Putin + Assad Putin + Trump Putin + A Gunshot To Each of Their Heads by Brian Sheffield

1. I know Putin mainly through memes and ill-informed protest poetry. I know Assad from that time in 2012 when I was still conscious and actually gave a shit about politics, or rather used Facebook to convince all of my friends that I did. I know Trump because I live with him everyday and am reminded that his face is my face is the face … Continue reading Putin + Assad Putin + Trump Putin + A Gunshot To Each of Their Heads by Brian Sheffield

Genna RivieccioMarch 30, 2017March 30, 2017Leave a comment

Poetry

“Sorry, our time is up.” by Thomas Fucaloro

“Sorry, our time is up.” I tell my therapist “I eat my soup with a fork because I don’t know any better my truths are things I paint from my own despair. I am my own dealer. I have been selling lies to myself for, like, forever and I’m pretty sure the lamb in me is just a limb in me beating the shit out … Continue reading “Sorry, our time is up.” by Thomas Fucaloro

Genna RivieccioMarch 28, 2017March 28, 2017Leave a comment

Poetry

(Things I don’t understand which I have no excuse for not understanding because Google) Or: Reasons I can’t leave New York by Craig Kite

Poisoned water. Poisoned water is everywhere and it gets worse than Flint if you go past the Catskills. The Catskills are a saint. I don’t even pray but I bug them for protection. They stand there cascading sparkling safety into fugazi wooden tanks that dot advantaged Manhattan roofs, which I savor taking for granted. I’m pansexual but I don’t think your tractor is sexy. I … Continue reading (Things I don’t understand which I have no excuse for not understanding because Google) Or: Reasons I can’t leave New York by Craig Kite

Genna RivieccioMarch 27, 2017Leave a comment

Poetry

Should I Call You Ankhesenamun? by John Turanyi

Your self hatred has fed into an arrogance In which the thinnest pathway cuts Between the freezing fog and fervent flame Where one could balance if he chose, Swinging his cane from compliment to castigation. But what purpose would humbling you serve If the flames would be stoked Or if each time the lips part was to preserve your ego? Could you ever be convinced … Continue reading Should I Call You Ankhesenamun? by John Turanyi

Genna RivieccioMarch 27, 2017Leave a comment

Poetry

Verge by John Gosslee

I am not the meadow I was yesterday and my body is part of a larger body whose fingers cannot scratch the middle of its back. The antagonist and the main character are in a relationship that feeds the rain, the dirt that stretches past a measurable end-point. The crickets in the phone’s music and the foxes crying on the hill, bridge the past tense … Continue reading Verge by John Gosslee

Genna RivieccioMarch 24, 2017Leave a comment

Poetry

NOT A XMAS CAROL by Jamika Ajalon

I. frank & myrh aerosol swirled city smells lulled xmas zombie lovers Into white christmas dreams, while the live ones on frozen frosting pavement with pine needled fingers held not the baby jesus Mary had birthed a stillborn on that xmas day with three alley cat queens as witness the red nosed Dear old man Everybody called Rude Off ‘cause he & his tourrets always … Continue reading NOT A XMAS CAROL by Jamika Ajalon

Genna RivieccioMarch 23, 2017March 23, 2017Leave a comment

Poetry

Palimpsest by Michael Salcman

The old man in the mirror, with the face of an artichoke, spies on me with eighteen-year old eyes. I watch him unwrap his white doctor’s coat only to reveal a smock covered in brushstrokes, its pockets burdened with crumpled notes written to himself in disguise. Perhaps he wonders what people will say after we’ve died, all these unreliable lives fleeing a single body. We … Continue reading Palimpsest by Michael Salcman

Genna RivieccioMarch 22, 2017Leave a comment

Poetry

In The Eyes of My Grandmothers by Lauriel Michele

They say Great Grandmas eyes were as gray as winter skies and her heart colder than a week’s worth of snow truth be told She wasn’t so frozen No she just had a lot of responsibility and couldn’t speak of love so easily as we can in these times a woman speaking of love so freely back then was viewed as weakness and you couldn’t … Continue reading In The Eyes of My Grandmothers by Lauriel Michele

Genna RivieccioMarch 21, 2017March 21, 20171 Comment

Criticism

Bibliophilia in Beauty and the Beast

There are almost too many bizarre angles with which to look at the story of Beauty and the Beast. So many, in fact, that it’s nearly impossible to encompass the entire narrative with just one theme. One of the minutiae of the outré elements of the tale is Belle’s obsession with books. Unlike any of the other princesses reinvented mostly from the Brothers Grimm by Disney, Belle … Continue reading Bibliophilia in Beauty and the Beast

Genna RivieccioMarch 19, 2017March 19, 2017Leave a comment

Poetry

Threshold by Maria Berardi

We probably don’t know we are dying when we are dying. After we are dead it is too late. Through a doorway never in a doorway, just one room then, the other. An awe: there is probably no this is it – just extinguishment. No goodbye, just gone. Christ says give up, Christ says, give. Buddha agrees, adds, say goodbye each moment your whole life … Continue reading Threshold by Maria Berardi

Genna RivieccioMarch 16, 20171 Comment