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…”
work orders
by Naa Asheley Afua Adowaa Ashitey
“Yesterday, I accidently tripped on that annoying part of the stairway that has now accumulated eight different work orders.”
three poems
by Mykyta Ryzhykh
“Mushroom pickers picking mold on my fish spine / A basket full of ashy cast-iron nights and red bony sunsets…”
two poems
by Jason Davidson
“I’ll be cold asleep on the floor, with you sutured inside my skull’s / parlor, / a naked cowboy, a shining giant, a beautiful hoax, a permanent coma.”
three poems
by Chantel Lavoie
“The last Manson girl-child in prison / whose arm, at 21, grew sore, stabbing / wakes every day, knowing / she’s a destroyer. She regrets.”
of wars and divorce
by Dario Cvencek
“we deem some children’s deaths more tragic than others.”
gunning it
by Dario Cvencek
“you do not need a gun”
two poems
by Zebulon Huset
“Eric would eventually be promoted to drive-thru— / one of the few teenagers content to make a buck / and not fuck off frequently enough to be fired…”
three poems
by Derek Dew
“When memory is stuck / and has no place to go / it becomes a glass shard / dropped in a clear green sea…”
valërea ing in the crabapple orchard
by Zev Levinson
“Valërea Ing gives up on singing Ducks beneath enamelled symphonies Dreams of a village on the far-off mountain And forgets she dreams a thing”
five poems
by Charlotte Cosgrove
“There’s more forest fires somewhere else (phew, not here) / More crazy scientists warning of ecological collapse – / The consequences are dire, we need to act now.”
five poems
by Adrian Frey
“Apple seeds line the altar in the empty church, / Down the one lane dirt road, / They do not grow Shulamite.”
two poems
by Terry Ann Wright
“…we wove a snare. we became / our own noose. o we aver / sour & we savor mourn. we / see moon & we become omen.”
cigarette girl at the horseshoe
by Mandie Lopatka
“you are who my heart can hold / like a penny or an aspirin in my vase of violets / a blank universe that makes me the star / a mirror image I don’t recognize…”
out of joint
by Philip Venzke
“Finally, / to blow this pitiful joint, / I fused into water / and escaped / down the drain.”
8 april 2024)
by John Jeffire
“…bend suppliant / to the shadow…”
confessions
by John Jeffire
“She looks at him as he looks out the kitchen window into the evening darkness. She does not think of whose pain she would be easing.”
a train through the south
by Grady VanWright
“The train grinds into its final station— / a street, present and pulsing, / where a man sells honey / in jars that mirror his eyes.”
five poems
by David Koehn
“Red ink draws a teardrop around a green-eyed tea with no pupil. / What kind of madness might I ask for from the startling whiteness of Labrador tea?”
two poems
by Daniel Edward Moore
“Here, lips obediently swallow / the laws of drunken gods and / salvation is delusional, making / the real, unreal.”
three poems
by GTimothy Gordon
“After the long haul you wait / for the slow still-life to matter.”