On highway 10 – high risk – no space to fall cars come so close at high speeds, their wind moves us in the wrong direction. On interstate 10’s entrance ramp, there’s 8 inches of clearance between the wall and the road to Baton Rouge. The white Dodge Dart pulls over. An old man: ”You want a ride? get in.” He stares ahead, a stone. Sharp and I sit next to him in the front bench seat — the man’s hands! Each finger tattooed letters spelling Hard Luck Lost Love – no questions from me. … Continue reading Lord Crawdaddy by Brian King→
At times I almost convinced myself the Whitman photograph, signed, would be mine, instead of the Longfellow which hangs in the big room in airs chilly and wintry, night falling, as I listen for nonchalant Walt to appear. How the thought cheers me, singing still, for I called Nin’s father, “Dad,” seeing him rise up singing arumph arumph in his bass-o-roar-re-o: Whitman? Sure, he said. He was parceling things in a manner to appear partial to his son-in-law, yours truly, whose mine I learned not to shout, begetting such failures falling, even though another … Continue reading Shub’s Sestina for his Father-in-Law by Shelby Stephenson→
I am like that now, a green stem that will bend, not stay ground. Push my head into the down, blind me dirtily, put a heel on the back, rub the reject in, confound the chances, step on, dance the stomping jig, bite, incise, nibble and tear, do the most with your worst. Would-be destroyers, all the same: Count not the reservoir of recuperation the underdog, underfoot, underlooked powers we flowers have. Born in the wild we wild will be. Wild as wily, wild as wiry, wild as wise. Wait for the tramplers and stampers … Continue reading Wild Iris by Robert Rothman→
What’s Worthy “A man is only as good as his word,” my father used to say and I’ve tried to live up to that—even now I hate telling the smallest, inconsequential lie. In a scene from How Green Was My Valley one of the coalminer’s sons says to his coalminer father “If manners prevent us from speaking the truth, then we will be without manners” and I like to think my days of being without has been bountiful, despite some missteps my father must have committed too. On the whole, my father would have been … Continue reading What’s Worthy and Hue, 2 poems by Tim Suermondt→
I bought black flowers today. Black Satin petunias. And they really are black. Like the shadows of petunias. My wife says I bought them because I’m in love with death. I say I bought them because they’re unusual, and we’ve never had black flowers before. Besides black is my favorite color and has been since I was a kid, since I asked my Russian grandfather what his favorite color was, and he said it was black because black was God’s favorite color. He said even after God created light and all the colors of the … Continue reading Black Satin Petunias by J.R. Solonche→
which birds are out? you can count on your favorite ones, usually some finches here—-they arrive all-colored by the thicket from other people’s timbered properties & short-lived playgrounds, when it will smell like honeysuckle, you can count on that Colin Webb is a native of Baltimore, Md. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in White Wall Review, Apeiron Review, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, The Northern Virginia Review, and elsewhere, and he has been a finalist for The Arch Street Prize. Follow us!
The Day His Dad Died for PK The phone rings and the news swells and pitches like a sleeper tossing on his thin mattress of goodbyes. Your father lay down, jabbed his pale finger into the belly of air, which for him disappeared into the bright lamp in the ER. You should have never seen his face that an orderly pulled from a drawer, his head propped on a brick, eyelids drooped above his reaped eyes. Listen to him sway away from the sky overhead, trying one last time to kick through the brambles … Continue reading The Day His Dad Died and Vault, 2 poems by Connie Wasem Scott→
Duck prints score the pond, the one out my window, the one where an egret roosts come spring, the one where a blue heron fishes in summer, the one where nuthatches sip drips on the shoreline. It is still winter. I don’t know tomorrow except for penciled-in plans, scrimshaw on a calendar. I don’t know the future but for forked feet. Donna Isaac is a teaching artist who organizes community readings in the Twin Cities, Minn.; she curates and hosts the reading series, Literary Lights. Published poetry includes Footfalls (Pocahontas Press), a paean to growing … Continue reading Markings by Donna Isaac→
I don’t know why this simple apparatus makes me smile. After months of scooping out lemon rinds and soggy granola with bare hands, there’s something sweet about the soft buzz of a motor mushing up the day’s drudgeries. It’s a mind, body, spirit kind of thing, don’t you think? I mean, when another active shooter splatters our headlines red and migrants get stored in cages while the planet sizzles and viruses roam the earth a garbage disposal seems to have an odd way of leveling the playing field. Barbara Conrad is author of three poetry … Continue reading New Garbage Disposal by Barbara Conrad→
First Sonogram Seen from your upper window, down the block at some remove, an Edward Hopper black and white and grainy through the screen, a street lamp’s cone shines down. There, you notice a figure, indistinct, possibly familiar, curled as if to tie a shoe, and wonder who it is . How Family Stories Go A cured and hanging ham, one of several, drawn from a dark larder in the back of a paid-down clapboard house. Hard. A little shrunk. With a flourish it’s revealed on the cutting board. Each time, descendants of the first … Continue reading First Sonogram and How Family Stories Go, 2 poems by Eric Forsbergh→
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