The winter of 1851 was snug, tight, snow heaving its waves over Massachusetts. Melville awoke with a “sea-feeling…” The frost on his windows left only a small, clear glass in the middle. It was like “a port-hole of a ship in the Atlantic.” He wrote, “My room seems a ship’s cabin; & at nights when … Continue reading
Category Archives: Poetry 2011
Not Knowing Why — Ann Struthers
Adolescent white pelicans squawk, rustic, flap their wings lift off in a ragged spiral at imaginary danger. What danger on this island in the middle of Marble Lake? They’re off to feel the lift of wind under their iridescent wings, because they were born to fly because they have nothing else to do, because wind … Continue reading
Friends of My Childhood — Ann Struthers
I remember their courageous laughter echoing down hospital corridors; I see Lila San Domingo after surgery, after radiation, more alive than my friends back home at school Snow fell soft and deep that winter – Shirley Byrd diminished daily as she watched it grow. Her mother never uttered the hard word leukemia. Todd flirted with … Continue reading
Oklahoma Two-Part Poem — John Thornburg
1. RE: Television the actress that plays the high school student on TV is actually 24, you can tell sometimes on the corners of her mouth when she laughs. hours add up as sediment layers my jeans canyon into pockets and stairs, Linda has a blueprint to build a star drive warp-engine. “time dilates as … Continue reading
i am dying of famine — Mikaela Cook
because your leg rubs against mine underneath the wobbly dinner table of Sue’s diner that smells of grease and cigarettes the friction of jeans grates my nerves reminds me of times when your leg was your hand and my leg was my hand once again i am starving i devour my own organs consume the … Continue reading
Photography: Silhouettes and Grays — Stefani Wright
In the dark no colors can exist, only silhouettes. It’s true, the cones in your eyes that produce the infinite mixtures of reds, blues, greens, yellows in order to create periwinkles, sea foam greens, scarlets, tickle me pinks are blinded by the lack of light bouncing in, through and on. Only black can be seen, … Continue reading
City Portrait #2 — Ariana Uding
City sits on tips of tongues, licking her way down. Braces of train tracks and electric wires, running tongue, licking teeth. She fucks, and she fucks hard. Skyscrapers and the man on Belmont and the expressway with a coin cup. And her sisters saying no thanks, I don’t do that stuff to junkie cousins. It’s … Continue reading
East St. Paul — Erynn Norris
A place where in the mail almost daily comes a notification that yet another ex-convict just released from jail for murder, rape, child molestation, assault, etc. has just moved into the neighborhood, and that “They’re perfectly able to function normally in society,”—Case from Arcade to Payne; Where in a span of only two weeks, three … Continue reading
That Place Back There — Scott T. Hutchinson
When Bennie curses Shakespeare’s name JD closes his eyes and says nothing—remembers an old bearded dude who lived and loved it storming the otherwise dim classroom, reading softly then loudly, his voice rolling out like rich liquor—then Larry coughs and spits and lays damnation on mathematics— says X and Y and KY ain’t no numbers … Continue reading
C. Bowen, Plumber — Paul Hostovksy
I like this guy before we even meet. He’s the only one who called me back, and then he wipes his feet for a very long time on the mat before coming inside with a little bow and setting our bravely for the upstairs bathroom a few steps behind me like a lieutenant or a … Continue reading
Coe Review 