Reverence
by sarah manguso
Love not the rider but the old rider,
the ghost in the saddle: Obey that ghost.
A good horse runs even at the shadow of the whip.
But we are not good horses.
We bolt. We stand …

pitch
by joseph reich
i want to put out a reality show
which is devoted purely to porn
so when the cameras do their
token close-up of the mom
and dad we can give
them something
to really
cry
about
to really
be
proud
of.
for my porn
reality show
there will …

Christmas Morning Without Presents: The Depression, Granite City, Illinois
by ellery akers
It is 1929. The moon falls on the floor,
the pantry is empty, beans hardening like rocks in the
cans.
No, you did not expect this.
The same cracked …

Rent
by jane cooper
If you want my apartment, sleep in it
but let’s have a clear understanding:
the books are still free agents.
If the rocking chair’s arms surround you
they can also let you go,
they can shape the air …

{The Family Two-shoes}
by halifax
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.
Her husband’s left boot on her foot
makes his lead-steps before their children still.
The right one is on her eldest son.
He followed close behind …

I Am Surrounded
by gene defcon
I am surrounded
By large-lunged blowhards
Scurrying like newborn rats
Just outside my cubicle walls
I fantasize about pushing their faces
With intense force

happy birthday, universe.
by cerebella
happy birthday, universe.
the blueberry skinned sky
is poked,
and dripping into china seas.
sailors gape their mouths
wide open.
(we all need to remember
why we pick up the phone
when it rings, sometimes.)
today the galaxies
orbit the …

So Sweet Our Teeth Ache
by jennifer knox
Daiquiris come
from a drive-thru,
at least
the biggest ones
used to,
and our beer’s magic
as meth.
Let’s get incapacitated
under a tree—
short of that
slowly bleed
to death through
our sock bottoms.
We got nothing
going on at work.
We got …

Stupid Punk vs. Smart Punk
by kim gordon
When I first moved to NYC. I
was at the Kiev. Johnny Thunders was
in the next booth. He was there with some
friends. He threw sugar in my eggs having
“a punk …

who googled who
by tara przybille bradley
Does it frighten you to know that you can be googled?
What the hell?
So what the hell?
So what?
The what of it is that it may just be as painful as a …

how dare you
by oscar smiles
while Im ripping your heart out
perusing through bad luck
out of time out of fuck
debug that dress
arms still intact
a beautiful emergency is where I want to be
under mountain and under stream
under stationary
undermined
out …

Postcards from Gin Lane (a.)
by jim blackburn
Crude oil soup warmly fills the bleached bath.
Gibberish from immortal libertine times -
Floats past alcohol embalmed elephant ears.
Somethings in and always a little off.
Delirium tremors are coming down the …

Return to Form
by shawn misener
you thought of jerking off to faces of death
and instead chose to paint murals at the old folks home
next to the jello factory
you burnt all of your books and proceeded to …

the disposal of glamor
by meghan tennison
we tuned up our body clocks
to purple meadows and bumble bees
your graveyard was warmer than my hands
it was a fun boat ride; the ladders creaked and
your head fell off every …

Reverend Been There Meets Dr. Seen Some in the talk show waiting room the day before the international summit in order to discuss the unpruned velocity of antithesis tabulation, the creative function of corruption & …

Crystal Snowball
by diy danna
a girl rolls snow into a shape,
a dented globe the size of a baseball
shaken in the cold froth
of southeast texas air-
making her dizzy again.
it’s suspended liquid animation,
waiting for the snow to …

Season of Changes
 
                     by Le Hinton

only if your ears manage to maneuver
at high frequencies will you taste
the major and minor transformations that fly
through micro-seconds
and the mini revolutions of the heart
nearly invisible to …

dear little missy
by anthony lucero
dear little missy
the night is just an x ray
of what’s there all day so let
it come softly in glass slippers
oh let it come bareback on the
biggest horse you can find in …

Autumn
by john brehm
It is to the small satisfactions
we must return, for surely
the great ones fail us.
The unexpected face, the way
evening’s slow descent, when
everything is poised for her
arrival, astonishes the day.
And then the steady, familiar
things, houses …

Daring Candlelit Giblets
by halifax
Vyborg Nana’s banana cream pie
Was invented from necessity.
A feared black Baltic verboten curse fruit,
Brought five-thousand nautical miles
North by a scrap iron boat,
Whose rusty faith won’t let her sink.
She won’t have it been …

albert ayler’s ghosts
by ramakrishnan parthasarathy

for want of an appropriate
suicide note so many die
and my body signals with its stench
turning blue like beaten tulips
whose colour I am ignorant of
and tearing apart space to create time
idiomatic free …