Poetry
by Betsy Mars
... So I learned from nothing, / slipped through every inauthentic day-to-day, / maintained the illusion that I could perform ...
by Michael J Morris
... When we were free to follow / the current, we were told to never enter / the tunnel at the river’s end. The tunnel / where an old magician lived who made / children disappear ...
by Dorothy Lune
... I am a king who rules / over my mother’s retired & / mystical ashtrays ...
by Kelly R. Samuels
... What we ate near or on large bodies / of water ransacked ...
by Kim Silva
... pink / tongues like the innocent stamens of flowers, like the chameleon’s tail, like the eye stalks of / snails, the mother’s burning flesh smothers the dance ...
by Kelli Lage
... My husband doesn’t want to talk / about coffins and why my childhood / dog doesn’t have one ...
by Dustin King
... Language didn’t exist before the dream. / Churches needed no walls until they did. / Catbirds scan the earth / crying like humans, newborn, us ...
by J. Aelick
... the tomb- / stones who snuck off into the woods / to escape the chatter of you living / will recline into their leaf-beds ...
by Agnieszka Tworek
... The convoy of my dead passes by / while I waltz among the trees to stay warm. / Their faces glare at me / like rooms emptied of all furniture ...
by Ántonia Timothy
... I take a piece of the devil / (not in the Roman sense), / and pop it in my mouth ...
by Gabriel Barrios Ermita
... There it rebels in the vegetation, doing what the wind / sometimes does, whistling tiny grasses into more tiny grasses ...
by H.E. Fisher
... Everything is in there: verbs, characters, a sideshow / performance ...
by Marina Carreira
... remind me / that life is suffering and skirmish and strolls through a garden // girdled with beauty ...
by Harrison Fisher
... These movies are dull stuff, nothing happening on the screen, tiny / like television, but the theater bathroom is huge, irresistibly yellow, the / urinals something from the future ...
by Rhiannon Briggs
... the fingers tracing // the wind; the wind tracing the fingers; I am / the crystallized remnants of speed ...
by Joshua St. Claire
... Show me roses and rings // breeding nightcolor. Show me a bunting / bill deadwide with stillstill serenade ...
by cordelia belton
... a simple demonstration: / when i make a gesture (this being a gesture) ...
by Biswadarshan Mohanty
... From a shed by a highway, / parents feigning smiles / under tattered straw hats sell vegetables ...
by Michelle Hendrixson-Miller
... I almost walk, not run, right past // a tree with a mouth, wide / as a toothless monster ...
from Portraits of Imaginary Poets
by Susan Cronin
... Millions of years go by. / What remains has been worn / to a single brittle string ...
by Annika Gangopadhyay
... here is the art / of women reborn: / you genuflecting, / them drinking to a husband / you have long poisoned ...
A Story That Starts With Waking Up From a Dream
by Aaron Burch
... You wake up / and your nose is covered in hair. // You check yourself over, head to toe, / and that’s it, only your nose ...
by Riayn Spaero
... Sinew and nerve // store memory—like the bruised / mattress her mother’s mother stuffs / with portraits ...
by Dustin King
... I find it hard to slow down but when I do I think waste ...
by René Bennett
... Last night I crashed Daddy’s Tesla and the evening sky exploded into moonlight ...
by Heikki Huotari
... There are three and one half adolescents in your average time / machine ...
In the moon's cold shadow, where the wild grass grows
by Justin Permenter
... No moonbeams spill over the floor of the bower / Where the limbs grow tangled in apses of green ...
by Thai Lynne
... Have you seen the moon tonight? / She is orange, fat, and riding low ...
by Siddharth Dasgupta
... Today, I will draw another equator / through the tropics of my easterly // betrayals ...
by Allen Landver
... planets warming, ill with gravity, a // rhyme // Burned / rubber? // was it Cain’s spirit / that western summer ...
by Diana K. Malek
... The locals called the pond The Oasis although / It didn’t live up to the name ...
Drizella Tremaine Starts an ASMR Mukbang Channel
by Trista Edwards
... Please salivate in the comments. You can’t be ugly when you have all the cake ...
by Marisca Pichette
... caught under the waves / of the glorious purple / night ...
by Daniel A. Rabuzzi
... when trees conversed with strangers, we wandered unafraid ...
by Cal Freeman
... You remember that tree of heaven, / also called stinking sumac, also called varnish // tree, also called ailanthus altissima / of the Simaroubaceae family ...
The Quaint Hornbill House Story
by Mandira Pattnaik
... A friend of mine once shot a dove. / Its spouse, instead of fleeing, / perched itself near the dead one ...
by Andrew Felsher
... Say Ok I’ll Name that / Unfortunately then / build a container / made of sand ...
by Ricky Garni
... They say Dave Brubeck but come on / what you really hear all the time is / Paul Desmond, saxophone ...
by Steve Passey
... Let people have their small gods / and small goddesses, / their fires in their vessels of bronze ...
The Majority of Diners Continue Eating
by Robert Siek
... ignore the waiter’s ass and the fit of his pants, / his handheld pot of coffee, quite possibly a weapon ...
by Mark Goodwin
... there among the blue / fragments of a planet’s shell // you saw a god ...
by Katie Kemple
... Our last spring as a family, / we would take turns / walking our mother / up the stairs / her purple feet ...
by Elizabeth Joy Levinson
... We did not stop with bottles, / we destroyed the neighbors pool, / whole buckets of roof tar / flung deftly by your strong arms ...
by travis tate
... we’re just here to talk quietly about / this little den of massacre called America ...
by Kathleen Wallish
... hyperreal low-energy living / the high cost of a low life american ...
by Jordan Zandi
... They’ll pass beside the butcher’s shop / and wave sad kerchiefs to the hanging pigs ...
by Chris Pellizzari
... A young girl dances solea, / hands tracing “Allah” / in Moorish calligraphy / over the heads / of swimming goldfish light ...
by Christopher J. Adams
... A young girl dances solea, / hands tracing “Allah” / in Moorish calligraphy / over the heads / of swimming goldfish light ...
by William Rieppe Moore
... These are the stonegrave days / before the advent of resurrection: // bluets, daffodils, and squirrel corn—/ precursors to divine forthcomin’ ...
by Michael B. Tager
... Thanks for beliebing / you say / Now let’s get going / because everyone you miss is here / and everyone you don’t miss too ...
by Amber Watson
... and summer’s heat / drips like butter dipped lobsters / boiled in the backyard / where we buried our first pet, Kitty ...
by Sy Brand
... I hung from the tree there, once, / legs round a branch and blood / pulled to forehead, and you / called me names...
by Kailey Tedesco
... if you didn’t know already, i’m casting a spell // on you, dearly beloved ...
by Jade Hidle
... and she turns and smiles into me, / understanding the crevices and crests and coils of the language that every woman before us / whispered into their babies’ ears ...
by Charles Kell
... O how each person / is traveling to or from // O how each person is busy writing /the book of life...
by Soraya Qahwaji
... Nobody told me that / when you kill the past, / you become a shadow ...
by Saheli Khastagir
... This evening, the woods sprung into a hundred black bells ...
by Ryan Hibbett
... Below, he had curled in a manger of seaweed, / having sprang from the prow to search // the soft bay floor ...
by Aida Riddle
... But you left her there on her knees, / hands buried in her hair, pathetically sob sob sobbing. You left with the sherry ...
Assassinated Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba’s Resurrection
by Paul David Adkins
... but they wanted him dead and, // indeed, / killed him once....
by Cal Freeman
... There is a sadness to bisque and beer, which is why I’m suggesting / the crab sandwich ...
For the Girl Who Raised Herself
by Chris Blexrud
... She’s like a church in a mine / where work and worship / join blistered hands...
I Cannot Find the Words That Rhyme with My Own Name
by Coleman Edward Dues
... hillbillies and creekers wage their wars with mothers’ sons / fathers’ brothers shoot themselves with daughters’ husbands’ guns ...
: incantation to take away the pain :
by Tori Rego
... : i wish i could give you a chair instead of the floor : ambrosia instead of lukewarm coffee : all the colors that coalesce in the sky : when you drive : out of town for the
by Kenton K. Yee
... I want it flighty, I want to fight it / until it liquefies ...
by June Lin
... i am the duck tongue queen of this Chinese-Canadian suburb, / and the ducks in the river behind my house fear me ...
I Believe These Magpies Followed Me
by Mervyn R. Seivwright
... I have not felt the silence // I find with only blackbirds and magpies ...
by Jake Bailey
... There are many things I am unsure of: / the meaning of dragons, the light in a church ...
by Matthew J. Andrews
... My heart is a pack of wolves with no teeth, a herd of deer with no legs ...
by Michael Battisto
... you can make me into / a red field in a red frame / that your thin legs walk on...
by Abdulmueed Balogun
... two in the morning, / a quick reminder of the terror / that lurks in the throat of dawn ...
Instructions to the First Cause
by Carl Hubrick
... Create matter and shape planets, / and as each is finished—spin it ...
by Dawn Watts
... when she falls she falls deep / deep in voids with a mouth / open wide wider widen ...
by Amy Bobeda
... los manos de sueños son la mana of my grand / mother tongues ...
by Justine Gardner
... There are no cats, no small dogs, / sealed in zip-top bags in preparation / for you to take them to be burned...
by GTimothy Gordon
... under ubiquitous blue moon, over outback, / too, where no beautiful thing shines ...
by Joel Allegretti
... A bat flaps through / an open window / of a country home ...
by Marc Alan Di Martino
... webbed feet dredged in silt / deep as time, iris tilted / skyward ...
by McLeod Logue
... I am a girl // with unmade bread, unkempt hair, and a distrust for children ...
by Ryan Aghamohammadi
... Answers are means of filling in blanks // until we die ...
by Seth Leeper
... in conversations / with the void / lately // it’s come / to light that // i’m not / upholding / my end / of the bargain ...
by Stephanie Staab
... I now sit down to tell you how I get along / I am well and hope these lines find you the same ...
by Mark J. Mitchell
... The first time, / he tried to stop it ...
by Austin Veldman
... Speak soil, / tell us what the blood of man tastes like ...
by Lee Levinson
... You were all invited to the gender reveal of my knives ...
by Dig Wayne
... you play it square and fair / narrow and straight / ease on down / to the cold morning’s hoarfrost ...
by Morgan LaRocca
... They sometimes call you a twig / as if you could ever crack, / but i do believe inside / you are always fresh, and green ...
by Katya Buresh
... i. / rise on splayed toes over the rubber mat toward the gate that swings hums with gaps tells / me there’s orange in my future ...
How to Talk to Predators About Responsibility
by Lily Beaumont
... Did you / leave the ashes smoldering / the way a god would ...
by Dustin King
... Do buzzards become cannibals when a buzzard becomes carrion? / Wouldn’t sweet decomposition be a gift? ...
ten things I’m sorry for at different levels of severity in no particular order
by Emily Norton
... i haven’t finished a book in months/ i don’t really want to go to thanksgiving dinner ...
by Charles J. March III
... Then Jesus saved sour wine, saying, THIS IS KING ...
by Tamara Watson
... To escape / from the tyranny / of the invisible, / they dream / of living flesh ...
by Annie Stenzel
... When you seize a grudge and clutch it to your chest / what happens next? ...
What Happens in Vegas in Summer
by S. T. Brant
... Giant sparrows, sequined with lilies and chrysanthemums, geraniums, roses, and hyacinths, made the bear’s hibernation den into their nest. The bear thought he could take them, but he found them too beautiful to disturb ...
by Melissa Andres
... The hooves left marks on our land, / imprints of hardened keratin, / with fresh notes of joy in abundance ...
by Stephanie Yue Duhem
... A one-star general before he was starred / with bullets, Po Po’s brother would have a few / good years left ...
by John Grey
... in which / the wise king / and munificent queen / are burned to / a crisp by dragons ...
by William Doreski
... We agree it’s not an omen but / perhaps a campaign poster / for a candidate running for / some minor public office ...
by Evan Isoline
... I’d do it for the skull-suckers / I’d do it for the silences of green you’ve carried / and the salt of the horse / I’d do it for piles of soft bread in the late afternoon ...
by Rae Rozman
... how do you know when you’ve reduced a self / to nothing ...
by Sudasi Clement
... I remember my coyote-voice, and the run / and the hunt and the hunt-song ...
by Glen Armstrong
... I remember a classmate breaking down because he did not want to live in what I now understand was an orphanage. He would be taken from his mother ...
by Lana Hechtman Ayers
... The moon is broken in half, he told / me and so are you ...
by Camille Ferguson
... In my favorite dream we sit in citrus, / an actual grapefruit sky ...
by Emily Jahn
... In the summer black / birds roost in the trees / like little monks ...
by Leela Srinivasan
... You never get used to it, I heard, / you just learn not to say anything. ...
by Krysta Lee Frost
... when I am sure of love and soft when I want it. / My mouth is missing eight teeth, but the gaps are gone ...
by Cassandra Eddington
... You were hanging upside down on a cactus bush, / crucified, your skin sticky red, / your head cradled by thorns ...
by John Grey
... Elsewhere, the building is alive: / staircase trampled by never-ending feet, / room above, a cacophony ...
by Kristin Garth
... Dessert is stories seven share. Invent / confections. Hope is chocolate in the air ...
by Gale Acuff
... Our sides are touching and it's a good thing / she's left-handed and I'm right ...
by Levi Masuli
... From eyelash I brushed / away the crust of a blistered dream / where I was eyeing you ...
by Dior J. Stephens
... CAPITALISM WINS AGAIN AND // YOU DON’T FEEL ANY BETTER ...
by William Doreski
... You expect them to appear overhead / at any moment, waving tentacles / equipped with post-digital gear ...
by Matt Schumacher
... The light flickered on their faces / As if they'd long expected me ...
by Brett Harrington
... surrounded by plinks / of picks, / whispers rippling / through mist ...
by Caitlin Thomson
... Where once there was anger, / there is absence ...
by Jai Hamid Bashir
... There is no such thing as time in space, / just private choreographies. We are often late ...
On the Stick-Thin Person Wearing a Baggy Black Hoodie with a Big-Ass Skull on the Back
by Tim Neil
... We think skeletons are cool / because we are so used ...
by Marc Alan Di Martino
... I’d launch into my spotty repertoire: / ten-minute Dylan songs, and clear the bar ...
by Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad
... It’s one of those chance finds - / a glorious Common Crow / lying on the footpath / missing an abdomen ...
by Samuel T. Franklin
... Decay is nothing new. We’ll all taste / graveyard dirt and suck rainwater / from dark yew roots ...
by Carrie Greenlaw
... In slanted afternoon I swig / vinegar and eat handfuls of boys ...
by E.E. Rodriguez
... Seeing perros roam streets / is expected. / Some strays, / some human. ...
by James Reidel
... of having to look but do not touch, even / though he could feast his eyes upon her flesh every time she / bared it to nurse the thing ...
by A. Martine
... but it never comes close to when I was this high, and I could barely reach the tabletops, inhaling the ample heat of the West African monsoon ...
by John Sibley Williams
... The world orbits the worlds we invent / each day anew. To give us somewhere ...
by Robert Libbey
... near the lip of the tracks, beside a bed of gravel, they gawked, / and gathered. And then, another chorus of whys ...
by Alla Vilnyanskaya
... you would attempt to mimic the hum of a woman / smearing lipstick onto her mouth ...
by Marc Alan Di Martino
... You’d gulp a mouthful of air and climb / just higher than your comfort zone allowed ...
by DS Maolalai
... through the window / and two floors up / the birds are heading seaward ...
by Edward Lee
... for when the nights turn cold / and loneliness fills / the moonlit bedroom ...
by Robert Okaji
... acknowledge insignificance, watch / the blue spinning so far away, so close. ...
by Hibah Shabkhez
... First to nature's mirror, water, I turned, / And besought the lake to tell me no lies ...
by Estrella del Valle (translated by Toshiya Kamei)
... Coconuts are brown outside / but very white inside ...
by Ana Vidosavljevic
... She walks. / All her cardboards break the dullness of city noises ...
by Richard Stevenson
... No way in or out but by float plane / or private boat when the river / is high ...
by John Grey
... If it weren’t for the slithering cottonmouth, / there’d be no movement here at all ...
by Ahja Fox
... in the middle of this field you cannot dream / only sit and stare beyond the fence barely / a girl and barely from heaven ...
by Emily Tuszynska
... Fifteen years and even I / who watched every season / of its changing can no longer / remember the field ...
by Lauren Milici
... A glowing white house / tucked beneath the trees / & the too-quiet hallway / that leads to your door ...
by Susan Hu
... What it must feel like / to be burned along with your consciousness ...