Respite by Joseph Kleponis All is quiet; the winds have subsided; The storm’s dissonance is behind us. Sideways rain and sleet that tore through the night Have jeweled b […]

The Varied Works by Matthew Morpheus   I grew up in Ukraine, the heart of the freedom-loving Cossacks, surrounded by the rich cultural heritage of my people who had a strong […]

Self Driving to Eternity by Chibuike Ukah I stretched out my legs before me, ready to bury my dead bodies, when my boss invited me to his office and made me an immoral offer. He pleaded […]

Slugger by Walter Lawn I know a story they left out of her obituary. In the late 1970s and early 80s I worked in the Development Department at The Franklin Institute, the […]

Questions to Ask a Poem by Fred Wilbur Poem, come in, sit down. How are you getting along? Are people reading your ordinary troubles? Let’s talk about that. (I hear my fatherly voice: p […]

Figurative Works by Joseph A. Miller     Figurative painter Joseph A. Miller freeze-frames telling moments of childhood and beyond. He focuses on the human figure in e […]

A Plum on a Tree by Roselyn Elliott   In the ER, we try to save them all, yet, each death of a stranger is a small death inside me, an accumulation of failed effort that […]

Lily is Safe by Elisa Wood Coming down from the redwood forest, where majestic trees defy rusted Coke signs and dead gas stations, we drive, curve after curve, in daylight […]

Ground Zero by Lynn Bushell   9 a.m. ‘M’ comes out of his flat. I see his head first, coming up the basement steps. He needs a haircut. And he’s wearing the same shirt he had […]

Ignorance by Michael Penny When I encounter a word I don’t know I check the books and screens. Even after that, there remain words I cannot find the meaning of. Some a […]

The Grass is Always Greener by Miles Fowler Growing up in Massachusetts in the 1950s and early 1960s, my schoolmates and I used to watch a children’s television show called Big Brother. At n […]

My Funny Little Valentine by Lucinda Guard HEART OF GOLD The calendar waves its pages, and announces it’s time for our annual tradition of tapping trees and sugaring. Oh wait: not you! No more […]

The Composer by Anne Whitehouse …………………………for John Kander Music plays in my head, and I listen. Sounds and rhythms, echoes and vibrations. This is how I […]

Wild Fires by Trudy Hale Tuesday, Januay 7th. My son Charlie called. He was breathless. He had barely escaped the Palisades. The sky had been clear, he said when he took […]

Equal Opportunity by Claire Scott I just bought an eight-pack of bony Jesuses, an Amazon special, to be sure Jesus remembers this little lamb if I run a red light or ease through a […]

Fragments From Returning to the Suburban Neighborhood of My Youth by Sharon Gelman Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash. I. a. This morning, I saw a creature standing in the road. The size of a small dog with rust-colored fur. […]

Still Life with Bulldozer and Backhoe by Cindy Buchanan   In the empty lot across the street they graze on ground scrape and grind — diesel sculptors of land and sound that rumble words shatter li […]

The Audience Beneath by Holly Day The worms are writing a song in my garden, rustling their slick bodies through the leaves in a rising crescendo, inspired by the rain. If one were […]

The Rauschenberg Retrospective by Ingrid Jandrewski Studio by Katy Nicosia. CC license. When we first enter the Robert Rauschenberg retrospective at the Tate Modern, my parents’ eyes brighten as if t […]

The Last Time by Cheryl Somers Aubin We never know when it will be the last time, do we? If I had known, I would have paid closer attention to the story mom shared about her […]