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FLASH FICTION Helium Love by Amy Abig New Skin by Peter Kispert The Space between Leaving and Going by Emil Ostrovski Malady by Sarah Overland He brought flowers to his woman on the river by Dan Seiters
CREATIVE NONFICTION The Soul of Boiling by Steven Matthew Brown
STRETCHING FORMS Concerning The Sad Magician by Matthew Burnside An Inventory of Hunger by Michael Dwayne Smith
POETRY Manly by Lucy Biederman Latitude by Martha Clarkson Circa Everyday by Bruce Harris Pessoa’s Typewriter by Clint Margrave What the Blues Singers Never Tell You by Luke MacLean differences by Tristan Moss Two Poems by
» Continue reading June 2012 Issue…
Out of reach—from boney fingers, sockets wormy, deathbreath seeping through coffee-teeth; from zombies who want to smother dreams. I’m thankful you won’t allow them, protect me instead. I grasp at string, hold on—knuckles ashen, fingers red—leave everything for a ride with you. You desire to go higher, we soar over peaks and hollows, across the deep.
It doesn’t last.
You admit your balloons never held promises, that you never trusted me not to pop them; red, yellow, blue like your eyes. No longer am I weightless to your helium love. You tug at the ribbon around my fingers.
» Continue reading Helium Love by Amy Abig…
Listen to a reading of “The Space between Leaving and Going” by Emil Ostrovski.
Sometimes you sit in Starbucks and appraise young men. He will nod at a slim blonde in a way he thinks is inconspicuous; you will brush a strand of hair from your face and wish. Then you will say, “You and blondes.” And he will say, “All pretty boys are equal.”
It is not just about sleeping with him. It is about him wanting a job in the city. “You’ll visit me, of course,” he says. “Of course,” you answer, and wonder at the shelf-life
» Continue reading The Space between Leaving and Going by Emil Ostrovski…
Read “The Soul of Boiling” by Steven Matthew Brown [PDF]
About the author:
Steven Matthew Brown is from Michigan and lives in East Germany, which both does and does not exist. His writing appears in publications like Black Warrior Review, DIAGRAM, Public Art Dialogue, the German magazine DUMMY and anthology Frühstück mit Axt. He is fortunate, but often thwarted.
dear survivors,
outside there is a mile thick circumference of wood slats and stucco. i smell dirt and pomegranate. we camp just outside the debris. in the morning, the desert unlocks and lets us in, and ahead we see people rising from below the foundation.
About the author:
Joshua Young is the author of When the Wolves Quit: A Play-in-Verse (Gold Wake Press), To the Chapel of Light (Mud Luscious Press), and the forthcoming collaboration with Chas Hoppe (Gold Wake Press 2013). He teaches writing at Columbia College Chicago where he also studies poetry in the MFA Program. He lives
» Continue reading from This is the Way to Rule by Joshua Young…
The thing that worried me during the rush of orange-padded gurneys and bleating sirens: How will I deal with the snake? Not How will I cope? or Can I afford the mortgage? No, I thought about how many rats I’d have to buy, and whether the thing was fully-grown, or still in its reptilian adolescence.
“A stroke,” the doctor had said. “Really, I’m sorry.”
Weeks after he passed, I tried to clean its mess—dead bits everywhere, shed skin under dumbbells and the yoga mat.
We kept the egg in an incubator until the day it hatched. It slithered to
» Continue reading New Skin by Peter Kispert…
Phosphorus
it’s dawn and you’re lying at the edge of the sea, body flat and timeless, painted with water stains
on your belly I imagine houses, little villages, my family’s old trailer park, with its moldy peaches and low voices
where you could look across and see women peeling potatoes under dim light.
you sprinkle sand across my face and our world pixelates. neat squares are built, then smeared,
with liquid moonstones. the sand cakes you, a gray- blue clay. the sun’s leaking pink, gold. a confetti
of moths pool onto the sea, elegant and white. from far
» Continue reading Two Poems by Armine Pilikian…
All the letter keys were I’s all the symbol keys question marks
About the author:
Clint Margrave lives in Long Beach, CA. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The New York Quarterly, Rattle, Ambit (UK), 3AM (UK), Pearl, Chiron Review, and Nerve Cowboy, among others. His work can also be found in the recent anthologies At the Gate: Arrivals and Departures (Kings Estate Press) and Beside the City of Angels: An Anthology of Long Beach Poetry (World Parade Books). His first full-length collection of poems, The Early Death of Men, is due out from NYQ Books in September.
» Continue reading Pessoa’s Typewriter by Clint Margrave…
When Binny’s best friend Came into the room I desired her again. We sat on the bed Chatting innocently And then I thought To kiss her But she turned her head away At the critical moment.
And if I had kissed her then So much would have been different. She would have told Binny I am sure of that And Binny would have Called the wedding off And these children that we have Would not have been born And I would not have seen The places I’ve seen And I would not have lived The life I’ve lived.
About the
» Continue reading The Kiss by Fred Skolnik…
Today the sand is ridged. Lines that bleed toward the horizon. I take a steady stick of driftwood and draw a line for you to follow. You step onto the line. This line belongs to ocean. Where ocean slopes away on earth’s curve. Sky is just a backdrop. You want to know the distance, from where you stand in the sand to where blue and blue converge. Put love on a continuum. Measure the distance. Love is the length from the tips of your feet to the place the earth drops off. Convergence is understood. We are parallel, ridged, blue.
» Continue reading Latitude by Martha Clarkson…
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