Condoms On Christmas – Dave O’Leary
Tuesday, May 15, 2012 12:40 — 0 Comments
I woke up Christmas morning alone. It’s the way I wake up every morning, of course, but not my preferred way to do such. I can handle the quiet solitude of late nights playing with the word over a few drinks, of pacing back and forth in my apartment as I fish for the right phrase, sipping and turning and sipping and turning and then running to the laptop when inspiration comes. I’ve dropped beers doing such. I’ve fallen down, banged my knee on the corner of the futon, cursed at the top of my lungs, “Son of a bitch!” […]
And We Are In Love – B. Kari Moore
Tuesday, May 8, 2012 13:30 — 0 Comments
I Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â The two had been married for a while now, living together even longer. There was a rhythm they were used to.
Eggs – Eland Summers
Tuesday, May 1, 2012 15:14 — 2 Comments
Herald stood at the refrigerator door, palpating the egg he had just taken from the carton. He had made the carton himself from wood pulp and old newspapers. He also farmed the egg himself, from his chickens that he had out back in the chicken coop, which was a little shack that he had built especially for the hens. Herald was proud of his industrious nature and felt close to his work. He continued to feel the egg. Something was off. It was heavy. He shifted it from one hand to the other, letting it drop a little into each […]
Bully-Cops – Katie Hoffman
Tuesday, April 24, 2012 13:51 — 0 Comments
Dear Bully-Cops, I fracture the cloud that holds myself together to tell you which way the driveway faces, simply because it’s sinking. Had the neighborhood kids been wishing or climbing those cropped trees, I’d have fainted in the worst place. You have the rest of the grass in the world to talk, but allow me my iron bridge, my island, but know and please honor all body impressions in the snow, all of them, because wolves pray, too. The friendliest bear wanted to come over to my house to eat dinner, but the second friendliest bear got unhappy and tore […]
The Star Of Darfur – Mischa KK Bagley
Tuesday, April 17, 2012 13:49 — 1 Comment
The Rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) yesterday morning accused the Sudanese Army of preparing to launch a combined military operation on its positions in the Darfur region along with the Janjaweed Militia.
Object Of Beauty – Felicia Spahr
Tuesday, April 10, 2012 13:27 — 0 Comments
The man wearing the green flannel jacket, tap-tapping his chestnut colored cane against the concrete, was looking, looking for the turquoise colored bird with a toupee of black sitting atop its head. The man had seen the bird, perched outside of the window at Toffenetti’s, had seen it on the sidewalk across the street, amidst the thousands of pairs of feet; like loose trash tumbling down an alley. The man sometimes felt the bird’s feet digging into his shoulder, its feathers so close to his skin that he thought they might be grazing it; a light tickle, the pad of […]
Orchestration – DJ Swykert
Tuesday, April 3, 2012 13:09 — 0 Comments
The bullets screech through the air like notes off the strings of a violin. I respond with a burst of fire from my rifle instead of a wave of my baton. I am conducting a symphony in the key of M16 major. I stand at my podium in a foxhole wishing the movement would end–the applause would come and I could take a bow and return to my dressing room. A soldier strikes a single chord when a bullet pierces his chest. He is only a few yards from me. I hear him groan. His body arches backwards and falls […]
Safety Of Newborn Children – Kelly Schrock
Tuesday, March 27, 2012 13:26 — 1 Comment
“The Safety of Newborn children Lawâ€, the screen says, “Offers parents a safe place to leave a newborn infant.†Confidentially. Without fear of punishment. She rubs the fading bruise on her shoulder. It’s turned yellow-green in the last week. Soon it will dissipate only into memory. Eventually it will fade even from that sinuous, shifting world. Replaced by something brighter, more immediate. The child tugs in her belly and stretches its tiny knees. Feet thump and run in her insides. She imagines a dimpled little toe poking through her belly button, a leg uncurling behind it, and a wet, tiny […]
A Lost Art – Lindsay Brand
Tuesday, March 20, 2012 13:44 — 0 Comments
Fifty years ago, I was a young man. Like most young men, I was full of vigor and passion. I fancied myself a poet. Conchita went with me to the bullfight once. That was the night I whispered a few lines of Pablo Neruda to her and she kissed me on the mouth. I will always remember how the taste of her lips mingled with the reverberating cries of “¡ole!†My son wants to see the rodeo Americans are promoting in Guadalajara, so we go. An older lady clutching a small billfold leans over to her friend behind me and […]
The Woman At The Bar – James Brantingham
Tuesday, March 13, 2012 14:45 — 0 Comments
The bar at the restaurant was busy. The gentleman asked the lady if he could sit in the chair next to her—the last chair to be found. She mouthed a quick ok—the kind of ok that says that she’d rather be kissed by a belching camel but that civility dictated politeness. He ordered a beer, careful not to look too long, or longingly, at the woman next to him. He did sneak a glance in her direction, though, when he asked to sit next to her. She was plain, no cover model for sure, but he did notice a sparkle […]
The answer isn't poetry, but rather language
- Richard Kenney
