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The phone in my hand is a warrant, self-signed. It was ringing and ringing and I flipped it open blind. ”Mattie?” I walk a couple paces and let him hang. The air is cool and calm, but I know the good feeling will be gone as soon as I open my mouth. ”I’m here. What?” ”Can you give me a ride somewhere?” This is where I cut the line and forget the whole thing ever happened. ”Maybe,” I say. “Where?” ”Wicker Park. From Pilsen.” I know I should be pissed about the sheer audacity of it. But I’m not. I’m just thinking, By tomorrow I’ve got to
» Continue reading An Ex-Lover’s Guide to Failing Organic Chemistry by Christopher Mohar…
You only get this haircut
from the barber who sleeps with you. It’s the endless attention to your ears
and eyebrows. It’s the wrestling moves. I wield shears, talk brusquely with my hands,
cut off your curls with your head braced between my breasts as you sit almost
calmly. Your bald spot is the view from a glass-bottom boat. No sign of me
down there. Once on a beach vacation you and I watched a wife with scissors
move across her husband’s scalpin a sarong. It ought to have been private
the way she shaved his neck and sideburns.If
» Continue reading Three Poems by Kathleen Flenniken…
I don’t rule out much, but I could substitute Kansasfor just about anyplace and decide not to go there.
Some places that I actually know about, for instancethe backsides of outbuildings, e.g., toolsheds,
could pop up anywhere — a good thing, since we allneed one now and then to do something out behind.
Where I grew up — in a state mistaken as zipped up,straitlaced — there were endlessly available erections
of scrap lumber and tin in all the backyards, thrown together by the dads for seemly purposes,
quickly appropriated by those in urgent needof cover, and we were
» Continue reading Substitute Kansas by Antonia Clark…
1. My grandmother sits at the edgeof the lake with a cigarette in her hand.She’s powered by somethingvery white.
2. There are reflections of birds flyingon the lake and they look like dense bulbsfloating in the water as fish surface and eat them.
3. I sit on the freshly cut-grassand sneak my feet into the water,and when I pull them out, theyare fins.
4. I like the idea, and falldeep in the lake. I’ve becomemy grandmother, and scaledwithin minutes.
5. It’s so bright that I am actuallyon fire and when I’m not screamingI write notes and leave them at the
» Continue reading Everything is Living in the Lake by Alexander York…
The world is beautiful. Furthermore, Spring is on the way and from where I sit I can see a ship leaving port and I’ll call it Anita. She flies a flag of the Bahamas and is decked up with multi-coloured containers. Its gunwales are a rusty red and the tower is white and blue. She’s a lovely vessel. It has a crew of metropolitan marine engineers and merchant seamen; all brave and all cowardly too. Every able seaman is on the run from something. There is no metropolis unknown to him but he loves the open sea and the thrum
» Continue reading On Board the Anita. by Edward Mc Whinney…
Probably Nothing
Rats are sworn to indicatethe soundness of their shipby fleeing if the vesselstarts to sink.
I’ve never seen a rat do that,desert a sinking ship,but a couple of birds once left a treewhile I was pruning it.
Poultrygeist
The fried-chicken restaurant was lit for businessbut barely occupied.
At three tables sat three couples,none on speaking terms.
A breeze came up and pushed a cup in a circle on oneof the tables.
None of us reacted, having lived with ghosts for years.
About the author:
Patrick Forgette taught English as a foreign language in Japan and English as
» Continue reading Two Poems by Patrick Forgette…
HYMN TO MAGNOLIA
We rebuilt the barn in seven days. Echoes of shotgun blasts explode like early fireworks on the Fourth (or the First). Oh, lovely Scenic Drive, remember me! And the spring frog, too early, flattened in the driveway; the gray-haired possum fallen trees and debris, the giant catfish skull in the yard–on whose hook do you pine? Em-eye-es-es, Eye-es-es, Eye-pee-pee-eye; you’ve picked your flowers; now leave.
MARATHON, UNFINISHED
An accident in the making of the being (just being) never answering why this is not your dialogue but, Do you have a right to be here just because
» Continue reading Three Works by Miranda Merklein…
(first line from Jane Hirschfield’s poem “Dream Notebook”)
I try to write lines about shadows at night, the moon’s blistered face, and the innerpart of my being tucked inside hidden lights. I turn elsewhere. Similes turn into metaphors: “branches are like mothers of trees” to “branches are the mothers of trees,”“an old woman is as tired as a ghost”to “an old woman is a tired ghost.”
One day the branches and the old woman come to life and confess they areas confused as I. They wait quietlyat first, then move themselvesinto a forest, calling on the moon’sblistered face as shadows
» Continue reading WHAT WILL BECOME OF THESE? by Janice Krasselt Medin…
You’re silky,a fancy throwembroidered by women, you can slideoff the leather and be gonelike a Valdez slickor a bike messengerin the city.When it is your turnto haul us to the firmament, Friday nightis to watch yougrey-eyed with a doorway’s instinctto allow the moment to pass.
The streets of Cambridge are made for this.Their astigmatic stop-and-go. Their short stretchesof thoroughfare. Their winding and swirling cowpathloop-the-loops, like rollercoaster cables after the last sidecar chaser. No reason to go over 25 anywhere.No Right Turn On Red signs at near every stop, wrenchingfrom your slack grip those teeth-clenching decisions.
Your stomach sloshes with the car’s turning. Each redlight a reprieve. Each green another crest and descent.Wind fingers your hair through the open windows, calls you the living, and the black streets, more awake at this hour than in noon’s flat light, show their shine to you alone. The very
» Continue reading Drunk Driving by Jade Sylvan…
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