poetry

A Venetian Masquerade by Myla Rousseau

We met Online. The word “Online” Doesn’t even fit On poetry page. What line? The line that (we imagine) Exists…

5 years ago

Poem in Which You Are the Church by C.J. Strauss

Real boy the love I have made to you is unremarkable, as it should be in a perfect world, impossible…

5 years ago

Solace by James Croal Jackson

It was not solace we sought in the woods, but rather, logs to provide fire for years. Having known too…

5 years ago

Half and Half by Ana Gardner

The green organic fairtrade coffee shop Ran out of green organic almond milk one day On my green organic college…

5 years ago

National Geographic by Alessandra Jacobs

I open myself up in increments – like flowers blooming and dying in fast forward.   Photo: Catherine Perez Vega

5 years ago

Late Night on the Phone by Gila Green

And that terrorist attack was at my brother-in-law's synagogue and he was a minute or two late for prayers, so…

5 years ago

Nightingale Street by Carl Boon

The people on Nightingale Street congregate tonight beside a corpse. One pulls back the hair; another peers into the eyes…

5 years ago

First Words by Chris Kelling

Friends find each other when they’re lonely latch onto sound, odd-paired partners holding court like the camaraderie of smokers at…

5 years ago

unnamed places by Peter Shaver

The aloneness of orchards, farm lands, and forests. Fields freshly stripped of trees. Ponds behind suburbs and prisons where we’d…

5 years ago

The Narrative of Walls by Paul Vincent Cannon

The old brick wall was always there, but I’d left it unnoticed for a time. It held my gaze as…

5 years ago

Resurrection by Gale Acuff

The morning after I bury my dog I wolf my scrambled eggs and check on him, below the garden, where…

5 years ago

Shorn by Dee Allen

Getting the head Shorn with a blade, Hairless to the touch And smooth, was how Kenyan and Tanzanian Maasai men…

5 years ago

Fuck Up by Keith Welch

My father was no gentleman an unhandy handyman my inheritance was a lack of project planning skills in my hands…

5 years ago

Whiskey and a Slice of Pie by Lex Runciman

That’s her, 1962, Though she’d hate my saying so. Early Times, her phrasing I remember – Early Times Mist, vodka…

5 years ago

Fate by Nancy Jo Allen

The snake rests in the path of her truck which she wants to back out under the overhead door. It…

5 years ago

The Old Man by Terry Allen

The old man, asleep perhaps on a tired bench, slumps forward and a torn bit of paper slips from his…

5 years ago

Reclusive Interview With the Author by Marc Meierkort

There is a part about halfway through the middle of your latest book optioned by the Hollywood press before publication…

5 years ago

The Opposite of Town by Todd Mercer

As far from one interstate as you get before drawing closer to another, forty-eight mile stretch with one gas station.…

5 years ago

Hello by Terri Simon

I saw you from across the cafe, and I think we might have something in common, I mean, besides being…

5 years ago

Settled by Jennifer Rood

The smoke has settled thick. Near mountains appear the color of bruises.  The far ones, I can only remember seeing. …

5 years ago

Provocation of Salt by Brian P. Hall

Her taste is a dead sea, fed upon/collected in moderation & excess buried beneath pressure/ pleasure, she scatters in pinches…

5 years ago

Another Time by M.J.Iuppa

Twelve metal knockers positioned precisely on the cottage’s blue door. Three catch his eye: the silver fish with its burnished…

6 years ago

Epigenetics by KG Newman

Because he’s two and can’t, I tee up the ball, déjà vuing to the worn net in my father’s basement. When…

6 years ago

The Audit by Sandra Kacher

I am 70 and the rocks in the creek are slippery I have left the toast too long in the…

6 years ago

90 Year-Old Trickster by Fabrice Poussin

Bright wheels shine upon the green linoleum intermittently singing a song of rust and thirst within the deafening silence of…

6 years ago

Immigrant Antiskip by Cory Kulbir Saran

the scrap entrails from our parents’ hollowed eyes, near blind, exploited still feasted on by the old gods, shame sacrifice,…

6 years ago

Today He Will Cut Me Open by Cheryl Heineman

The doctor stops by my bed. I’m in a hospital gown in pre-op. I touch my old scars. I say:…

6 years ago

From by Andrew Furst

Don't confuse me with someone standing on the earth. I'm strung from the sun. # # # Andrew Furst is…

6 years ago

Cold Sweat by Steve Deutsch

They finished stitching you at 2 A.M. The crowd at the ER spilled out into the corridors— drunks and druggies,…

6 years ago

Our Daughter by Cecil Morris

Our daughter is the ancient mariner doomed to wander forever through foreign scenes of dark despair, doomed by her own…

6 years ago

Sitting in My Brother’s Back Yard by Milton P. Ehrlich

Even though he isn’t here, he’s here. I can see him sitting next to me— a Cessna Skycatcher soars overhead.…

6 years ago

Lifting The Fog On Castro Hours Back Then by Gerard Sarnat

Riffing off Cleve Jones, muse of the AIDS quilt, the world’s largest ever community art project, after listening to his…

6 years ago

Blue by DS Maolalai

evening flies blue overhead, dragging the night in behind it. I step outside before it's passed to collect some blue…

6 years ago

The Ophthalmology Specialists’ Secondary Waiting Room by Terri Kirby Erickson

Light is gentle here, and scarce—a room designed for dilated pupils, for patients with glaucoma, cataracts, and macular degeneration—people whose…

6 years ago

Lumberjacks by Horia Pop

Call for the lumberjacks give them full authority to cut deep, to cut down all the trees, my forest Bring…

6 years ago

Descending Lydia by Charlotte Hamrick

I planted tomatoes on a Friday in April, their little hairy leaves reminding me of your legs in winter, their…

6 years ago

Give and Take by Mika Doyle

I gave to you until my palms were empty; you took until your hands were coated white with the dust…

6 years ago

Heritage by Megha Sood

Those shriveled wrinkled fingers passing on that family album with a fleeting touch has passed on the generations under our…

6 years ago

Eight Ways to the City by Jude Okonkwo

Stumbling on the boulevard, he discovered a desert covered the entirety of his city the phantom sands spread thickest over…

6 years ago

Did You Hear the One… by Alayna Hinson

The undercover bisexual walks in wearing her best flannel and jeans–– (it’s funny because the bisexual doesn’t really need an…

6 years ago

THIS IS ONLY A TEST by Lianne Kamp

We have the test results – a female voice announces through the holes by my ear I watch the ceiling…

6 years ago

Between the Sheets by Daun Daemon

When Mama washed the sheets, she stripped beds bare, toted a basket brimming with linens to the back yard. On…

6 years ago

Vegas Wedding by Amanda Tumminaro

In the electric chapel, Veronica wears her strawberry sandals and divorce papers pinned up her sleeve. Her fly-by-night bridegroom, Chad,…

6 years ago

They Are Running at Bullets by Frank Dullaghan

As of Friday night, the Gaza health ministry said that three Palestinians had been killed, all of them shot in…

6 years ago

The Lamp by Mary E. Torregrossa

His classmate complains when the student in the back row falls asleep in class for the third time - so…

6 years ago

The Greyhound Bus by Marne Wilson

Two states away they were burying my uncle, but when I got on a Greyhound bus, it was heading towards…

6 years ago

The Brunt of It by M. Stone

This spring, the honeysuckle twining our chain-link fence remains unplucked; the wild pear tree, no longer harangued by greedy fingers.…

6 years ago

The Drowned Child by Keith Welch

Face-down on a beach the drowned child. You saw the photo. Arms at his sides, red shirt, blue shorts salt-soaked…

6 years ago

The New Salad by John Cullen

sounded like Spring with beating hearts of romaine, baby spinach leaves cooing impishly in the cradle, with shavings of radicchio…

6 years ago

Mosquito Drift by Jennifer L. Collins

You turn me into a mosquito chipping and fluttering at broken air with a steady buzz of anonymity and a…

6 years ago

Secret Sauce by Deirdre Fagan

I hadn’t become much of a cook yet— I had only lived, or half-lived, with a few boyfriends, trying out…

6 years ago

Of the Whale by Kelly R. Samuels

We were told we crawled out of the water, our limbs budding as needed. And this was why we return…

6 years ago

Tierra del Fuego by Paul Ilechko

Fires burn constantly in the south lands. The stink of sulphur and the churn of smoke against the blank white…

6 years ago

Side Work by Rebecca Irene

The cook blasts rap, minces inferior parts of suckling pig for staff meal. Sweet Ali & I sweep chick peas…

6 years ago

My Revolutionary Sweetheart by Christopher T. Keaveney

In the manner of Jim Carroll Distress was her middle name so we used it sparingly in the morning sleeping…

6 years ago

Intertidal by Yoni Hammer-Kossoy

Tuesday it finally stopped raining so we bolted for the beach after lunch. A lifeguard perched above the fray, twirling…

6 years ago

Anamnesis by Donna H. DiCello

They say we are stardust, each connected by an ethereal blueprint, bound atom by atom, the unending synapse firings in…

6 years ago

A Shoe in Each of Two Canoes by Heikki Huotari

The moon would be a mirror were it not a soggy paper plate. Each universe a simulation of the next,…

6 years ago

China Clipper by William C. Blome

At some moment in everyone's life There comes the desire to extend one’s arms, To rotate slowly on your tiptoes…

6 years ago

A Future by Brian Randall

considering colony collapse Sometimes, I think I could become a home for honeybees let them pick the nectar from my…

6 years ago

Bluer Skies by Spencer Séverin

A galaxy painting her skin Her face a night sky Markings never fail to heal But her soul still cries.…

6 years ago

Stone Octagon by Rachael Gay

During the dead age, I spent the silent moments fantasizing about climbing inside the abandoned water tower, slipping my wasting…

6 years ago

Mixing Cocktails with JD by Beth Gordon

Gin and tonics are not the same without you he says as I walk out my back door. The mulberry tree…

6 years ago

Cinderella by Bernard Horn

You need another wedding dress for the August heat of Israel, so you’re in the TJMaxx dressing room alone, trying…

6 years ago

Salvation by Matt Dennison

He could stand it no longer, had almost crushed his one Sunday hat in his hands, crushed his desire to…

6 years ago

Movie Making by Janet M. Powers

On the plane to Lima, I browsed new movies on an airline screen; some looked good, but I was tired,…

6 years ago

Porch Rail by Carol Lynne Knight

— after the British TV series “Luther” If I go missing, if I am accused, perhaps guilty — send DCI…

6 years ago

Tails by Ray DiZazzo

For the lynx, a bob. A wooly stub above the anus shaking off the snow on a winter slope. Studs…

6 years ago

The Secret to Life (From the Back of My Mind) by Celaine Charles

There is always a hum in the back of my mind. The dryer clanging a cacophony of notes to a…

6 years ago

Prodigious Signs by Allan Lake

I sip my customary espresso at JJ's on a cold, nearly freezing, Spring Monday in the World's (again) Most Liveable…

6 years ago

Sybil of Main Street by David Anthony Sam

Swirling under three dresses, wearing a peaked hat like Dorothy's witch, she drags a battered red wagon across the busy…

6 years ago

Noah Cross, Archetype by Todd Mercer

Old Salt, damned since orange groves covered the valley, seals his soul’s fate in Chinatown’s ending: the car skids to…

6 years ago

Roti Osco by Charlotte Cooper

Rolling north, we pull over the shoulder of the first Alp, and leave the dim Italian plain receding in the…

6 years ago

Heat, Dust, and Time by William J. Williford

Bags packed, rifle in tow, uniform on, I boarded a plane. Anticipation warmed the heart; apprehension gripped the throat. My…

6 years ago

Colonization by Fatima Siraj

I am a victim of the rulers who enslaved my grandfather(s) of a system that ranks their language superior to…

6 years ago

Palpation by Laura Wilhelm

Idle fingers pinch perfumed skin, pull it taut and splotchy, try to touch the angular body beneath. I undress my…

6 years ago

Succession of Entrances and Mechanics by Devon Miller-Duggan

Each of these doors opened in succession: the moon, the three stones on which we set the pot for soup,…

6 years ago

Creature Comforts by Valentina Cano

Webbed appendages would be useful. I might, with them, be able to dart through the folds of traps you’ve laid…

6 years ago

Consecration by Patricia Wentzel

I wake to the size of the silence within me slide feet into shoes stand tall, taller balance the weight…

6 years ago

Diggin’ to China by Dennis Goza

On a farm in Kansas, a boy was gawking through the milky glass of a View-Master at a sight he’d…

6 years ago

Let’s Order the Crème Brûlée by Alyssa D. Ross

The first date concluded with tiny, dark dots of crushed vanilla bean, a splatter of stars at the bottom of…

6 years ago

Bus Stop Story by Diana Rosen

The first thing I notice is the fine line of the beard outlining his strong chin up to the side…

7 years ago

The Bottle is Cracked by Mr. Horia Alexandru Pop

My Carpathian nose bent on your belly sniff sniff sniff reaping the fallen fruits spread everywhere on your blossomed skin…

7 years ago

They Told me by Bill Garten

In cardiac rehab there would be nights you can't sleep. Others who overheard confirmed that sleep is a commodity. When…

7 years ago

I Buried You on a Bright Red Tricycle by Jimmy Pappas

I buried you on a bright red tricycle with a bell on the handlebars while the swing set continued to…

7 years ago

Vincent Speaks of Theo by Ann Howells

. . . now I say it less in words and more silently in work.          …

7 years ago

Purpose by Jeanne Mack

Purpose is hard to come by, when you’re spending days driving South; Utah and Arizona. Red in the rearview, red…

7 years ago

Photorealism by Andrew W. Szilvasy

There is this photo of Marianne Moore beside a pony in Greenwich Village that like a nun fingering beads I…

7 years ago

Sunday Candy by Mirielle Clifford

After Donnie Trumpet & the Social Experiment I listen twice, three times, four - the first to hear the second…

7 years ago

Inishmore by Catherine Fahey

A 5,000 year old ring fort defends the cliff from invaders, its stones offering little protection to tourists. So you…

7 years ago

1972 Ford LTD Brougham (a Tomb) by Ken Meisel

Sometimes it is in desolation that we discover life, and so, on Highway 2 in the Upper peninsula of Michigan…

7 years ago

The Memory of Things by Peycho Kanev

The snow fell. We were running around the creek, washing our faces in the icy water. It tasted like dreams…

7 years ago

The Helicopter on Fire by Ron Riekki

My V. A. counselor tells me I should write about the helicopter on fire. He tells me I need to…

7 years ago

On the Death of My Parents by Connie Woodring

In a milli-second to the 50th power after                         …

7 years ago

Love Stings Drone and Lonely by Bill Gillard

it wasn't the drunk and desperate crowd whose ears will ring with dull and gloried memory of this blues jam…

7 years ago

Blue Crabs by Glen Sorestad

She slowly swings her woven circular net into the Gulf that sloshes against rock slabs of the elongated jetty on…

7 years ago

Snowlining by Yuan Chanming

At the same height of Every rocky mountain Above all seasonal change You are widely cut open As if to…

7 years ago

irretrievable by J Mari

it's close to midnight and i come in as quietly as i can try to not stumble against the furniture that…

7 years ago

Planting Poppies by Nancy Jo Allen

I open a mouth in the early morning earth, and remove a bedding plant with care from its fragile plastic…

7 years ago

Wine by Darrell Petska

We drank an IPA at Vino's, then a couple more. The day sweltered; Times Square proved too much. Jesus said,…

7 years ago

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