The Popcorn Tree – Noel Hoffman
Tuesday, September 25, 2012 12:55 — 1 Comment
“Oh, it is wonderful!†she said.
9/12 – Tom Larsen
Tuesday, September 18, 2012 12:17 — 0 Comments
The day after the Trade Centers came down I drove my brother Rob to yet another VA hospital. Admission had been scheduled a few weeks earlier and in light of events, could have been postponed, but he was ready and I was anxious to get it over with. For the next six months he would wrestle with his demons in the foothills of the Adirondacks. The Bath complex offers intensive therapy and occupational training and is the showpiece of the program, according to the literature. How my brother came to be placed there is fairly miraculous. With no health insurance […]
Hand, Nails, Left, Right – William Hoffacker
Tuesday, September 11, 2012 14:11 — 0 Comments
This isn’t Emily’s first time to the beach, but it is her first time with me. As soon as I slide the gear shift into park, my seven-year-old daughter unclicks her seat belt and reaches for the door handle. Before she can pull it, I press the lock button on my armrest. All the little black lock nubs hide in their holes. “Hold on a second, sweetie.†I reach for the small knapsack in the back seat, open the zipper and pull out a pocket-sized, black notepad, my latest Emily Book, number twenty since the divorce. She fidgets in her […]
Acceptable Losses – Brendan McDonnell
Tuesday, September 4, 2012 12:20 — 0 Comments
After they have all drank too much, after they have talked too long and laughed too hard and stayed too late, that is when Caroline starts in with her Deep Questions. Betty sees it coming and she wants to leave. She wants to load her husband Jimmy in the car and just go. But all of the other couples are staying, and even Jimmy, drunk as he is, seems willing to play. Betty joins the others around the kitchen table and folds her arms on her chest.
Things We Must Not Mistake For Love – Piper Daniels
Tuesday, August 28, 2012 11:44 — 1 Comment
1.) We walk to the beach, lie among the driftwood. Do this because it’s easier here on your heart, sipping whiskey from paper cups, skipping rocks the sea returns.Â
The Threshold – Amy Frazier
Tuesday, August 21, 2012 12:28 — 8 Comments
“Click.†The abrupt sound of a cocked pistol aroused her from her slumber. She opened her eyes to a dark silhouette hovering over her, an oppressive weight bearing heavily down on her. “Puta! Pinche Vieja! This is the last time you’ll make a laughing mockery out of me!†snarled a man with a sinister voice, whose breath reeked of alcohol and cigarettes, mingled with the stench of sour sweat and cheap men’s cologne. “boom-Boom, boom-Boom, boom-Boom, boom-Boom!†The deafening sound of her heartbeat, pounding in her ears, nearly prevented Vanessa from recognizing her ex-husband’s voice. It took several seconds for […]
Desiree – Susan V. Meyers
Tuesday, August 14, 2012 14:38 — 0 Comments
The girl, Desiree, was perched on the front steps when I arrived. Although we’d never met, I recognized her. She was lean and dark: a tan, black-haired child a little too tall for her age. The pants she wore were cut off crooked around the knee; her skin was muddied and her shirt stained. As I pulled into the driveway, she sat brushing the hair of a naked Barbie doll, her expression dull and unamused. The rest of the house lay still. Good. I’d told my mother that I didn’t want to be interrupted. But my chore, I realized, would […]
The Circle Of Strife – k.c. callagy
Tuesday, August 7, 2012 13:24 — 6 Comments
Tonight I will confront Dandelion Wine and ask, “What’s a dirty ol’ wench like you doing in a fine castle like this?†I write bad medieval jokes for a living. These inane comments make up most of my routine, and it’s a bit dull. I need new material.
the children in rags – the fire-breathers – myself – Fernando Flores
Tuesday, July 31, 2012 12:35 — 1 Comment
Reynosa: that grey border city where I was born, now submerged under water after the drugstorm. I was born in a hospital downtown that was demolished five years after, but that’s when the city first made an impression on me, even then, still a young boy, around the time my family made the move to the US. My father grabbed a dark brick from the site as a memento and brought it back like a powdery loaf of burned bread to take with us across. I remember Reynosa grainy now, like an old Italian film or footage of the first […]
The Trouble With Arthur French – Brian Bahouth
Friday, July 27, 2012 12:33 — 1 Comment
Arthur fed two dollar bills into the machine and wobbled into the bus as it pulled away from the curb. So early on a Sunday morning there were only a couple other passengers, and Arthur sat across from a thick young woman wearing the black pants and white shirt and boxy shoes of a waitress. “Brianna†was spelled out on her name tag, and Arthur was making her nervous. He mumbled in violent fits and punched the air before speaking directly to her. “We held protests with signs and a bull horn and everything … we sent letters to the […]
The answer isn't poetry, but rather language
- Richard Kenney
