3rd place winner of the Streetlight 2015 Poetry Contest. Flowers in a Crystal Vase – Manet, 1882   At the members only showing of flower paintings, we old folks dress for comfort. Women in flats and boutique slacks, light sweaters, conservative colors, but still striving for a sense of style. We men—not so much. A leather jacket seems to be the best we can do. As if somewhere in the back of our memory, a whisper tells us this makes us debonair, perhaps a little dangerous, walking among still-life flower arrangements. The young guards herd … Continue reading Flowers in a Crystal Vase by Les Bares →

2nd place winner of the Streetlight 2015 Poetry Contest. Rubble   The water found a home in our wreckage.                  Our city, once a bastion of high times—       colored lights on strings, avenues smiling              all year churches, bars, and streets filled with strutting horns, jerk sauce and hips—                  now choked in trash bags       whistling like reeds on a wade-through,              snaring limbs, dragging us down. Remain                   calm, we say, dragging strangers       from the rubble. Our founders, rebels, saviors              in bronze and silver toppled. Straight-backed stoics                  fighting silent acid tears,       reduced to river-street ruck              floating alongside bright orange … Continue reading Rubble by Pernille Smith Larsen →

1st place winner of the Streetlight 2015 Poetry Contest. Hum   Out of the blue, he gave her a recording. She thought there was something wrong with it, but they had only slept together once, she wasn’t even divorced yet: she didn’t know how these things worked. Do you tell someone there is something wrong with what they’ve given you? She didn’t know Glenn Gould how he hummed what was in his head as he played. Maybe the recording wasn’t very good or she was not listening well. She couldn’t really tell much but that … Continue reading Hum by Julie Ascarrunz →