December Contributors
Cynthia Atkins, Lydia Rae Bush, Mitch Christensen, Jesse Darnay, Angel T. Dionne, R.M. Engelhardt, Jones Erwin, James Henlon, John Jeffire, Ingrid Marie Jensen, Patrick Johnston, Justin Karcher, Craig Kirchner, Thomas McDade, Catfish McDaris, Frederick Pollack, Nick Power, henry 7. reneau, jr., Ron Riekki, Mykyta Ryzhykh, William Taylor, Jr., Rodrigo Toscano, James Fleet Underwood, Grady VanWright, Philip Venzke, Emma Wells, Von Wise
Poetry
December Highlights
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dreaming of horses
by by Ingrid Marie Jensen
“…bright horses, bolting in from the blue / and I know that’s borderline / affirmations written on the mirror in lipstick…”
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through the cubes
by Grady VanWise
“You blink and now she's dressed in shadow, / a shroud of midnight, / with flickers of neon red pulsing underneath, / veins of pure electricity…”
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love poem
by Von Wise
“Off in the distance, the village pervert / watches us making love / in the afternoon heat. We regard him / as harmless, the way we'd regard a dog / or bird and continue with our wet return / into one another.”
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her taco tasted like rain
by Catfish McDaris
“Her freckles were devil’s kisses / showering down from purgatory.”
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homopteran pandernos/ : a sociopathy sequestered in place
by henry 7. reneau, jr.
“rage that plummets our bodies moan/hearted / to the intrusion of it all . the nihilistic poltergeist…”
two poems
by Nate Tulay
“Somewhere in Liberia, / where the rain is falling heavy again… / as the effects of the edibles / start to kick in.”
five poems
by KG Miles
“‘To all the Judys, love Mr Punch’.”
luna’s goat
by Özge Lena
“She wore herself as an ordinary error proudly.“
joshua lampshade
by Travis Shosa
“Joshua Lampshade has swallowed / a disco ball, it’s a peach pit vessel / of retro kitsch.”
pot girl summer
by Courtney Leigh
“It’s delulu to want everyone to like you / they’re always so ungiving—I want to not give / but to value the remaining fucks I’ve got.”
barometer
by Eva Alter
“…the distance between myself and the world / was so narrow it was invisible—…”
the carousel
by Mark Belair
“Do not use horse hooves / as step or footrest…”
resensitization
by Jesse Hilson
“I’d been alive a week when they sheared off / My penis, or a part. The doc had drunk / A martini, or two, and off skin came…”
i worry i’m becoming an alcoholic
by Sophia Carroll
“The problem is antipsychotics / don’t get me as high as Icarus…”
galcanezumab-gnlm 120mg injection; topiramate 100mg tablet; rizatriptan 10mg orally disintegrating tablet; acetaminophen 250mg/aspirin 250mg/caffeine 65mg tablet
by Anne B. Maydew
“auras / shift/ beneath / the / currents / of / the / world”
cathedral group
by L. Ward Abel
“Funny the way you picture a place / never squares with the real one…”
excerpt from untitled poem about a red box
by Sarah Rosenthal
“On the surface of the box are embroidered objects that resemble butterflies or flowers; a poem threads its way in between these decorations.”
two poems
by Brandon Diehl
“I dug through the boxes, half-watching / Jason X on the TV, trying to be festive.”
three poems
by Chloe Wheeler
“i’m messaging someone / seeking connection / tapped into Link NYC / for free Wifi…”
two poems
by Natalie Marino
“The night is a blackbird / searching for one dolphin / in a bedfull of oysters.”
thrash fiction
by Jan Hassmann
“…it's taped up with a black X and the low E slithers and sways like a sidewinder in the slow narcotic strobe and the room crackles as you hit the fuzz and drench the surging pit…”
five poems
by Howie Good
“Ghost. Hangman. The names of games we used to play as kids while waiting for the rain to stop or the school bus to come or our normal daily suffering to be avenged.”
two poems
by Sreelekha Chatterjee
“Watery in action, watery in emotions— / brain, heart, lungs, skin, muscles, / kidneys, bones—images seated within, / mirroring their masts.”
three poems
by Jacob Schepers
“Queen / Latifah bites it / from the jellyfish / attack that starts out / so cute and like little nibbles.”
sandbags
by Dario Cvencek
“…we all knew that / we were capable of / building something / that even grenades / could not / tear down.”