A Simple How to Guide

by Lorelei Bacht

we left paper monsters under children’s pillows.

we feathered their mothers in flames.

we followed their ghosts to the lake, showed them shallow waters…

Why I Collect Netsukes

by Jan Ball

Mine are Japanese Tea-Stained
Scrimshaw Ivory: a miniature
dragonfly on a textured pair
of woven straw flip-flops, signed
Koshido; two tiny amber bees dining
inside a pear…

Berlin Wall, 1989

by Maud Lavin

On a dissertation grant, I worked at the Berlinische Galerie’s Hannah Höch Archiv in the Martin Gropius Bau. The Bau neighbored the Berlin Wall, really two walls with a death strip in between. From certain windows, I could see the East German guards stationed in the watch towers. …

War

by Erika Lutzner

Hope is a waking dream.
We were dead and we were able to dream.
I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own, and I am not who I was.
We’re all curious about what might hurt us.
The thrilling wire…

Love Poem

by Erika Lutzner

Take me with you, and out of our joint misery,
you make among the trees a nest for our love.
But look at the flowers you’ve crushed.
Our embrace lasted too long.
We loved right down to the bone. …

Issue #7: Loss

Cover Art by Edward Michael Supranowicz

Contributors: Garrett Phelan, Erika Lutzner, Edward Michael Supranowicz, Whitney Vale, Raquel D. Bailey, Susan Barry-Schulz, Matthew Klane, James Belflower, Ivan de Monbrison, Socorro de Luca, Edward Lee, Elliott Orchard-Blowen, Jessica Purdy, Gabriela Denise Frank, Mark Danowsky, and Cheryl A. Passanisi.

Malaria

by Garrett Phelan

A wind blows through
a hollow that was us,
the habits we’ve become…

Words are loaded pistols

by Erika Lutzner

We’re all curious about what might hurt us—
I dreamt your suicide note
was scrawled in pencil on a paper bag.

Migraine

Digital Painting by Edward Michael Supranowicz

A Hectic Day

Digital Painting by Edward Michael Supranowicz

Games We Play

Digital Painting by Edward Michael Supranowicz

A Field Guide to a Leaky Heart

by Whitney Vale

A mitral valve prolapse: description involves language botanical, mechanical, architectural and anatomical. It is a story of rhythm and blood. The poet has a small prolapse….

3 Haiga

by Raquel D. Bailey

dementia
she fluffs the clouds
and folds the seas

[The sea is near the house]

by Ivan de Monbrison

We keep our eyes open,
clouds pass through the sky.
You put a window on the air,
it stands up on its own.

///The Women Become Waves

by Socorro de Luca

Without a moon, the lack means new.

We swim out to sea, unseeing, unseen, and unpredictable….

[in the kitchen]

by Elliott Orchard-Blowen

in the kitchen
I am living for his love…

[what I write isn’t poetry]

by Elliott Orchard-Blowen

what I write isn’t poetry

I swore an oath to the mountain lions
I was in the garden
and we talk about poetry and writing and
every boy I’d ever had

Unpapered Bedroom

Photo by Lorie Shaull, Poem by Jessica Purdy

When you’re a Jane Doe
you don’t have to be married.

You can leave your kids
and go to a rooming house.

Parsonage Parlor

Photo by Lorie Shaull, Poem by Jessica Purdy

Found 4 days after she went missing.
Her mother had sent her to buy hamburger
meat from the market
and she never returned home.

Issue #6.5: Winter 2021

Cover Art by Samuel Haecker

Contributors: Samuel Haecker, Francesco Levato, Heather Ryan, Kip Knott, Orchid Tierney, Wren Hanks, Beverly M. Collins, Danika Stegeman LeMay, Mike Sikkema, Kristin LaFollette, Ingrid L. Taylor, Charlotte Hamrick, Paula Selis and more.

blossom

by Samuel Haecker

flitting, long and sweet. it is as water does….

manual

by Samuel Haecker

Find a small piece of square paper.

Color unimportant. Red if you want, but only one side, preferably. You know, unlike you….

techniques

by Samuel Haecker

the valley fold is possibly the simplest of folds,
a minuscule crease which
folds the paper over itself…

Excerpt from SCARLET

by Francesco Levato

It is spring the year
so small
things you can’t see can’t
know…

Admit It

by Heather Ryan

Admit it, part of you enjoys this, enjoys the warnings and watches, the text message alerts, the evacuation orders, the smoke, the planes dipping in the water, the flashing lights, the breaking news updates…

Presented with Complaint

by Heather Ryan

New patient Aquella Lewis presented with complaint of localized pain in lower right leg. Bruising evident, approx. 4.5 cm. Patient indicated she “fell off bench at beach.” Inquired about trip to beach, as nearest is approx. 241 km away, and environmental impact regulations…

Blood Line

by Kip Knott

HIGHLIGHT: Correspondent Roger Bellingham reports on two people in one Midwestern city who find it necessary to sell their own blood in order to survive.

5 Field Guide Entries

by Orchid Tierney

how does kin prepare for an end of one world and the continuance of another?

from ‘Reduce the Silence to Swallows’

by Wren Hanks

There were violet edges. A bird breathed against his cheek, pushing past. A bird breathed against his cheek, the sound drowned out. Perched sparrows made of tin, smashed bread, jewels we know are made of glass….

I Say “Girl”

by Danika Stegeman LeMay

“Will you light my cigarette?” the girl asks. I say “girl”
because her frame’s small, her sleeves are balled up in her
fists, and her pupils are dilated, empty and wonderstruck….

I mouth the word “motherless”

by Danika Stegeman LeMay

and it’s a cut that misses, a cut made clean,
the clasp of a snapdragon’s jaw. I mouth
the words “corn hopper,” “hair combs,” “hand-painted
flowers,” “grayscale photos with Exacto
knife edges”….

Pharmaceuticals

by Kristin LaFollette

With my hand on your forehead, / I know the stillness of your /
seven cervical vertebrae…

Cell Division

by Kristin LaFollette

My favorite birds are newborn,
their small faces quiet collections

of light and bloom
that must be pressed to parchment…

Lowborn

by Kristin LaFollette

Words of belonging sit on
my tongue as scored pieces
of clay awaiting fire & glaze…

Grind

by Ingrid L. Taylor

No mater how many marbled or rustic steps I climb,
no matter how many secret skyline thresholds I cross,
there is always another greedy-mouth sparkle boy

who demands my alchemy…

Hunza

by Ingrid L. Taylor

In the land of longevity, I eat apricots with every meal and drink curdled goat’s milk. The sweetness of the fruit mixes with the sour tang of the milk, a confusion of taste that I carry on my tongue…

Us, On Any Given Day: A Cento

by Charlotte Hamrick

smell of jackfruit & sweet orange
semolina cake under crackling palms
glass shattered
into harmless pebbles, puddled…

Displaced

by Paula Selis

The residue of war,
plastic runners on the gold wall-to-wall
creep filthy through the house.
The terror of stacked bodies…

The Salon

by Paula Selis

Hair dryer hood
crisps curls,
soft whirring background
to the mostly bald man…

Save the Goldfish

by Kristina T. Saccone

It was overcast when I walked into the pet store down the street from Council Bluffs Senior Living. The young man in the aquatics department — his name was Josiah — greeted me at the door, and I told him I wanted a pet to keep me company…

New Year’s Eve Message

by Cat Dixon

I want to send this before midnight,
but my internet’s been cutting out.
The router and modem blink red and white—
little sparks and flickers—a Christmas
tree beneath my desk…

Hungry Hungry Hippos

by Cat Dixon

With a red bucket stuck on my head, I don’t leave the house. Sneezes and violently shaking my head do not loosen its hold…

Be a darling and fill a jar with jellybeans

by Cat Dixon

Be a darling and fill a jar with jellybeans and
exhaust yourself searching for fancy cocktails
and cigarettes. Every vice is a vice whether it’s
this or that…

From ‘Data Crunchers’

by Peter Donnelly

“We are at a distance to them.”

In these wars of information
and digital listening

-in, datasets quantum-compute…

Like the Antikythera Mechanism

by Ivars Balkits

I picked up a stone here in the creek that reminds me of the Antikythera Mechanism. The stone is older, of course, but much resembles the largest most-representative scrap of that mechanism…

Snow Blasts

by Ron Tobey

snow blasts oaks’ deep crags
puffy pillows by window
under blankets you

A Great Blindness

by William Doreski

After the first snow the pond, still unfrozen, becomes a lens through which a great blindness peers. As I walk around the edge…

The Beginning of January: Embodied

By Samuel Ace and Maureen Seaton

My abdomen jolts open but I can’t figure out what’s inside a swimming pool? an orchid? a family?  I am 99 percent bright viscous intestine…

From the Travel Journals of William Chaffinch, 18–

by Seamus Filcarah

We gathered in a lodge beneath the shade
Of Arlene’s highest peak and shivered in
The chill as daylight soon began to fade.
How cold it was! A day as none have been
And I believe that none shall ever be!

Issue #6: Myth

Cover Art by Elena Valdés Chavarría

Contributors: Precious Uwen, Karla Van Vliet, Lorelei Bacht, Maya Alexandria, Jake Kendall, Edward Michael Supranowicz, Ayokunle Falomo, Moses Ojo, Guillermo Rebollo Gil, Z. D. Dicks, Sarah Ozanne, Jane Orange, Lathalia Song, Bojan Đurđević and more.

Art

by Karla Van Vliet

In the spaces between silence and the word there is asemic writing, that for me bridges the distance. …

In his little boat, the boatman

by Lorelei Bacht

Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten,
Dass ich so traurig bin.

I don’t know what it means, that I
should sit so sad before the trembling…

Activating Healing (Visual Art)

by Maya Alexandria

What was your process for creating this piece?

I usually focus on a singular idea or theme and then choose a corresponding crystal to help amplify the piece. For this painting, I wanted to focus on masculine healing. I chose David as the subject because he is an easily recognizable masculine subject for most audiences.

Saturn Devouring His Sons

by Jake Kendall

TW: Violence

I kept a long knife and a torch at my bedside as I waited breathlessly for him in the dark…

Paintings

by Edward Michael Supranowicz

Titles: The Cruelty of Fate, Almost Out of the Picture, and A Box of Armageddon.

AUTOBIOMYTHOGRAPHY

by Ayokunle Falomo

In the beginning, there was a garden.
And then, a fire. Except it was no fire.
But what to say of the furnace that was
my mother’s womb…

KÜNSTLERROMAN

by Ayokunle Falomo

I must’ve desired to be a poet
the first time I heard my mother

speak. Of course, that’s not
the truth, but let’s say it is…

Art

by Moses Ojo

Titles: Locked in the picture, African woman, Resilience, and Father’s love.

The snow on the roof of the house

by Guillermo Rebollo Gil

Chris Benoit vs. Raven
[WCW Thunder, 2/12/98]

Raven dressed like a grunge musician.
He would quote Edgar Allan Poe.
Benoit committed suicide in 2007…

The World Tree

by Z. D. Dicks

(Odin recounts his hanging)

In the great gap was the tree
before I was blinded
it was firmly planted
and I laid my noose taught…

The Screamer Awakens

by Z. D. Dicks

He/She led in nothingness
polyglot of potential tones
all words carried in scream…

Wolf Mother

by Z. D. Dicks

She loosed a death rattle
raking up from mask ribs
a wide echo circle
cavernous as a vowel…

Flywaterleaflight Series

by Lathalia Song

i flew in my dreams through
a cave of tears
in oceans of tears
the tear tries to change its shape
sharpens itself…

In the middle between

by Bojan Đurđević

Let me draw the middle for you
There’s my family
Which has a captured appearance
Trapped they live in mold walls…

On the other side

by Bojan Đurđević

There on the other side
There is a cemetery of lost souls
The sailors covered by the sea…

That day

by Bojan Đurđević

Sometimes that day shows up
When nothing happens
Not even the wind vibrates…

4 Prose Poems

by Howie Good

Titles: Truth Is the God of Last Resort, Saturday Matinee, Drone Pilots Do It Remotely, and Sick, Sick, Sick.

Don’t look back

by Lisa Periale Martin

Grainy black and white
TV screen on a rare night, everyone
asleep but me, Orpheus
and Eurydice, set in a favela…

In the Dream

by Natalie Korman

Everything seems whole and completely formed. Like a Hollywood movie, you don’t know what they leave out. It looks like it’s all there on the screen…

Someone Is Waiting

by Natalie Korman

The way he asked me to come over makes me think he has waited. I think I saw him looking at me as I approached. He is in his pickup truck. It felt like I was being inconvenienced, forced to walk over…

From ‘Fictional Space’

by Jason M. Marak

Tree knows her nature. She finds the forest unbearable. She doesn’t dislike her tree-ness. She casts an impressive shadow. She’s happy with her foliage. But immobility gets her down…

(SAVE US FROM) ETERNAL JUNE

by Wren Donovan

Deadfall chestnuts idiotically signal the arrival, come June, of the messiah. Wood-grainy voices of old acorns and walnuts combine to roar imminent salvation. Black oak, crabapple-blossom, ironweed and sweetgum, angel cap of death and rambling roses…

In the Beginning (Photography Series)

by Mike Sikkema

What was your process for creating this work?

I take daily walks with my small daughter around the parks, preserves, and green areas where I live, and many of these places are watery in one form or another. I look for charged areas of reflection…

The Bogdragger

by Matthew McGuirk

“I thought they only dragged bogs when they needed to find somethin.” My mind began burstin like some of those pop rocks we always get on the fourth of July.

My brother leaned in, his friend Slingshot twistin a long strand of brown hair. “Not drag the bog, the bogdragger.”

Hide and Seek

by Carrie Elizabeth Penrod

Curly hair wild thing hides in the raspberry bushes, hands clasped
over mouth to hide snickers as the crow circles above…

Hidden Denial

by Jay Gandhi

I watch my mother
washing clothes
in the cramped bathroom.

She often sits in the balcony
waiting for her mother
(draped in a sky blue cotton sari)…

After the Miscarriage

by Linda M. Crate

TW: suicide ideation

i understand demeter’s pain,
of making the world cold
and frigid as she felt
with the loss of her daughter…

Baba Yaga

by Agata Maslowska

They say the devil slept in your daughter’s womb…

The Body Myth – Prometheus

by Hannah Land

God became the first surgeon when he carved into Adam’s chest to form Eve. Of course that’s why so many of us end up broken, I think as my doctor pushes my dislocated rib back into place…

The Body Myth – Pandora

by Hannah Land

Evil springs from the uterus, is a truth that gods and doctors can agree on. I see it in their faces each time one emerges from between my stirruped legs like the sun…

Pandora’s Box, Ammit, and Medusa (Visual Art)

by Elyssa Tappero

These three pieces were all part of a zine I made called “Worship the Monstresses.” Each one belongs to a different piece of prose or poetry which inspired it.

Cassandra at the Bonfire

by Kendra Preston Leonard

The snakes licked my ears.
I told you about the war.

They danced with me and whispered.
I told you about the horse.

I gave you the libations of the funeral,
and my brother gave you the food…

In the City of Singing Bonfires

by Tara Campbell

Light flickers warm and orange on our faces. We walk from one blaze to another, from fire to fire. We walk and listen to the melody at the heart of each bonfire.

One fire sings the wind, rushing at various pitches and strengths, ebbing from frantic to mild, then back to tornado…

The Singer

by Charles K. Carter

O Sappho, player of lyre,
raise up your voice to accompany the strings.
Share with us your untamed philosophy…

The Creators

by Charles K. Carter

In 2019, the Westboro Baptist Church congregation protested outside of a Kansas theatre where lesbian rock star Melissa Etheridge was performing.

“God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!”

Digital Paintings

by Edward Lee

Titles: You, Revealed; Yesterday Refusing to Relinquish Today; Ever You and I; and The Kiss of Skin.

Calypso

by John Yohe

the anger of a woman
who gives everything for a man
and asks nothing except he stay…

Photography

by Anne Leigh Parrish

Titles: Seedhead on post, Sharing space, First Sunflower, Headland, Mussels on rock, and Shell on Oregon beach.

Half Fish Tale, Half Ars Poetica

by Jacqueline Doyle

Horace warns us to eschew hybridity in writing, lest such unions give birth to freaks. Each genre “has its place allotted,” Horace advises in his Ars Poetica

HHR Issue #5 Online Reading

Join us as we celebrate our launch of Issue #5: “Lost and Found” with readings and art presentations by C.Cimmone, Koss, Cole W. Williams, Shareen K. Murayama, Angela Dribben, Fred Gerhard, Kip Knott, Peter Mladinic, Jonce Palmer, and Tanvi Nagar.

Issue #5: Lost and Found

Cover Art by Shareen K. Murayama

Contributors: C.Cimmone, Lorelei Bacht, Koss, Winston Plowes, Alicia Fernandez, Nancy Himel, Cole W. Williams, Shareen K. Murayama, Wilson Koewing, Angela Dribben, Glen Armstrong, and more.

Surrender

by C.Cimmone

The baby is screaming. I turn to the kitchen window, hoping you are mowing the backyard, but all I see is overgrown green. …

Erynie

by Lorelei Bacht

When you touched __________,
you commissioned me to bring
before your eyes the history
of “__________ and __________” …

grief a study in grey

by Lorelei Bacht

where there should be an ache there is a blank a hollow square the texture of grey clouds I poke at it test its absence lack of substance…

I Still Talk to You Two Years Later

Poetry and Photography by Koss

Someone online asked me how you died, then quickly vaporized. Protons and neutrons reverse direction and switch connections. We meet like ghosts; synapses trail our devices. …

Pena y Perdida (Grief & Loss)

by Winston Plowes (Poetry & Film) and Alicia Fernandez (Voice)

No country is really sure
how many it has lost
and in Madrid, Spain is recounting its dead in the Ice Palace. …

You Wake Up Early

by Nancy Himel

erased from This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangaremba

You decided to escape You vow / you will launch into my life ….

Untitled I

by Cole W. Williams

the sound of one voice / slips from the strands of her hair / jounced by dust at the speed of sound …

Teeter-Totter

by Wilson Koewing

TW: violence, active shooter situation flashbacks, suicide ideation

Alison chose to move to Asheville, North Carolina and leave her corporate career behind…

girl means bones that glow forever

by Angela Dribben

Run the brush fibers between your lips, girls
Get a fine point
Paint fine numbers on the clock dials
Our boys are fighting for you girls…

House of India #90

by Glen Armstrong

I fear photography in that it is more than a suggestion. About a girl. About reality. About face and light. …

Make Me Whir

by John Rodzvilla

Make me whir-r-r, whir-r-r, whir-r-r … !

Sundown

by Fred Gerhard

Sun going down / almost still / moving / sentinel trees stand / feathery filament / testament …

Prodigal

by Fred Gerhard

I think of Pennsylvania on days like this.
The arching sunsets over a bowl horizon…

abuelo

by Gaby Benitez

imagino cada abuelo es mío
los que están tomando jugo de zanahoria con jengibre en la
panadería, the one at the house on the corner …

Curious

by Sheree Shatsky

solitary / woman / striking the stars above …

Recognize

by Sheree Shatsky

to this world

devote attention….

S.O.S.

by Elyssa Tappero

the chiropractor says my ribs keep popping out and i wonder if that’s from my heart trying to break free…

1338 Hearst Ave

by Christian Garduno

We used to walk down Shattuck
with the textbooks we couldn’t afford in their bookstores
we would make a left, down Bancroft Way
stop and share a smoke with a few friends along the way…

Calculating Distances

by Kip Knott

Dear Jenny,

Today marks the 30th anniversary of our divorce. …

Sunday

by Peter Mladinic

On a part of the army airbase that crosses
long air strips once used for planes, now
for gliders, I walked towards the prison…

Blame

by Peter Mladinic

This was the 1950’s. I get sentimental
remembering Jake, a dachshund.
He had all the freedom. He was smart. …

On a Park Bench

by David S. Anderson

My mother said she wished I would disappear.
Not die, because then she might carry it—
no, worse. She asked that I fade away…

Am I the fool?

by Shiksha Dheda

Could I
be trying to be
more than what I am …

Therapeutic Love

by Dr. Sarah Gundle

When we began our work, my patient was a full-time martial arts instructor. Something drove him to therapy. He wasn’t sure what. …

Two Crows

by Sheldon Lee Compton

He planted plugs of zoysia grass last summer. Now that’s what all the yellow is about. Everywhere that’s yellow this morning…

Only Mud and Grass

by Sheldon Lee Compton

A new couple who became pregnant by mistake. Neither of the two young parents wanted a child, so when the baby was born, they placed it in a remote location, a mud and grass hut some thirty yards from the main home. …

Dear You, in March

by Avery Lane

Purple light backs the drummer, and from his left ear dangles a single feather, swinging wildly with each wallop of the snare. …

In the Lobotomist’s Office

by Avery Lane

The voices of her mother and the doctor were all but muted.
Their words like minnow, silver and languid…

Chrysalis

by Tanvi Nagar

I sat in a dimly lit room and began to flip the dusty journal’s pages…

Issue #4: Storyteller

Cover Art by Josh Steinbauer

Contributors: Josh Steinbauer, Emily Ann Salles, Angelica Mejia, Rebecca Andem, Joy Alexander, Maurice Moore, George White, and Foster Trecost.

Teeth

by Emily Ann Salles

My great-grandmother used to terrify us by taking her teeth out. With a flick of her lower jaw they’d pop out into a shark’s double smile. We would shriek. The youngest of us started to cry. She would chuckle and chomp them back into place.

The Grey Area

by Angelica Mejia

Not having much of normal necessities in the kitchen had not phased me until my adult years. My parents did their best at raising us while my mom was fighting a battle none of us knew how to deal with or talk about. She hid it from me and my siblings for years—cancer.

Remember Me

by Angelica Mejia

It was on the 9th of August the evening that my great-grandmother passed. It was the last week of monsoon season, the favorite season all Arizonans are familiar with. The weather podcast for the day was no chance of rain, but later on, when we knew she passed, it rained, and it rained hard.

Evanescing

by Rebecca Andem

Fields that blossomed at dawn faded by dusk, as though a million blue butterflies had landed and lifted. And her mother, her mother fluttered on the thin edge of shadows.

Another Morning After

by Rebecca Andem

As a rule, Jamie steered clear of Fat Tuesday. The MTV clones with their bedhead styles and tribal tattoos were bad enough sober. Tossing back Jell-O shots and moving in packs? No thank you. But three years in the Keys, and he was restless. He’d been through every waitress and barback from Key Largo to Key West.

On the Bukhansan Mountain

by Joy Alexander

I was really not suicidal. But in that murderous instant, I was trapped. And the way, as I saw it, after long harried minutes of despair, was to just jump and end it all.

Reflections In COVID Times

by Joy Alexander

There ought to be an asylum for such as me
harassed and haunted I am.

Thermometers blaze high temperatures of suffering COVID patients, while
I gripe at sunburn on my pampered potted plants.

Transcript – Text – Roberta Williams – Blood Rituals and Monsters of the Postbellum

by Maurice Moore

Only one copy of Roberta William’s 2133 text “Blood Rituals and Monsters of the Postbellum” exists. It was recovered from the excavation site after her disappearance back in 2138. Reports state that Williams disappeared while doing further research on the Purpura Demon legend for her second book while on expedition at the Neuse River.

Momma’s Song

by Maurice Moore

Roberta: -Knock, Knock-
Alfreda: Stop yo monster drawing Junior and get de door ya Momma still getting pretty fa de Doctor.

The Urn

by George White

Honestly, Mark, picking you up today was nearly as bad as the funeral. Time for a brew now. I think I need a nice decaf tea. I might even treat myself and put some honey in it.

The Bicycle Mechanic

by Foster Trecost

I came upon a young boy who sat upon the ground. At his side lay a blue Schwinn, lent from an earlier time. His hands were stained with grease from the chain, which had popped from the sprocket, and his shirt stained with grease from his hands. I watched for a moment, then knelt next to him.

Issue #3

Cover Art by Brenna Wuillamey

Contributors: Garrett Gomez, Lucy E. Allan, Suzanne S. Rancourt, Brenna Wuillamey, Noeme Grace C. Tabor-Farjani, Jen Schneider, David Estringel, Mary Hope|Whitehead|Lee, Stephanie Powell, Megha Nayar, Ken Tomaro, and more.

Multilingual Poems

by Garrett Gomez

crawled into a shell
this afternoon xcept

it was a cocoon…

Weird Fishes

by Lucy E Allan

There are two types of water in the sea, and there are two sadnesses in the body.

The first sadness lives in the muscles between your ribs…

The Rain After the Rain Is the Wind

by Suzanne S. Rancourt

This wind shoulder bumps stacked droplets. They tumble down branches / fall off cliff tips shining green with wet….

Hunter

by Suzanne S. Rancourt

The bull waggled his rack tips while feeding on submerged water lilies and pondweed….

Hannah and I

by Noeme Grace C. Tabor-Farjani

Hannah and I, listening / to the cacophony of noon / while cocooned in this stillness / as the rest of the world / cycles on what is their norm….

Digging for Lost Temples

by David Estingel

Thumbing through The Borderlands, I can’t help but feel not “brown” enough. I’m Mexican Lite. Got a case of the “coconuts”. There are no rageful battle-cries inflaming this breast. …

How Hungry are the Children?

by Stephanie Powell

They chew with soft-jawed mouths open; molars loose in the gums.
It may be post-war steak, grey under kitchen lights…

Scene (III) –

Poetry and photography by Stephanie Powell

This room as a picture, the Musician stands up, his lower groin occupies the space with the possessive masculinity of a Mapplethorpe. …

My Wife and I: A Case Study

by Megha Nayar

Wife (Fully functional human being, veritable force of nature)

Me (Her troubled husband, hereafter referred to in third person)…

Welcome Home

Photograph and poem by Ken Tomaro

it has been awhile since I’ve been home
the cat barely recognizes me
but it didn’t take long for him to warm up
before he went back to licking himself…

Haiku Hybrid

Poem by Silvia El Helo, photograph by Terrence Sykes

Ten slow sips…

Misery Loves Company

by Jemelia Moseley

I am watching TV as the TV watches me
I see movement but I hear no sound
In my own head space, my own maze…

I am more than my hair

by Jemelia Moseley

As a black child growing up in the 90’s they said I was lucky because my hair was long,
when I cut it they said my beauty was gone…

Window Pane

Story by Mark Blickley, Photography by Beatrice Georgalidis

It was time for Ralph’s first real haircut. Ralph’s mother said it was time, as did the next-door parents of his best friend, Emmitt. The only person who did not think it was time for a real haircut was Ralph. He did not want to go to the barbershop. …

Pronounce It Right!

by Hibah Shabkhez

I am a boiling pot of Englishes, bubbling frantically as they collide. …

Burning Giraffes

by Dmitry Blizniuk, translated by Sergey Gerasimov

Sailing boats with bright sails —
lemony, orange, striped, —
flock by the shore,
dawdling at the water edge like burning giraffes…

Poems.

by Mernine Ameris

my aunt’s 2nd wedding.
an august festival for some.
an all day marathon for those who know her.
a common cocktail for a haitian wedding.

do not go short on prayer

by Perla Kantarjian

there is a bag of worn out peaches sitting
on my kitchen floor
that i cannot bear to devour nor to dispose of….

Texas Pledge

by Tamara Al-Qaisi-Coleman

Can you see how the river shimmers? Connecting states
I pledge allegiance to
the farm to market roads
Connecting rivaling towns

Bridges

by Rudolf Alexander

A new bridge is being built over the river in Carpentersville
that will connect Longmeadow Parkway on the west bank…

Salem : Still of a Hometown

by Jacob Nantz

Stand at the south end of the square and face the courthouse. DANMAR FAMILY PHARMACY casts a shadow over the white-bricked building to its left.

Weight We Carry

by Jacob Nantz

I grew up riding trains from the suburbs to the city, / then around the city, hovering on the EL…

Aurora : Still of a Hometown

by Jacob Nantz

…Middle and working classes fill in from the edges and meet downtown in an uncommon harmony: filthy taverns, charming Irish Pubs, an aging casino, an old roundhouse-turned brewery…

New Idea Manure Spreader

by Ronald Tobey

we bought an old used manure spreader
small holding 80 bushels
enough for one pass of 500 feet
faded red planks bolted to its steel frame
rust on metal…

Bulletproof

by Howie Good

The relationship among spatially dislocated but simultaneous events is difficult for a lay person like me to fathom….

Heart Sounds

by Howie Good

You unbutton the top few buttons of your blouse. The doctor places a cold stethoscope against your chest….

Axe and You Shall Receive

by Howie Good

Because the horizon for humanity is so cold and sharp, the edge of an executioner’s axe, I try my best to stay up on the news, but today…

Waiting Out Bombogenesis

by KG Newman

The lunatic let his pet mosquito out of a matchbox outside our quiet house / as freezing eventide strolled over to see what’s up.

Harnessing Hypomania

by KG Newman

I tried brewing a placebo/antidote in the garage over bottomless beers and drifting solitude, / while you read the first chapter of every self-help book from the library.

Flawed Superhero

by KG Newman

The morning Stan Lee died I put my son in his Spiderman shirt for day care, wondering / when he’d comprehend each late-night kitchen argument…

Dear Love,

by Cole W. Williams

I draw tik marks on the page—
wanting to see what hundreds of thousands looks like…

Diagnostic Error

by Maia Joy

Marble bust goes to the emergency room
complaining of chest pain, loss of sensation…

A Thread

by Alyssa Jordan

He goes where you can’t follow, like all
the dead do. You wonder…

Song of the Drowned

by Alyssa Jordan

You buy flowers
wondering where
she has gone. …

Victory Lap

by Jennifer Shneiderman

Bees riot in swaying lush lavender rendering jealous wild pink bougainvillea undulating dancing…

Let’s Cure Our Wounds

by Ahmad Al-khatat

We constantly question the things we do.
Living has become a harder question than death. …

Unreadable Quartet

by Shoshana Olidort

after Paul Celan [UNLESBARKEIT]

Unreadable this, unreadability of this, illegibility of this, illegible this
world, world, world, world. …

Issue #2.5: Special Ekphrastic Issue

Cover Art by Jorge Oyarzún Sardi

Contributors: Mary Hope|Whitehead|Lee, Pilar Rodríguez Aranda, Cole W. Williams, Jorge Oyarzún Sardi, Claudia Nuñez de Ibieta, Greta Pullen, Mark Blickley, Keith Goldstein, Maroula Blades, Lisa Periale Martin, Kim Baker, and more.

QUartET: the 4 temperaments

by Irina Moga
Art by Tatiana Arsénie

On some days the hazy, milk-white light draws me into a strange fluidity: it’s the wisdom of a wing-like, deceitful surface.

Two Ekphrases with Translations

by Galina Itskovich
Translations by Valentin Emelin

The road is sad, saturated with poison,
And pricking with flat notes on my bare feet.
Impasto on canvas.

Birding

by Cheryl Heineman

They are raven-like, dark-winged
moving toward a tangled nest
or like crows circling
seeking their own kind
against a fog-ivory sky the outline

Wing Man

by Lisa Periale Martin

Wing man speaking
now he’s singing
layering images
coats curried
borrowed brush tips

Han’s Solo

by Mark Blickley
Photography by Keith Goldstein

I’ve had this recurring Bridge Dream for nearly fifteen years. It first appeared one night after being exhausted by cram studying for my Bar Mitzvah. In this initial fantasy I was a swaddled infant left on the very beginning of a long and twisting walkway through a vibrant yet desolate forest.

A Berlin Totem Pole

by Maroula Blades

On the 10th August 2020, I saw the totem pole out of the corner of my eye. I was travelling on the “Road to Sacrow” in Krampnitz. Krampnitz is a district of the state capital Potsdam (Brandenburg) in Germany. I asked the driver to halt the car. I had to take a photograph of this interesting object. There wasn’t a bronze plaque nailed on the painted bark. This artwork has no recorded history.

de Ojos de Valparaiso / from Eyes of Valparaiso

by Jorge Oyarzún Sardi and
Océano and Claudia Nuñez de Ibieta

Siempre soñó con el océano. Lo que se llama soñar, despierto y dormido.

He always dreamed of the ocean. You could say constantly dreamed, daydreaming or asleep.

Draw Out the Child

by Cole W. Williams

He has found our child,

the boy–in flannel, TIED SHOES, and jeans, was not in the water for a swim. We know the boy is misplaced, we know the boy was head under, wet hair, too long.

Another Poem on the Wall

by Pilar Rodríguez Aranda

What is it about a wall? About the action of marking or writing on it? What kind of power does it exert on the writer/painter/activist/transgressor, and on the viewer/reader/witness/accomplice?

Issue #2

Cover Art by Jessica Dawn Zinz

Contributors: Kayla Rodney, Christopher Atamian, Joy Alexander, Yi Jung (Jolene) Chen, Michelle Villegas Threadgould, Jessica Dawn Zinz, Richard Oyama, Yuan Changming, F. Daniel Rzicznek, Satya Dash, Raphael Luis J. Salise, Guna Moran, and more.

Ode to Joy

by Kayla Rodney

Over two-hundred years ago black feet
In shackles shuffled to shores they were unsure of.
The jingle of chains a precursor to the jingle of change in coin purses
Used to purchase us.
But still we sang into blue skies…

Owl

by Guna Moran
translated from Assamese by Sadiqul Islam

I can see at night,
not in daytime.

After the nap
the ribs talk to the bedstead.

The Birds

by Guna Moran
translated from Assamese by Bibekandanda Choudhury

Because they do not have a
permanent home…

Ghosts

by Zach Murphy

There’s a formidable stone house that sits atop Fairmount Hill. It’s been for sale as long as I can remember. …

1945

by Raphael Luis J. Salise

I lied
when I said
“I’ll be home soon,
don’t you worry about me”

i held you at gunpoint

by Raphael Luis J. Salise

we are soldiers, right?
comrades, always there for each other

no one was watching us, right?
it was just you and me in the middle of the night…

Maybe a Lesser Sin

by Thom Brucie

I did not want to watch my grandfather die
but I did
as surely as I watched him
prune his grape vines…

The Garden

by Michael Buckius

When you were 12 years old you destroyed your mother’s garden. You used a miniature souvenir baseball bat that was purchased at Camden Yards two summers prior. …

Today’s Menu

by Penny Harter

Preparing the cup of coffee that leads off my day—one of just two cups, the second only half-decaf—has become a ritual. …

About Loss

by Penny Harter

Recycled loss composts this garden. Loss of everything dear you’ve treasured since childhood: your tin shovel the sandbox swallowed. The mewing kitten your mother rescued from the white line. …

geology

by Sean J. White

who knows the difference between lazurite and lamprophyre a rock is a rock is a rock is a rock
unless a rock is an answer …

Sonnet of King Tut

by Satya Dash

Had to argue against tale of breasts
Curving to shape my narrative of breath

The fragments we call throes

by Satya Dash

rope me by grips of mane vowels in my name
jealous in yearn feed me me
liver hearted God was I no skin or hair no wound

3 Prose Poems from Leafmold

by F. Daniel Rzicznek

Limitless, compassionate energy between snow and tree, the fall of each, those several thralls. …

They Said—We Said

by Karen Loeb

Match the comment with the response.

Relatives/friends: Why in the world are you going to adopt a child?

Four Prose Poems

by Howie Good

A Toast to the Dark

I search my sock drawer for a clean shirt to wear. On the subway, I pretend my briefcase is full of secret nuclear launch codes. …

Self-reflection

by Roy Duffield

a reflection on the self reflection of a
self portrait of the poet as a young man as a self

smokedark vacuum

by Ryan Greene

in the void
a whole lot of floating
old old light

5 Bilinguacultural Poems

by Yuan Changming

盲人摸象(the Blind Feels the Elephant): Another East Idiom

Here’s the elephant…

The Field Animal’s Dream

by Richard Oyama

It does not think of the boy’s bird screech and water pistol, the girl’s pas de deux and pursed lips. They batter each other’s head with flattened palms. …

Fake palm fronds for our wedding on mars

by Matthew Dettmer

I got home Friday night with a bag of potato chips because the woman working at the gas station a third of the way home saw me lurching down the aisle with the shelves of wine and said “no booze for sale now” …

9 Poetry Comics

by Jessica Dawn Zinz

full & complete
change is
by its nature
difficult.

You Give Me Fever

by Amanda McGuire

Three eyes in the back of the head but it’s impossible to see the reign beyond & above…

Long Overdue

by Amanda McGuire

Leaves scratch the sidewalk again, and the air here is electric with possibility, according to the meteorologist. ….

Love at 101 MPH

by Michelle Villegas Threadgould

No hay reggaaeton sin ti

Tennessee is a black tree blur

“You can’t shoot”

by Michelle Villegas Threadgould

Not film / Not guns / Not you

But I could

and I did

when I outran you

Mom’s Hot Milk Sponge

by Sandra L. Faulkner

Dear Mom,
I made your cake today
since I can’t see your face

Dear Alice

by Sandra L. Faulkner

July 8, 2020 / Dear Alice, / Today would be your 112th birthday. They tell me that / I look like you…

Lessons from Quilts

by Jill Carpenter

Quilting develops an internal ruler—I know an inch, or six inches, or 36 inches when I see it.

I had to laugh

by Joy Alexander

I had to laugh.
I just had to laugh,
my thoughts, a manic violin.

Hydras From My Psyche

by Joy Alexander

It was late evening and the Jamaican downpour of rain made it seem even darker in the bus in which my mother and I were traveling. It did not matter that I could not see outside from the rain beating on the side of the window or glimpse the shadows of trees sprinting by the window. ….

Anush Uhllah!: Christmas in Morningside Heights

by Christopher Atamian

Growing up in Yorkville in the late 1970’s, nothing thrilled me more than visiting my dear old Tante Angele in Morningside Heights. Manhattan had not been completely gentrified yet, so Yorkville still retained its mostly Hungarian and German flavor, and Morningside Heights might as well have been Tokyo, it seemed so far away…

Issue #1

Cover Art by Elena Valdés Chavarría

Contributors: Siobhán Scarry, Lyn Baldwin, Ellery Akers, Lauren Camp, Abeer Y. Hoque, Joy Castro, Wyatt Welch, Iris Orpi, Annelies Zijderveld, Rob Carney, Justin Kitts, Marvin Shackelford, Paolo Bicchieri, Edward Lee, Lynn Finger, Elena Valdés Chavarría, and Irina Mashinski.

Interview in the Aftermath

by Siobhán Scarry

How do the thoughts move?

With whirring, with wings, with unthinkable thoughts.

Collecting the Grip

by Lyn Baldwin

On a Sunday afternoon in middle March, I open my truck door and step into in the high, thin light of a spring afternoon in the upper Lac Du Bois grasslands, just north of Kamloops, British Columbia.

Five Prose Poems and Drawings

by Ellery Akers

After working for months banding seabirds on a rocky island, I lean over the rail of our boat and smell land…

Here I Love You, New York

by Abeer Y. Hoque

Here I love you, New York.
In the neon-striped night, people rise and roar.
The sirens and singers vie with their ululations.
A hundred times I listen.

Lilith, Arizona

by Wyatt Welch

I was,
I was each time,
conventional…

Driving through Louisville

by Iris Orpi

Friday 2011, Chicago

Razor slices of red-tinted winter sky through the blinds, like verses of a waning fire.

Instructions for Making Caramel

by Annelies Zijderveld

1.
Pour the sugar and water into a heavy-bottomed pan set on medium high until the sugar roils in what resembles ecstatic agony—but don’t reach for the wooden spoon to relieve it.

Why We Have Tides

by Rob Carney

Because The La’s were playing on the stereo, and the crescent moon looked frozen in the morning, and I wasn’t thinking about traffic because these phrases kept popping up and keeping me busy . . .

Why We Have Otters

by Rob Carney

Just now, in the middle of a nineteenth email from OTL about Kaltura and their systems-training videos to help us “begin immediately transitioning” to teaching all our classes via teleconference . . .

Hotel Hell

by Justin Kitts

Get to see your face
In a hotel hell
Not much to look at
But it’s better than jail

Liminal Pastoral

by Marvin Shackelford

Along the tar-chipped road ponds dry at their edges, banks spreading, the streams and springs that feed them narrowing through their stones and winds, disappearing. The sun works at the earth unimpeded for weeks, sets each evening far behind the parched trees bunched across the horizon.

from Familial Animals

by Paolo Bicchieri

at some rodeo

you kissed my neck in front of my grandparents / it wasn’t that you couldn’t / everyone laughed / it was that five miles away / someone wept when they heard the crack…

Calles

by Elena Valdés Chavarría

En las calles del olvido
merodea un recuerdo de ti
que persiste
pese al tiempo…

The Poet and the Child

by Irina Mashinski

Anyone who remembers, a lifetime ago, trying to make out new patterns on the wallpaper each night and being terrified by the dark frightening folds of that strange shape on the chair will understand what I am about to say.

Before Dawn

by Irina Mashinski

a bird of glass,
a bird with a scratched throat,
a bird that tries to tell it all at once,
a bird that turns its head when called,
a bird that’s pinned with hopes…

Ophelia

by Irina Mashinski

I slept to you,
slept into you,
and then, to fall asleep, escaped from you
behind a cardboard wall, as if unbound…

Interview with Rob Carney on Facts + Figures (Hoot ‘n’ Waddle, 2020)

Rob Carney: People need their wildness back. Using figurative language to evoke the animal in us seems like it ought to be one of poetry’s jobs…. Personification is helpful because most people need to, as [Robinson] Jeffers says, “uncenter our minds from ourselves” and “unhumanize our views a little.”