Every morning from his roomI can hear the deed:Boaz at his Jewish prayers,Bound in phylacteries. He is dead, who doesn’t wantComfort from someone;Ajax called out to the skies, notFor god, but for his mom. In my neighbors’ yards, their dogsAre left there all alone:And if you’d walk past you’d sayThere was no master home. Dogs don’t deal in silent prayers,That’s why they psalmodizeAbandoned in their … Continue reading Dead by Zeke Greenwald
Little ants on the table and a bug so small it looks like a speck. I just saw a Matt Damon movie about an experimental colony of small people, shrunken in response to overpopulation and food shortages and—you know, extinction. But I wonder if we will make ourselves small becausethat’s just what we do to ourselves—Not being enough. And being like ants, replicating to be more. More than enough.To … Continue reading Smallness by Jacqueline Henry
“He who loves not his country, can love nothing.” This quote from Lord Byron is how Sarah J. Hale, perhaps known more in the present for penning “Mary Had a Little Lamb” than being the “Mother of Thanksgiving,” commences Northwood: A Tale of New England, Vol. 1. Lord Byron’s words are a strong indication of just how much Hale was responsible for the white-washing of Thanksgiving under … Continue reading How a Women’s Magazine Fortified the Myth of Thanksgiving and Its Absurd Menu
He distrusted utterance because he stammered at schooland lame words had made him the object of ridicule,so he took up painting and started to compilea language whose figures typified flowers. The only person who patiently accepted his flawsand reiterated his words with a reassuring voicestood by him to witness the birth of a codeaesthetically borrowed from the floral world. He kept in his pocket the … Continue reading The Floral Code by Susie Gharib
Edgar Wright might be of the belief that the notion of there being “better days” is a fallacy, but that really doesn’t seem to be true when it comes to literary magazines. An enterprise that long ago achieved its heyday, never to really do so again. For it is a decidedly antiquated medium that is difficult to make “sexy” to anyone except pretentious East Coast … Continue reading “Try to make it sound like you wrote it that way on purpose”: The French Dispatch is a Bittersweet Reminder of the Bygone Era That Fortified Writers Through Literary Magazines
I’d been going through a terrible time, separating from my wife, and everything I touched, broke.I was working in a bookstore on 8th Street in New York City,the only person on the night shift, barely hanging on to the job.Among the tasks I had to do every evening after closing was clean the bathroom.Late one night I accidentally knocked an empty vase off the back of the toilet sending it crashing into the porcelain bowlcreating … Continue reading Metamorphosis by Ron Kolm
It lookslike achildmight’vetaken it. She didn’tlike to bephotographed. Before therewere kids. Before itfell apart. (while). He lovedbusting chops, hers noexception. Clandestine. Havingit allready: film locked, flash on— One, two, three Say cheese! Her glare— fixed, bold,burned, blurred. Continue reading Old Family Photo, 1987 by Matthew Corey
