Tastes like chicken but like everything else it’s not.The liver is Nagasaki.The lungs Hiroshima or Jesse James andDear Old Death comes to us all butthe quiver is fantastic.Like lips full of bees.Like a bucket of glue and no one but you.Hey Toshi! It’s Number One on the Hit Parade!Who cares that The Deal is about to go down the Crapper.Or that we may have to … Continue reading Don’t Eat the Blowfish by Charlie Robert
Perhaps because so few people care about the publishing world outside of, well, the publishing world, there aren’t nearly enough “taking the ‘literature business’ to task” movies (instead, there are plenty of “taking the movie business to task” offerings [see: Sunset Boulevard, Singin’ in the Rain, The Player, Barton Fink, Adaptation, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Babylon, among others]). Though it could be quite a … Continue reading One-Two Punch: American Fiction and The Other Black Girl Lampoon the Publishing Industry for Its Views on What a “Black” Book Is
-for my husband I have climbed you like a flagpole and left you at half-mast.I have run roughshod over you then begged for more.I have cracked you like a safe and looted all that I could carryI have cried on your shoulder and hung you out to dry.You are Everest to my Mariana Trench, a matchstick to my bonfire. I duck when you deluge and squint when you shine.You mean the world … Continue reading Otherwise by Dale Champlin
Some people are beasts, Janet thinks, jealously, at the mall. They’re in their lairs and then they come out into their hunting grounds, and they feed, and they send a scout ahead of the horde, and the other beasts on the other side of the river (the mall has a moat) make beast noises, and the hordes eye each other from either side of the … Continue reading Janet and Her Soul by Alan Michael Parker
Today the veil of snow descendsOn the pasture of beach weeds I call the lawn.Until the weather warms, it willLie in state, as does your memory, my furry friend.Oh, that you could see the white and feel,Under your paws, the bracing chill of it.Simple is my wish:Ever and ever until I follow you home. Continue reading Simple Wish by Jim Stewart
I should have kneltin the street,put my head in your lap,and let you stroke my hair.But we didn’t know. We were ten.Would you have growninto a woman who founda cure for what killed you?Is that why it killed you?Would we have becomebest friends again and again? If I had knownthat a lifetime laterI would still feel what I feel,I would have knelt in the street,put … Continue reading A Question for Cheryl by Jim Stewart
We are strangerscarrying death notes in our teeth,warding off the evils of a rampant virus. Two meters and a galaxy apart,be sure not to speak,not to breathe,not to cry. behind his maskhe is an open handsunlight filling a cold roomlaughter first thing in the morning behind my maski am an isolation tanka storm inside an enforced shelterchaos in the eye of a bomb We are … Continue reading Isolation Tank by Susan Richardson
Mark, Phillip and Greg had been out of school just two weeks, but were already immersed in the intoxication of summer. In seven years, they would be part of the 1985 graduating class of Indian Hills High School but that was a lifetime away. The dread of starting sixth grade would hit them maybe around mid-August but, for now, their freedom was unbounded. The weather … Continue reading Summer Spell by Garvin Livingston
Morbidly witnessing, I can’t turn away, draw shallow breaths to the tuneof tense piano, down-tempo electronica with staccato strings & pulsating percussion.My eyes mostly covered in palms,cautious to see only the snippets squeezing past the cracks in my fingers.Clever detectives note every hair, every errant fiber, blood-tinged footprints in the snow, splatter distance & subtle hesitation marks. All the pieces matter.My craving for why is insatiable, until I plunge an ordinary … Continue reading When I Watch True Crime Documentaries on Netflix by Bridget Kriner
No cloud was in the sky & no birds flying overhead, there are no birds to fly You first become aware & alert, overcome denial. His contemptuous chortles echo in the tones of a shark. His frumious footfalls approach & you glimpse the vorpal metal in his hand appearing smaller than its actual size.The stuck voice in your throat quivers, timid & tremulous.Manxome foe with eyes of flame lurks in wait& … Continue reading Alice in Training® by Bridget Kriner
