And in those days the ptarmigan will become as white as driven snow … Stirs a few speckled ovals @ high elevation and promises shell-shock, survival. Each egg is as seismic as it gets inside a world of dwarf willows, lichens, mosses — moorland fruit. And, then, in a split- … Continue reading
Monthly Archives: December 2015
Lost in Translation—Charlene Ashley Taylor
Hay una constelación sobre sus sábanas enormes Suficientes para acoger un cadaver de gigante Alguien me dijo que No sabemos aquí, en occidente Lo que es un gigante Pero enseguida rió y de su boca salieron rosas, Llenas de espinas recorriendo los tallos, Para llegar a mis pies There is a constellation on … Continue reading
Voice from a Carrefour South of the Seine—Jeffrey Alfier
A man alone in a midnight tavern a hundred miles out of Paris thinks of a dancer in Carcassonne a Sunday stabbing in Place Pigalle hears wind gaining through the Marne the evening’s unmapped road of truant voices insomniacs and drunks pilfering their own sleep mandolins lighting ballads in unlit corners and his mother rising … Continue reading
Cava—Alexander Curren Stinton
So what is the antithesis of strawberry is not strawberry? I’m inclined to say it’s ash, if only to impress upon you the more practical theory of how a thing is often gotten at in getting at what it’s not. How you encouraged these bubbles to fettle my nose reciting the méthode … Continue reading
The Wound—Alexander Curren Stinton
That the tongue is often mistaken for the body’s strongest muscle is no surprise. I have a friend who might well heft to the tomb the weight of every word spoken to him. If pressed he might recast us to the womb, replay labor’s caterwaul, the intermittent intercom of mask-dappled voices. How the cava … Continue reading
Thanks For Not Calling — Michael Salcman
You live in the city; in the snow outside paw-prints crisscross the lawn. You wonder if the other animals ever get lonely. Sometimes you feel like an Eskimo out on an ice floe caught without a fishing pole when it’s too cold to swim back. Art’s a type of entertainment, a diversion from … Continue reading
When The Lights Go Out—Ron McFarland
Some days you let yourself think what it might be like, how you might just be standing there on the corner of Third and Main not thinking about anything in particular and you’d just keel over. Maybe there’d be just a split second of being dizzy, lightheaded, a sudden familiar fragrance, and that would be … Continue reading
The Books—John Grey
There are books but no children. Some were Dan’s as a boy. Kate’s mother tossed her old favorites the day she left for college. A few they picked up along the way. He joked that he had always wanted to read Beatrix Potter and she was clear on the fact that every home should … Continue reading
Not in the Mood For Love—John Grey
Asked to write a Valentine’s day poem, I wanted to say – are you crazy – look outside – it’s Winter – but I just mumbled something like “I’ll give it a shot.” They wanted love – double-bonded, the saturated fatty acids of feeling – when life was still surviving day and night under … Continue reading
Switch—Mehrnoosh Torbatnejad
There is a bench outside the courthouse where visitors rest, where women pause to plant one leg on concrete, while the other bends, foot pressed against the steel edge of the bench, haul files over their shoulder, sling bag over the other, and slide off slippers or clear away clogs, unload penny loafers, transfer tennis … Continue reading