My phone won’t stop vibrating. I wake up to so many texts with so many pleas desiring gestures of devotion, camaraderie, more devotion and loyalty. The success and survival of so many endeavors hang on the tips of my fingers, no less my tongue. My silence to them is the equivalent of the magistrate remaining absent, hence staying the execution to which they believed themselves … Continue reading How Dare You? by Xavier Jones
Not in the way of a solitary spider, but a more bookish type. My web is a spectral endeavor, a reflection of my personality—the homespun fibers of my existence. Over my morning cup of Earl Grey, I plot the formation of a new friendship. The spinster next door is fair game. Her only drawback: she has a pet mini Doberman, devoid of voice box and … Continue reading I’m a Recluse by Dale Champlin
The judgment of death lowered upon all at the beginning of Genesis contains essentially everything that can be said about power. —Elias Canetti What is beautiful for Nature herself is the all-encompassing necessity of now. Life. Spring. Leaves. Move. Without the wind. Milkweed on ICE. The cream of the crop. Curdled. Art walks a tightrope between nature and eternity. The point is not to make … Continue reading Broken Dreams: A Lexicographer Picks Up the Pieces by Robert Witmer
To undress the corporate swindle and have him ride a stumbling donkey over palm branches strewn about in a hurricane such that the multitude might see what difference makes. Humbly to fit a natural self. To make real language possible again. Absolute reality is a calendar carved in snow, ticking like a time bomb. Dew on a mossy grave. Spring’s stultification of digital progress. Virga. … Continue reading Dada by Robert Witmer
Melodious as Groucho Marx, the middle-aged New York transplant answers Boyfriend’s and my ad (Valley Pennywise, August ‘80), taps at the screen door. When I open, he looks me in the eye. Offers his hand. Bends. Mustache tickles my skin. I’m a twenty-two-year-old fairy princess. Alive. Winged. In the whole back-and-forth over the queen size (or was it full?—God, I was young), he ignores Boyfriend. … Continue reading Selling the Mattress by Priscilla Atkins
After mowing the lawn, the garage needed a paint job. It was while painting that I discovered a mole on my forearm had turned to a shade of deep brown. I snapped a picture of it and sent it to GPT, which said I needed a topical OTC to treat skin inflammation. The second I applied it, the mole expanded, blossoming like a dahlia. I … Continue reading Must’ve Been a Hallucination by Peter Crowley
When winds surge from the west and the guts are unearthed, there is a warping of tides. The moon is decapitated and the torso’s pull emerges from the prefrontal cortex. One has achieved this pull through struggle, yet, by god, it exists. A decision has been made and coronated on a papist balcony overlooking the rabble. Decision stretches out its hand, shielding its eyes from … Continue reading Decision by Peter Crowley
I know I am going to regret this but I want to say something about death. Not death in general, but my own death. That event of utmost uncertainty. The luck that got me here presumably peters out, drops the ball, as it were, folds, takes one for the team and determines, by way of virtually indisputable statistical evidence, to give up the ghost. Yeah. … Continue reading Metaphysics by Robert Witmer
I keep trying to explain it to Ringo. My dog, a golden retriever. I didn’t mean to leave it behind. Not at first anyway. Ringo’s willing to fetch whatever it is, but I keep trying to explain. We just can’t go there. Private property. The law. The right to bear arms. What’s left be damned. The River Styx in your craw, my pet peeve. The … Continue reading Il Ritorno di Ringo by Robert Witmer
When we met he wasn’t into the street shit no more. I liked that. Cool. Extra cool. No late night early mornings running around dirty. Said he did that before, been to prison and all that but he was done, never again. On some fuck prison shit. Got a regular job, a 9-5, and wasn’t playing with it. He told me that around the block … Continue reading Glamorous Whitegirl by Rachel Wagner
