Once the Thunder Stops and it’s safe to venture out, we walk to the end of the drive, out to the road, through the mire & torn branches. The smell of our wood fire mingles with eucalyptus. We have only the moon and our plastic flashlights. I can’t remember the last time it was this dark; how slowly the eyes adjust. A crisp silence creaks and then echoes. I reach for your arm, step over what trees have shaken loose. The makeshift brace we rigged held the fence again. The dogs chase & bark and … Continue reading Once the Thunder Stops and Marco Polo, 2 poems by Barb Reynolds→
Mountain spruce on upward slopes: their pale under-blue unwraps the clouds in their slow round of visiting. We taste tracery of strange soaps on our skins. You turn towards me, awake again. The unruly sun and her thirsty birds teach us their manner of rejoicing. James Miller is a native of Houston, though he has spent time in the American Midwest, Europe, China, South America and India. Recent publications include Cold Mountain Review, The Maine Review, Lunch Ticket, Gravel, Main Street Rag, and Juked. Follow us!
Like most people, I have done things that I wish I had not done, but it seems rare that something I am sorry I did is linked inextricably to something else I am glad to have done. Growing up in a middle-class family, I lived in material security. My mother and father saw that my brother, sister and I were always clothed and fed. At Christmas, that festival of food and gifts, there would always be lots of presents. Most of my early memories of Christmas are extremely pleasant, beginning with the enormous conifer in … Continue reading A Late Christmas Gift by Miles Fowler→
A national obsession, a billion dollar industry and here I am participating no pushups or planks, no pills or prayers have helped, though Lord knows I have tried haven’t I, O Lord Not losing weight to bypass diabetes or cancer certainly not be more seductive at Stone’s Throw Tavern sipping Margaritas in skin tight pants or stuffed into size zero to impress my friends or, let’s face it, my barely there anorectic sister At seventy-five who cares, crepe paper skin drooping derriere, boobs flop at my waist, feet fatter and flatter, growing shorter by the … Continue reading Weight For Me by Claire Scott→
I’m dreaming. I am in my old life, the life that no longer exists. I am married and I have a daughter, although in the dream she is young and not an adult. And things are going wrong. We are in the midst of a large group of scientists and my husband is ignoring me. Worse yet, he is oblivious to me; he’s discussing a travel adventure with an Italian and a Swiss scientist – they are going to fly above the Alps in a hot air balloon. And he is taking my daughter, a … Continue reading Voicelessness by Anita Lekic→
I have no idea where the images in my poems lived before they made it to the page. I’ve received ample chiding during poetry critiques on my tendency to “raid the unconscious.” Sometimes an image is found just by walking out into the world and finding an object with an emotional or psychological correlate. Other times, the image surfaces through a bedrock of shared human experience. Hard to trace. Around the turn of the twentieth century there was an interesting shift in poetry that involved imagery. The Imagist movement originated as a turn away from … Continue reading A Few Thoughts on Imagery by Sharon Ackerman→
Many of my art works are rooted in science with an affinity for outer space. In June 1969, as America fulfilled J. F. Kennedy’s dream to put the American Stars and Stripes into the dusty surface of the moon, my fascination with spaceships grew. As a child, I made spaceship models and always wanted to create my own space cities. Phantasmal spaceships carried me to unique wonderland of strange forms and colors. Eventually my artistic visions ended up on paper in some 500 drawings. As I got older, I wanted more flexibility so worked … Continue reading Darrell Black: The Art of Definism→
Twin sisters Fuchsia & Diamond, twins in the sense they matured in the same kiln, not expelled from one womb, dance to punk band A Testament Of Youth, Tuesday night, Dugan’s Deli, Iowa State University, in a burst of non-conformity, an innocent standard, unfurled. Rainbow hair, safety pin couture, collision of dreams supplants arctic stares, turns heads in obvious defiance to humanity’s stoic ennui. Nature extends herself with sweet meat cloaking her bitter seeds, but the sisters can’t spiral unscathed through the muted spoils of eons. They’d escaped the racks, iron maidens, pyres meant to … Continue reading Bitter Seeds by Robin Ray→
The New Year’s Eve party was near Times Square in the building then housing Show World Center. You sat on my friends’ laps and mine inquiring about our salaries. John had the features of a Jones Beach lifeguard, which, coincidentally, he was. He was neither dumber nor smarter than he looked. Brian was the company ladies’ man, who we had nicknamed Kraven the Hunter. Those descriptions are as dated as the large-lensed glasses we all wore. Another Long Islander, he had studied medieval history at Wichita State because he wanted to get as far away … Continue reading Split Decision by Michael Olenick→
