Poetry

Plenty by William Ray

Time yawns over the exhausted linen,at best a tiresomeacquaintance. An ersatz luxury,specious sensuality,the palm of the dayopens to you. The suggestion isspace is too grandfor error. But Doubt seizes you by the crotch. Sunday equals Monday with matching moods of pianissimoair.     Repeating,           reciprocating tasksecho. The charge of bright thought falters at the turn. Emerald theories provedust-worthy.  One wants an islandlarge enough to think. Continue reading Plenty by William Ray

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Poetry

Catalogue of Pains by William Ray

1. Start with interior,Knowing there’s confirmationOf measurelessness.In essence it’s the nothingnessOf solitude.Night air tinged purple. Move on to superficial wounds—Emotional and physical.By comparison, a spiritual scratch—aGray glimpse of aPasserby on a windy day. A swear, an inconvenience. End with theCountable but infinite,The faces trod, limbs crushed,Burned earth.Crisped brownThat turns you back inside: Vast.Solitary.  2. Take It.  Take Putin. Take Xi.Take Trump.Put them in the sea.You made them. … Continue reading Catalogue of Pains by William Ray

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Poetry

Exhuming Dalí by Eric Machan Howd

skulls and bloodumbilical cords dangling off an old organ in an abandoned sanctuarycold blues moaning on a tessellated floorvirgin whites collapsing on a starving landscapea ruler horizon as straight as the leash on an anteatera banshee at the bedroom window keeping you up at nightpracticing lucid dreaming in the gears of a melting clocka rhinoceros horn’s perfect curvea rhinoceros’ perfect curve of horna stiff moustache … Continue reading Exhuming Dalí by Eric Machan Howd

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Poetry

Horses and Mystical Terror by Frank Freeman

what is it—about the beating—and whipping—of horses—inthose old books? “Poor horse,”Fantine sighs in Les Misérables—as Dahlia calls her pity—absurd—what is it—Raskolnikov’s night-mare—in Molchusky’s words—“Mikolka beat the nag aboutthe eyes with a shaft, and then finishesit with a crowbar”—Raskolnikov—a child in the dream cries—screams—hugs “the blood-soaked head”—kissesit—“The cruel deed fills him with mystical terror.”—(but too late—for Raskolnikov—he’s still driven—to kill—the two old ladies)—what isit—when Nietzsche in Turin—we’re … Continue reading Horses and Mystical Terror by Frank Freeman

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Book Review, Criticism

Perfection: Not So Much an Attack on Millennials as the Things That Shaped Their Formative Years—In Other Words, the Internet

From the very outset of Vincenzo Latronico’s fourth novel (and the first to be translated to English), Perfection, there is a simmering contempt that’s always waiting to boil to the surface, but never does in quite the direct way one might have ordinarily expected before emotional suppression and passive aggression became de rigeur. A description that can, in effect, describe what it means to be … Continue reading Perfection: Not So Much an Attack on Millennials as the Things That Shaped Their Formative Years—In Other Words, the Internet

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Poetry

Hissing of the Feathered Thread by Gregory O’Neill

it all depends so much on the knowingas if the clinging itself would save you—should holding prove itself inadequateand release prove the impossible whole a stone falls not demanding its meaningand the bird must be held to the breeze—fingers recalling a charmed slack of threadthe light passing through, unraveling vision ache is your body surrendering its bordersopen palms, soft geometry, inward home—absence without calculus, knots … Continue reading Hissing of the Feathered Thread by Gregory O’Neill

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Poetry

The Night Out by Gregory O’Neill

We leave our souls like luggage—bodies like garment bags.In the bat‑black clock hours,we usher meteors,like tiny golden pins up the ivoryheights the day calls clouds. Children’s buckets at our hips jinglewhen they kiss—dream‑power makes us taller.Nightgowns and PJs sweeping like flags.Slippers loosen jangly baubles of frozen rain. A hundred million assemble themselvesinto a backup band for the universe.Sounds arrive that other minds might callinterference—or harmony. … Continue reading The Night Out by Gregory O’Neill

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Poetry

From a distance, I know* by Dale Champlin

I look like an ant—red as fireor one of those grease ants you might crush with your finger as it marchesacross the kitchen counter            insignificant in catastrophes of my own choosing(dear god—not yours) as sentient  as all wildlife            the way I head for my burrow at the first orange glow of the lowering sun  imagine how … Continue reading From a distance, I know* by Dale Champlin

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Poetry

The Other Option by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

No No thank you No thank you   No thank you! Just no  Just not feeling it Just not not  not notno   No!   NO!! What part of no   DON’T you understand? N   O   Please remove your hand Please remove your hand No None of that    None   Nada Nada thing   Nothing   Silence The Unspoken  The Refusal  Not    the UN-Lived Not    the    i couldn’t care lessNot    the silence of indifference or recusal nor the conspiracy of consent Not the absence of yes But no   Just no  No to submissionNo is … Continue reading The Other Option by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

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