ELEANOR WALSH
And when I hear false my tongue twists G-o-d / But in street lights I see / The moons all around me / Foxes follow me home to you / I pull the Priestess / Your lips are red / The ring I lost months ago…Continue Reading Hymn
Category: Poetry
Orphic Overture LXXXI
FAHIM ZAMAN
I met him the night before / In that signature diner / Where all the cars go to die / Where green stars hide inside / With the man who wears the suit. // Who has milk and cookies, and waits till / The Beatles plays on the radio …Continue Reading Orphic Overture LXXXI
stuplimity
GABBY AVENA
the tree kneels / at the pond the tree / kneels to touch the / pond touch neither the / tree nor the pond / which the tree wants / touching your fingers / which cannot touch…Continue Reading stuplimity
girlhood: BLK edition
AWA DIOP
My makeup bag is full of shades of brown. Before me lay my brushes sprawled out and richly coated with this palette: my foundations of ebony, expresso, deep mahogany. My concealers of mocha, chestnut…Continue Reading girlhood: BLK edition
Starry Night
GRACIE ROWLAND
I feel cleaner, my fears farther away, after staring at the stars in their great cosmos. / They allow me to find beauty, allow me half a moment to forget my sorrows…Continue Reading Starry Night
Improv Tragedy and Laughs Afterthefact
AIDAN COOPER
i squirrel away my hurts into peanut shells that i hide at the root of my knurled spine, / all my snot-bubbles, all my stubbed toes, / all the times i let my teeth ferment in my spit without brushing before bed…Continue Reading Improv Tragedy and Laughs Afterthefact
Transcription of a Virtue Inscribed
JIHYUN PAIK
this language this tongue / the habits the manners the attitude / learned // from one to one’s own to one’s own / a legacy a heritage a birthright / inherited // by strike of word by grace within…Continue Reading Transcription of a Virtue Inscribed
Joy
ZOE ALARCON
at this time is relinquishing i / fall up my throat and pray, / to non-thoughts of non-time, / to hardly grasp // i Blaze and remember i’m / Free to remember / Free to press myself against the fire of action…Continue Reading Joy
Salted
KAREN LEE
Crinkled sheets and cascaded shadows / Oh sinful sun, I gobbled it whole / Rolled around my mouth, underneath my tongue / Silken days were no longer / Underneath starlit skies because back then…Continue Reading Salted
lone goose
RUTH ZURAW
how lovely to be alone / to trace a winding route in / piercing white. // how lovely to crave / to yearn for wood paneling and grimy tile / that failed to grace your bulbous eyes. // how lovely to creep and crawl…Continue Reading lone goose
I tear open the sky
MAX PASAKORN
and nothing comes out. I didn’t know / what I was expecting— //
babies, perhaps? Ones with wings / too small to lift them back up, / cursed little things / with no-return policies….Continue Reading I tear open the sky
Awakening of Reverence
MEL ARTHUR
…the researcher nibbles at [murmurs] and learns what it means for hands to enfold in one, too, tree steps. Tensions that are touched upon include affliction…Continue Reading Awakening of Reverence
Stand to See
NICOLE ITKIN
not echoes, maybe / not even ghosts / still, they stand in
for // everything (everything) / I need most. // A girl in red curls over a bridge, / Dress trailing longer, lower- // who’s falling?…Continue Reading Stand to See
Illusioned
PAULINE BISSELL
Look: / I once believed my blood ran blue in my body, just because my veins told me so. We keep telling ourselves little lies. We’re not supposed to believe them, but I do….Continue Reading Illusioned
Remembering infinity (maybe)
CAELEN MCQUILKIN
This past January, I spent a lot of time reading children’s books — Pete the Cat, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Goosebumps, Blueberries for Sal. Turning through their brightly illustrated pages of blueberry bushes, ghosts and monsters, and the hungry caterpillar’s array of food, I remembered doing the same thing as a child…Continue Reading Remembering infinity (maybe)
Resurrection Ferns
SONIA CHAJET WIDES
waving forests carpet tree branches / trunks, Dragon scales and hair sprouting / sometimes so dense that the bark is made invisible / the tree / becomes a tower gorgeous / fractal ferns…Continue Reading Resurrection Ferns
Drawing lines in the sand
GRACE ESCOE
I draw a line / My finger digs deep into the sand taking out a nice long straight line / That isn’t really my own even though I made it / The line that I cannot cross / The line that keeps me from making…Continue Reading Drawing lines in the sand
A Cross Walk In a Labyrinth
DUSTIN COPELAND
My mother said that the pedestrian bridge over arrow-straight Route 1 was finally finished and that we were going to stop to talk a walk over it and my brother said what, why…Continue Reading A Cross Walk In a Labyrinth
Good Life
FAHIM ZAMAN
John Borges, we would love to award you, / Before you leave, for a good life / Lived, Johnny – / If not for a few objections. // Let’s see here, ah, at four some years just, / You cursed in Church…Continue Reading Good Life
WHAT’S YOURS IS MINE
GABBY AVENA
we had to learn to share, my sister-and-i. / older by a year, she laid claim to the color purple. there was only one color left for little girls. i hated pink, but it was mine: my-pink, her-purple….Continue Reading WHAT’S YOURS IS MINE
Km:mk
MEL ARTHUR
what do you feel in the silence / what do you feel in the warmth / what do you feel in the center of your being / whatdoyoufeel between / silence what–wheredoyoufeel / the warmth lies…Continue Reading Km:mk
(Night)Blind
TAPTI SEN
“রাতকানা” she calls them, / the fools who would return home too late, / trampling over paddy fields and marshy soil / feet caked just enough to miss awaiting rough cement…Continue Reading (Night)Blind
A Sovereign / Two Bodies
AIDAN COOPER
Her Prayer like a touch and boiling / Shiver turning the dust-clouds into rain. // He stands before a lectern named Wash / Where he uncoils ribbons from the holes / He cut through his fingertips the callouses…Continue Reading A Sovereign / Two Bodies
About a place between places
CAELEN MCQUILKIN
[…] the desert hues that usually fade into the background fill the entire landscape, and I wonder, what happens when the whole world around you becomes the colors that usually uplift other things?…Continue Reading About a place between places
Connect
GRACE ESCOE
Great Chasm / An inch filled with a single board / Yet still vast / Yet still devoid // Concrete / Loads of hardened gray / Pillars of stone / All to endeavor / To contain You…Continue Reading Connect
阿嬤, 我想你
EVELYN CHI
To be loved / Is to wake up to a bowl of steaming hot 稀飯 / Tender, bright orange 地瓜 floating / In a sea of glistening 白飯, / To have the tablemat set out already…Continue Reading 阿嬤, 我想你
Going Back
BLUMA HAMMARHEAD
Here is– the monument, / The bare room heavy with artifacts: / Strange velvet balls, stacks / Of letters, papers, / Old journals full of hypotheticals…Continue Reading Going Back
Skies Beyond Skies
PAULINE BISSELL
That was the week the grapes were swelling and bruising / Purple, dust-seasoned. Again / We filled our pockets until the grapes, sun-burnt / And sun-ripened, burst…Continue Reading Skies Beyond Skies
A Strand of Opportunity
TRISTAN MOORE
“How do you think I got lice?” / My client turns her head to an angle, eagerly awaiting a response / I can’t help but think, “How the hell would I know? I’m just here to get rid of it.”…Continue Reading A Strand of Opportunity
Broken Black Heart
MIKAYAH PARSONS
Broken Black heart. / Tattered Black heart. / Broken Black fish. / Battered Black fish. / Black fish out of water. // I offered my Black heart on a silver platter, / And they took it for the slaughter….Continue Reading Broken Black Heart