Push Kick Dreaming
by Liam Ferney
From Old St. to doorway
in a fug of hip hop and
hacked morning smoke
the two goons fumbled
with a pane of glass
the shape of the top
of a billiard table. Their
half furnished office
as empty …

From bristly foliage
by Jordan McElheran
to branches underneath
if a squirrel
jumps
and runs
looking for seeds
and such like my mother
christmas shopping and
hiding them
in the basement
is it akin to that old chestnut
? the one about squirreling
things away? Or is it
just …

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 …

Against Writing about Children
by Erin Belieu
When I think of the many people
who privately despise children,
I can’t say I’m completely shocked,
having been one. I was not
exceptional, uncomfortable as that is
to admit, and most children are not
exceptional. …

Loosing My Breath
by Wynn Everett
Once made of youth, these two slabs
would carry my eager ghost
swiftly down the avenue,
up graffitied stairs
through double doors
to a circle of dreamers around a naked man.
Those nights the world was wide,
my …

Off A Side Road Near Staunton
by Stanley Plumly
Some nothing afternoon, no one anywhere,
an early autumn stillness in the air,
the kind of empty day you fill by taking in
the full size of the valley and its …

After Disappointment
by Mark Jarman
To lie in your child’s bed when she is gone
Is calming as anything I know. To fall
Asleep, her books arranged above your head,
Is to admit that you have never been
So tired, so …

Cocoon Effect
by GW Hartley
You in your weakened state
I want to be the dark stuff
Under your eyes
The perspiration rolling southwards
I want to be a single cell
Of that anaerobic respiration blood
I want to be a part of …

Used Book
by Julie Kane
What luck—an open bookstore up ahead
as rain lashed awnings over Royal Street,
and then to find the books were secondhand,
with one whole wall assigned to poetry;
and then, as if that wasn’t luck enough,
to …

The Gravity of Demise
by George Young
can be swift
as a phone book sliding off
the table and crashing to the floor
or slow
as a brown, curled leaf
drifting down
to land in a still pond—
(that leaf shaped like a man,
don’t …

Two Gates
by Denise Low
I look through glass and see a young woman
of twenty, washing dishes, and the window
turns into a painting. She is myself thirty years ago.
She holds the same blue bowls and brass teapot
I …

Imperfect Tenses
by Ankur Shrivastava
Strange emptiness. Stillness in air.
Exhaust sound. Sucking life-force.
Desk calendar. Wrong month.
Dusty plastic rose. Illegible memories.
Wall clock. Cheap Christmas star.
Swinging pendulum. Etching scars.
Dirty carpet. Chaotic pattern.
Half footprint. Indelible mark.
Glass window. Twilight haze.
Random sparrows. …

Not Saved
by A. Jezzy
i raised my beer bottle
towards the sky, watching
the sunlight obscure through
the amber bottle. slowly
it tilted and i listened
to the last few drops
sizzle on the pavement
between my feet
the crowd flew by as
my mute …

Not One Iota
by John Bennett
Waiting on the food. Waiting on the verdict. Waiting on the bells to stop ringing, reality to stop bleeding, the yarn to unravel, hesitation to burn off like mist, the train …

Vomiting Jesus
by Joshua Lew McDermott
My Blood Brain Barrier
Roll Down the Damn Window!
I’m Retching up and need the Air.
The Dark Night of the Esophagus
Couch fevers – take off my shirt – sipping chlorine
thousand yard stare of …

The Jobholder
by David Ignatow
I stand in the rain waiting for my bus
and in the bus I wait for my stop.
I get let off and go to work
where I wait for the day to end
and then …

Death Poem
by Michael Grover
We are born then we die
We have funerals & memorials
So our friends may remember one last time
Oh I remember
I remember Scott
Who was so generous
He wanted to give me his book
Instead of letting …

Seen You Around
by Hal Sirowitz
Each time I’ve come to this bar,
she said, I’ve seen you here.
You look like you come here often.
You must be having trouble finding
a steady girlfriend. I hope you
don’t think I’m being …

Holes and Stars
by Emma Lew
I just got my memory back.
Few loons and I would live
in a corner at the airport,
not for the sequence
but the agony we had to be in,
running off with the money
and faking …

Retaliative Success-fulness
by Tycinnacus Watford
I breathe success and exhale fulfilled dreams, I retaliate when enemies knock me down when I’m on this road to fruitfulness, by all means. I climb mountains of insults, I swim seas …

Curve Like a Q
by Riley Lalumendre
Do you want to bear his christian child?
We need more Sons to bear our names and our crosses
Imperialistic dogma rules the land and the seas, the uteruses
More troops on the …

Facet
by Dean Young
For weeks, I’ve gone unbroken
but not unpunished by the quiet
of zero degrees which is worse than
the quiet of twenty when at least
you can’t hear the stars wheeze.
I can’t make it any clearer than …

Your mama says I´m a druggard bum
by Peter Grzywacz
Your mama says I´m a druggard bum
and that she don´t like my gutter boots. Even
after I clean them she says they stain her rug.
When she sees me …

BENT
by Dawnell Harrison
The day was bent
Like a sheet of metal
And drifted in
With pockets of rain.
I contemplated my
To do list with a scent
Of contempt and
Drank my vanilla coffee slowly.
The day tasted like
Twisted metal
And felt like
Old bread …

Our Foreman at Blanco Tavern
by James H Duncan
you know when you drink and start promising shit?
like getting engaged or driving friends to El Paso?
there’s a reason why Lone Star is only a dollar a bottle
and …

Dead of Winter
by William Corbett
Factories close, the harbor stinks
our bridges rot and roads decay
we sail farther and farther out
to take fewer fish,
we refuse to educate our children
and they are murderous and murdered,
our leaders tell us …

a plate of thanks giving thought
by Charles Andrew
now get you down the road toward a hall of memories
a corridor or two of recollections of daunting tasks
unsuspected dazes planned charity drives or crazes
even said phases of …

Family Thanksgiving
By Matthew Dexter
Fighting children
Stop your foolish bickering
Grandmother collapses into the corner of
A dimly-lit room
While neither mother
Nor her hated brother
Would prevent her fall
Nor could the wall
Thankfully wasn’t
Made out of bricks.

Breakfast
by Nicholas Wright
spilt out of cardboard boxes
which contain no prize,
i left the oven on overnight, and now
my kitchen smells like sylvia plath.
behind a vale, everything
just out of reach,
i wait for lazarus in the haze.
but he’s …

Turkeys
by Mary Mackey
One November
a week before Thanksgiving
the Ohio river froze
and my great uncles
put on their coats
and drove the turkeys
across the ice
to Rosiclare
where they sold them
for enough to buy
my grandmother
a Christmas doll
with blue china eyes
I like …