by Patrick Johnston

“I am misdirection / I am a fly on my wall / I am a journey of a thousand steps / Beginning with a single mile…”

by Saba Zahoor

“Having eaten a slice of life— / nauseating, retching— / unable to digest, / like a gargoyle after a heavy downpour…”

by Daniel Luévano

“You’re an American looking for the one true religion. / Don’t get too excited…”

by PD Hurt

“If you’re reading this, it's already far too late— / i shot in the dark and missed. / It grazed my thoughts—my ideations have / the attention span of a fruit fly.”

by James Redfern

“when paperclip piles start to turn a profit, / genocide will become more attractive / to the average investor, as such endeavors / provide a most-robust rate of return.”

by Tatiana Kent

“you wake up lying on top of your vibrator, it’s maybe 10:30, the sun is shining cruel and white, you take a cold shower, the Keurig rumbles…”

by Rukan Saif

“Data upon data. / A pulsation dizzying my consciousness.”

by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

“I notice a double-sided display near the checkout. / Drink mixers on one side and pregnancy tests on the other. / I show my wife and she laughs. / ‘Well, one usually leads to the other.’”

by Jack Bennett

Little beak inside thin slips / of matted feather / owl in owl in owl in owl… / owl in owl in owl in owl… / owl matryoshka”                                    

owl matryoshka       

by Drew Pissara

“They say, some people leave this place / and move to a higher plane. They say, / there’s someplace worse than this / from which there is no escape. But we / here know there’s nothing better.”

by Akira Damian

“I got in the car./ The city was dark and ordinary. / Both hands on the wheel, / like someone who has finally / stopped apologizing / for what she is.”

by Evelyn Hadassah Kronfeld

“heavy are your lids / as i stumble through / a new story / of catastrophic good taste…”

by Daniel A. Rabuzzi

“The best dreams flow like this, / through the gauze-gaze drift-planes / into the chamber of beginning / to learn about what will be…/…or not.

by Enana Jacob

“A priest in robes shaking / the hand of a homeless man, / a white dog in a baby carrier, / street art vendors and / frazzled pink hair. / These are beacons of summer, / or so it seems to me now.”

by Thao Vu

“three immaculate white ghosts dusting soiled slates / ‍at the station, the wife ghost died of jealousy, a Chinese / ‍the man a Viet, a vile death, holding his own hands / ‍the gates rumbled when baby ghost whispered…”

by Michael Hackney

“The gods have set forth their grand schemes above, / leaving me lost out to sea, / wrecked and unanointed.”

by Bob McAfee

“She has peeled the pomegranate, / eaten some seeds, / rubbed the peel against her loins, / all day /carried the mistletoe in her bra.”

by Cynthia Atkins

“Have you ever heard the sound of a screen door / closing old-timer slow?—Inching madness to the edge / of its seat?— Think of shoes on the wrong feet. / And how fingernails scratch the chalkboard / to test your impulses.” 

by Michael T. Smith

“Nobody said / The zeitgeist was ever fair, / But – / At least we can sell the story wholesale.”

by m.e. gamlem

“The touch of men is met with a wild eyed grimace, the reminder of dead ancestors buried under ancient grounds of the gated communities, skeletons somewhere, fully intact, finger bones clutching their favorite sword.”