On the heels of Grimes setting off a wave of debate with regard to her “we’re in the end of art, human art” prophecy in terms of how AI will take over music, it leads one to reckon that, of all the arts most likely to take the severest blow, it would be none other than writing (rarely considered an art at all in the … Continue reading (Un)natural Language Generation
O Mother I love you despite everything. —Erica Jong To be deprived of sight and sound—exhausted as a lobster in a trap—unblinking—plunged to a depthwhere everything goes black. Here my desires seem flimsy—even water has lost its transparency. Threads of bubbles syphon up from my bed of leaf mold. Dear Mother, are you on your third Manhattan of the evening? Is my little girl lost in fitful sleep?Is your son under arrest … Continue reading Barbie Suffers from Insomnia by Dale Champlin
Your bleak huddled wings,Inhumed blue soul—Whisper surreptitiously—tales untold.The foreboding clouds, the tepid sun—Interspersed along the placid sea—Mourn painfully through words unspoken—Another name—for intimacy. Continue reading My Own by Syed Zaman
From where I sit on the toilet, I count three rolls of fat hanging over the tech’s zebra stretch pants “Lift your shirt higher,” she says. She points between my legs, her nails pink with little gold stars. I hold the cup under me so long my hand shakes. It reminds me of the tremor I had from the meds at the hospital. My hair … Continue reading At the Drug Clinic by Sherri Levine
Of course, it’s not completely unusual for a domesticated animal to be named after a literary character or titan. It’s the sort of thing one remembers happening in New York almost as late as 2005, when fresh transplants would name their dogs something like Salinger as an ode to their recent transference to the city and the self-assurance that they were literary enough not only … Continue reading A Cat Named Quilty Lives Up to His Shifty Child Molester Namesake (Minus the Child Molesting)
“You don’t look I-talian.”“Do you get dark in the summer?”“Do you know anyone in the mob?”“Of course she’s Italian, she’s from Staten Island.”“And look at her nose…” Yes, let’s address my Romanesque NoseThat hooked beakFor so many years I loathedMy profileLearned the perfect head tilt, the proper way to smile Do you know my great-grandparents came outta Harlem?Yes, 110th Do you know I can’tSay anything nice in … Continue reading Things I’ve Heard While Growing Up Italian by Alise Versella
In Annie’s apartment there is some stuffFrom which thin things she’s made decorAs if she didn’t just move in there,And life worked out for her before. Luke rearranged the furnitureIn the room where he’s been living. He uses his space better nowThan he did in the beginning. I invite you now, look at my room:There’s not much by way of showing.I’ve kept it sparse, not confidentThat … Continue reading Spartan by Zeke Greenwald
There are no pins with which to torture dolls,no potions extracted from a viper’s blood,no drugging to induce paralysis,no incantations to make one hallucinate,no animal slaughtering to appease the gods,no sexual dalliance with the demonic lot.Maleficium is an electronic cult. They can bleed your name on a digital blade,frame you with Lucifer on a hot blind date,rearrange your features with a mouse’s aid,make you the … Continue reading Sorcery in the Twenty-First Century by Susie Gharib
Claws weep as they crack the fleshtrembling ivorypalms pushing the dagger deepIt is so much harder to kick a fallen soldier,Your hollow aching carcasspours gangrene through my feetknocked back by iron anklesto waste hopeless at my kneesIt is so much harder to cut an infant leech,Withered, the child stands sobbinggrasping with blackened armsthey … Continue reading Weeping Teeth by Isabel Straw
They’re everywhere– here therein restaurants in schools in mosques your closet your bed your last paragraph– those curious question marks! Spies with eyes in the back of their headare tracking you like the CIAlike a jealous lover like a digitalized numberon an overnight package Big Brother surveillance cameras the eyes of your computer the eyes of strangers Facebook Twitter Instagramstalking you like a wet dream At the doctor’s office even the stethoscope knows your real name and … Continue reading Sp-eyes by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko
