A LITTLE HOMELESS I look a little homeless, have stopped changing clothes, close-shaving, washing my hair. all that was important is understood now to be without substance, so much vanity, vanity, all is… and it all comes down to a small fire of sterno or elder twigs or birch bark— 12-word poems in charcoal […]
Kyla Jamieson | SAFETY CAGE DIARY
SAFETY CAGE DIARY sometimes horizontal is the only way to be —Kai Minosh Pyle I’m typing in the room where our tent is spread to dry after your cousin’s wedding in the river valley I first called home. There is air between its layers & a metaphor in the way thin metal fingers of support […]
Robert Colman | THE PAINTING
THE PAINTING ………………(Salford) You never see the machines, only smoke, red brick chimney, Stockport viaduct, a stadium. Not strict landscape—no landscape precisely this in Lancashire but Lowry and Dad agree to it. The shape fits a winnowing, sallow pedestrians gather for a portrait then forget. Whose hat is this? Whose pipe? Is he a […]
Jessica Bebenek | SELFIE
SELFIE Today is a day. I did things. I guess. At any point, I could’ve written a poem or drank a blended beverage. Today is a day I can’t stop eating peanut butter from the jar. Performance presented itself to my body and my body listlessly declined. My body performed a listless decline. If […]
John Barton | A GOOGLE MAPS VIEW OF THE HOUSE WHERE I GREW UP
A GOOGLE MAPS VIEW OF THE HOUSE WHERE I GREW UP Why must I see it from above, the time Lapse trapped in some undated spring I can’t Account for, the crabapples flaunting Flesh-toned blossoms in the backyard climbing Branch after retouched branch above unmown Grass past the roof, ambition noted, beds Impatient with […]
Sean Rea Sokolov | READING “IT”
READING “IT”* Dumb and obvious but for that —floating off to the side, maybe at the tight centre of a ball of yarn the it whatever it was was only to be understood in the reaching out to touch —at which point it would scatter, which is to say retreat, and we’d be left […]
Esmé Pine | RUE BARRÉE
RUE BARRÉE Our street is an open gash, old plumbing exposed. New city pipes, like ……..burlapped trees laid out on the curb to be planted. Pipes so wide I could climb into each one and build me a nest of hollow concrete. In there it would be quiet. A digger is idle, a mountain of […]
Eric Paul Shaffer | THE PAINTER
THE PAINTER ……..The painter asks what color to paint the house, and he expects the familiar response of brown, gray, or white. He knows the many shades ……..of brown intimately: tan, beige, and buff, for starters, chestnut, mahogany (shades from the forest), chocolate, coffee, cocoa, caramel ……..……..……..……..….(good food hues), fawn, beaver, camel, and bear (the […]
James Wyshynski | ESCAPE INSTRUCTIONS
ESCAPE INSTRUCTIONS Take whatever your mother offers: piroghies, dented oranges, rye bread about to sprout some form of penicillin—once you get to Penn Station, you can give them to whomever looks in need—but draw the line at pictures, they’ll make a record you’ll use against yourself. Take the train, it’s cheaper. The conductor will say, […]