• Poetry

    Dear X

    by Anonymous Remembering Reverberation Echo Ripples in the water Butterfly effect How a decision made so long ago by someone else has made my life a tornado filled with fire His choice Made her leave And she taught me what to believe And he taught me how to be treated Did he know? Did he realize or understand that his decision would kill a little girl Letting her fall to his feet Screaming for him to wait Come back Don’t leave She’ll pick up each piece of herself Try to find anything to use as glue Instead she finds rocks Harsh waves Knives Why am I so addicted to people…

  • Nonfiction

    I.B.H.

    You caught me honey-bee I always thought I was a wasp With a grin sting, turning green In the porch light, no, though. I turned out to be a moth with Soft wings, coming off on your fingertips I’m grateful for the bees, he says: You will hive me forever. On those movies It was only the words that turned me: each One an aphotic kelp forest, swirling otters Coming up and over the sweating sun. Antediluvian moments, he used to call them, The seven deluges you carved out in old Display cases, native beads, Asian threads. I realized the honey was mine all along. I swear on summer: the…

  • Poetry

    Death of An English Shepherd at Flanders Fields

    By L.J. Bosela Bombs are falling thick Set me free, let me run My heart stops its’ beat In this hour of my death Save me, Lord, take me home. Clutch my beads, shout a prayer My fate is sealed like a tomb.Close my eyes, see the cross A priest offering up the Sacrament, We are the hallowed flesh Given up by those we do not see An easy, near-forgotten sacrifice To the masters of our war. Our blood is naught but A cheap, unconsecrated libation. And now the crimson earth is Drunk with blood of the nations.Out beyond my trench- A fitting grave for this mass of men- The…

  • Poetry

    The Irish Sweepstakes

    By Sarah Felder Snow now is only means of weathered transport: Sleep in hinged places just so I can See the bricked fire char and breathe, Lighting the burgundy flooring. I wrote this letter a generation ago; When all those lit Augusts were Nothing but spruce, spurs, spinning And growing up and over on the Chain- link. I wasn’t in the light then because I didn’t understand the destiny of being Born in the first place: I hadn’t re-taught my youngdom To begin again. I contemplate your breathing beats, What they were when I was young: The flaws in our own ticking machines, My dinner to the floor, rocking my…

  • Poetry

    Fool’s Paradise

    by Édouard Ruess Rotor blades pierce the January breeze loud enough to shatter my nightmare. Realizing the untruth that controlled my mind, The night is blocked.So starts another day at war. As the vibrations fade, my eyes struggle to regain perception. In their success, I once-over my room. Every morning, wagering my life against death, I walk out the door. The sharp breath of earth fills my lungs, Awakening every muscle in my body. I never thought the clause I signed Would have landed me here. Anticipation builds for the return home. A fool’s paradise remains my home, Until a birds view of the city reflects in my gaze. [divider]…

  • Poetry

    I RECOUNT MYSELF ON THIS

    By Sarah Felder Eyes back, lean back, I haven’t felt The bare boned winter yet,   Your face in circles trailing skin-like Apparitions, parenthetical laugh lines, Twined lips, puckered and alive with Hiccupped laughing;   The Italian leather of your BMW sticks To my thighs, I dream of her there, The yellowing walls of the Ramada, Where we smoked cigarettes all night Between scratchy throws and music Humming against the floors.   Back on the Island I remember you more: The broken stairs to Mconoky beach, Lambert’s cove road winds to me, extends It’s tar limbs to visit for a day, and since leaving That whistle of a place I…