by Philip Venzke

“…that overly extended siren wail / was so loud it woke up the over-ripe banana /hibernating on a cigarette encrusted sidewalk.”

by Frank Haberle

“Come, children, the man standing on a box / In the center of the bridge yelled to us, / In Shakespeare. Let us shut up this box / And put away these puppets, for our play / Has been played.”

by John Repp

“…the delis & bookshops, / the cobblers & lectures & resettlement houses jostling / each block, all the free things penniless couples could do, / how they hid their Robeson records till McCarthy / was good and dead.”

by Jonathan Butcher

“A slight glimpse of a magpie / tearing dandelions from pavement / cracks shadowed by an ebb of ascending / barbed wire offers a vein attempt / to maintain the slackened grip / on nature.”

by Fran Schumer

“I light my first cigarette / and know / this is how I want to feel / the rest of my life.”

by Liz DeGregorio

“In a flower bed, a snake / pops out of the ground: / her cool length passes almost silently / over the soil, as she ignores the / gardening tools, the busy hands, the bugs.”

by Vern Fein

“History hangs on skill or incompetence.”

by dan rafael

“I’ve found the same station seven places on the dial / when I switch to AM all I get is bingo numbers / with a secret code to get enough fresh chickens / to find my way home…”

by Nathan Nicolau

“It’s all a ruse to get us to stay in movie theaters / when the blood-soaked hero asks, ‘Was I the real villain?’”

by Makayla Edwards

“…I heard a soft breeze / beneath my feet, trapped on the underside of reality.”

by Damon Hubbs

“Grow my hair, / wear women’s clothes / to get an inch closer to you / my sweetly slutty princess days.”

by Sean Foster

“All the Evangelicals prayed / their children be boys. / They hoped he be either Jesus, / come again / or, his shadow./ Alleluia.”

by Howie Good

“All good stories, Hemingway said, end in death.”

by Mark James Andrews

“Saturday night and I was up at the lectern / off to the side of the altar in St David Church / in a fine Detroit neighborhood doing readings / from St. Paul and Kahil Gibran love verse…”

by Colette Maxfield

“Before long she was running in and out / Like a trapped cat / That hisses / When it speaks.”

by Karina Longo

“If closing my eyes means / only meeting you in a / dream, / I’ll hold my / breath; / bring the / insomnia / beats.”

by Ani King

“lips stained pink or red or purple or black / let them be tender as overripe fruit / let them be girls / bursting sweetness / new names plucked from field guides to flowers…”

by Melia G. Stern

“God is a dog / a big one / the kind of dog where wary mothers ask / is he friendly? / before they skirt by with their children”

by jp thorn

“maria mentions / florida is the birthplace / of disaster and calamity / but i was born in arizona, / you in illinois & / together we’re a blizzard…”

by Claire Nelson

“Oh chicken nugget / shaped cloud / Oh stubbed toe / Oh perfect song / played randomly / The algorithm of my / heart spits you / out again like a / Polaroid…”