“The Magi” by Cameron Morse
Wisteria drapes green bean-knuckled fingers over my forehead, the anointing oil of rain dripping. Robin poised upon the weathered, mossy timber spine of the swing …
Author: Matthew Maichen
“Volitions of Desire” by Oisin Breen
I speak- Of climbing trees, and, of being terrified, but jumping, ‘fifteen feet!’ onto the brown mound beneath, momentarily and relationally also jumping through a …
“The Dinner Party” by Alexa Hailey
We arrived right on time, although we had debated that. Isn’t fashionably late, well, fashionable? In the end, though, we were on time. Which was …
“Carry Tiger to Mountain” by Morton Milder
In the Third Year of great burning, Mo Mo, the Golden Emperor, made a journey to the monastery in which, as a boy, he had …
“My Nature” by Gregory C. Wilder Jr.
“I’m not used to being in Nature” Is what comes to mind as I stand here at Still Point Staring up into space – Feeling …
“The Destiny Tree” by Hibah Shabkhez
The destiny tree, Dark gnarled and secretly wick, Claws at you and me Across eye spaces Twisting phoenix-glass specks prance Bloated toad-faces Yearning for their …
“Self Portrait as Woman with Scarf” by Paul Rabinowitz
I have no hair atop my head but if I did it would be like yours and I’d wash it brush it out and take …
“Rural Grown” by James Croal Jackson
I always mowed the wild green hair of lawn, eyes of corn stalking me from across the street. Steering Dad’s tractor in the shapeof a nose ring …
“On Perfumed Wings it Ascended” by Andrew Johnston
When the dragon first wound its way through the fragrant mist that swallowed the mountain, most had no reckoning of its nature. It was a …
“Nigh” by Scott Mitchel May
Harvey Olsen never had any interest in surviving any kind of apocalypse — not zombie, not viral, and certainly not nuclear. He honestly did not …
A few updates!
Hey all, you may have already seen it if you looked at our submission guidelines in the last…maybe ten minutes? But in the next month …
“Moving Among the Changes” by Tim Suermondt
The aspirations of man are simpler— a plate of fruit, a bottle of wine and my wife about to cook a chef’s dinner from disparate …
“Neigborhood” by Matthew Chamberlin
This neighborhood is all I know, these placid lawns and cars consumed by blooms of rust where things move underneath the surface —parts and widens, …
“1984” by DC Diamondopolous
James, as the doctors and staff at St. Mark’s Regional Hospital in San Diego insisted on calling him, applied pancake make-up over the band-aid camouflaging …
“These fragments I have shored against my ruins” by Jie Wang
We are all doomed to lose everything. I’ve lost three fingers, one arm, one eye. I’ve lost my family, my childhood home, my native tongue. …
“Tempest of the Bold” by Ken Allan Dronsfield
By the waves I felt the storm shall Death bring his scythe? Eagerly I looked for cover; loud thunderstorms drumming from the tempest that is …
“Mourning” by Oisin Breen
Oisín Breen is a 35 year-old poet, part time academic in narratological complexity, and a financial journalist covering the US registered investment advisory sector. Dublin …
“A Bride” by Michael Howard
It was official: Angie Lash and Marco Di Luca, twenty-one years her senior, were wed.
Meet Melissa Reynolds!
Hey everyone! We told you that we have big plans for this publication and here’s one of them. We took on an intern! For the …
“Flatline” by Mark Hammerschick
“through the view/of a hollow lens/like an eye surprised/by lost sight”
Our Fifth Birthday!
Hello everyone! It’s Matthew. Happy birthday to us, I suppose. I just want to announce here that we have been around for HALF A DECADE!!! …
“When My Ear Fell Off” by Stratos Moustakas & Dora Mezei
When my ear fell off I first thought of the client delegation sitting at the conference room, waiting for the meeting to begin in earnest. …
“Forty Degree Echo” by James Croal Jackson
you’re biting your nails again o sweet white of time I feel in the December rush of cold the whoosh of closed & open doors …
“As We Know It” by Marco Etheridge
You pause in the center of the footbridge, a silver-bright ribbon running beneath you, gravel paths serpentine under the locust trees that define the banks …
“Birth Cave” by Terry Tierney
Shaman paints the wolf and full moon blister red above a sinuous line of orange scales, serpent tail pointing to the past, head spitting a …
“The Hunt” by Seth Jani
I would step out of my bodyto dream I was concurrentwith the wind and light,or the painted stonestossed over the embankmentinto the hearts of rivers.I …
“Loud Secrets” by Fabrice Poussin
Two to speak loud and clear for all and too many to hear; secrets of an alcove and two more join for some chatter; it …
“Typical Spring Love Song” by Connie Woodring
Connie Woodring is a 75-year-old retired psychotherapist/educator/social activist who is getting back to her true love of writing after 45 years in her real job. …
“Edges” By Kim Malinowski
There used to be an edge where the world ended, where ships would tumult down cataracts into nothingness. There are places still, buffers and hallows …
“The Red Worm” by Isaac Aday
Sam Karrington’s size-six loafers kicked back and forth atop the wooden bench under the train stop awning. The train would be here soon, he thought—no …
“The Slow Plunge” by Seth Jani
The cracks of frost in the whitened planksspell the end of one season and the slow plunge into the next.By the black pond, the danceof …
“Locked Together” by C.D. Panell
A pair of purple-throated pigeons entwine atop a post as our train passes by. Their beaks lock beneath unblinking black eyes. Breeze passes over the …
“Cattail Confessions” by Hannah Melin
I’ve fallen in love with all of them. How could I not? With their skin so soft I can watch it give way beneath my …
“Poem En Route to Oblivion” by Michael Harmon
My poor dear, were tight plastic ties placed on your tender wrists? Were you marched down a long dim hall to the room “Philosophy 101”? …
“The Next One Who Dies Had Better Be Living” by John Grey
Kill the funeral please.Mow down the mourners.Assassinate the coffin. Hey. pallbearers,hands up. don’t move.And preacher man…none of your phony speeches…heaven’s what I say it is. …
“Clouds” by Adam Kelly Morton
Honey’s Pub is loud with live music, and there’s a full pint of lager in front of me. If I drink it, it’ll be my …
“Tree Song” by Melissa Reynolds
I have stood for over a hundred years in this place, endured the idiots who link hands and try to encompass my bulk, observed the …
“Naked Cake” by Scott Mitchel May
There is something sad about an unfrosted and forgotten about sheet cake — the kind of sheet cake when if finished would be eaten at …
“Say Goodbye to Hollywood” by Henry Crawford
[Shot] [in a single take] [with no lighting] [and no sound] [some believed] [The Black Movie] [would fail] [at the box office] [when it opened] …
“Barrow” by Robin Wyatt Dunn
The darkness should be the first clue, like it was not just a memory but an encounter, both in past and present: of the future. …
“Taco Dreams” by William Torphy
Peg had made good on her resolution to leave West Virginia, and here he was in San Francisco, seasonless though it was Spring, sleeping on …
“West” by James Goss
A four-engine train engines idling diesel beside the iron fence mist herds of penned-in cattle earthen clouds settling low a rider crooning Huddie Ledbetter Goodnight …
“The Primrose Path” by TC Anderson
The Devil’s wicked lips taste my burning flesh A delicacy A flame with delight (with shame) He teases, waiting, enticing, watching as I squirm and …
“Nightchild” by Paul Negri
She shone bright in the headlights of Emerson’s car. White dress, white shoes, white ribbon in her hair. A very white little girl walking along …
“The 50-State Rustbelt Gulag Blues” by Brett Stout
Brett Stout is a 40-year-old artist and writer. He is a high school dropout and former construction worker turned college graduate and paramedic. He creates …
“Roots” by Shah Tazrian Ashrafi
The villages grew wingsOut of their water hyacinth-fringed backsAnd took flightTowards the heart of a hot, busy, concrete-skinned metropolis That had the hands of steel, heart …
“King Yertle” by Mickey J. Corrigan
You are a man of your wordsbut your words are all lies. Your queen is an import but the rest go in cages, you paw …
“The Green Instruction Manual” by Dr. Amit Shankar Saha
Take out a month of green from your April heart. Spread a quicksilver green on the whitewashed walls. Paint a gut-wrenching green on the palls …
“A Cut Shaving” by Joe Albanese
The shards of blanket comfort are all that remain—what framing work this is, what demeaning work this has become—begging like the hen baking bread. A …
“Pink” by Izzy Martens
The small pink tube is pressed into the palm of my right hand. I am flicking the lid with my thumb, finding satisfaction in the …
“Riding the Rails with Marx and Engels” by Brett Stout
Brett Stout is a 40-year-old artist and writer. He is a high school dropout and former construction worker turned college graduate and paramedic. He creates …
“Arizona Rattlesnakes” by E.G. Farrelly
“How d’ya s’ppose we git outta this here situation?” “Well, the cars are over there.” “Sure are.” “That’s probably our best bet out of here.” …
And Then He Died by Matthew Maichen
Hello, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, nonbinary individuals of all ages. It’s been a while since we had an update from the editor-in-chief, but …
“I guess I never told you about Texas” by Robin Wyatt Dunn
I guess I never told you about Texas, long and sweet in the evening, boiling jelly, about mom’s temperature, stuck in the oven: The best …
“What Do Birds Do When Bombs Go Off” by Shah Tazrian Ashrafi
When bombs rattle the insides of houses, cafes, churches, Twisting and turning their intestines, Hurling their insides out, Bleeding them dry, What do the birds …
“some other nights” by Mallika Bhaumik
Nights are essays in loneliness words scrawled in the darknone to be retrieved, I stretch on the bed; disheveled like my hair,twinning with the night.My …
“One Day” by Rebekah Ricksecker
6:47 AM The darkness turns gray; the misty fog rests over the water; the honeysuckle perfumes the air as white petals float on the still …
“Bodily” by Gale Acuff
I don’t care if I’m dead as long as I’m still alive, in Heaven I mean though not Hell, I might be dead but I’ll …
“The cops have Julia” by Robin Wyatt Dunn
I knew already, struck with the phantasm of a dream that I had taken the reins of my life at last. Like a drowning man …
“Forgotten Man” by Ann Christine Tabaka
Dust motes dance on sunlight streaming through a dingy window. Rusty mailbox, empty, always empty. Cadaverous cobwebs mocking back at him from a peeling wall. …
“The Clairvoyant” by DS Maolalai
for a while there I was worried I had cancer. I even joined a gym though I don’t know why I thought it would help. …
“Tungsten Bulbs” by Sayan Aich Bhowmik
I have always wondered About the mood, Inside houses that dress themselves In yellow tungsten bulbs, Once evening descends Like children running down the stairs. …
“Traumatic Pneumothorax” by Melanie Gaughran
Melanie Gaughran is a university student in the city of subdued excitement, Bellingham, Washington. Particularly concerned with her internal workings and misworkings, she finds that …
We’re back and on Patreon.
Thank you to everyone who continued to follow us during this hiatus, and thank you especially to those submitting to us. We’re back, and better …
“Seasons of Earth” by Manisha Manhas
the dust storms whineagainst the windowas cherry dreamsslide inside.Searching a marigold,a child’s eyes bob tothe tunes of morningas do butterflies rise fromchrysanthemum jars.And so does the …
“On Light on Shadow” by L.L. Madrid
The air is thick with a bovine stench. We’re driving eight hundred miles through desert and oil fields to our new home on Dyess Air …
“Death of Whydah Sibyl” by Ken Allan Dronsfield
Stand at ocean-side, exhale screams cut through dense air, her throat tightens releasing weird screeching caterwauls. The ice melts and Sibyl climbs the tower; in gown of …
Ruben Reflects on the Difference Between Dreams and Reality While Working the Day Shift” by Chuck Von Nordheim
Where I earn my nine fifty and change each week, rules of physics make the surreal far from cheap.
“Cupholder: A Road Buddy Romance” by Chuck Von Nordheim
Under a sulfur streetlamp, your crisscrossed polymer strips that carve berths for beverages from empty air reminded me of the elastic and steel rigs worn …
“Canescent” by Jagari Mukherjee
1 These mornings, I wake to find silver threads in my hair — gleaming as if dipped in the winter moon. I have always loved …
“A Russian Romance” by Nikita Parik
One fanciful Calcutta summer the world maps were ripped off from overused geography textbooks in an act of innocent revolution. You cherry-picked ecstatic reds …
“Synthlipsis Greggii” by Hart L’Ecuyer
The war brought a boost to the flowermen’s activities, to which were added antiwar agitation among keelpods & rounding up draft dodgers. The great wave …
“Concurs” by Sanjeev Sethi
Not like in the motion pictures but we had our moments. There is no record, no pesky scribe seeking the “hows” and “whys” of it. …
“7820 miles” by Snata Bose
How can I forget you If your breath is on my skin, A peppermint sweet cloaked around my neck, Hair chaotic against my chest, Eyes …
“Stewed and Strained” by RK Taylor
comforting chatter from front-facing seat soothing justified cries in empathetic debate smoothing frosting onto clumping, cracked cake overflowing trashcan. No—it can wait Chemicals carve; his …
“Why I Should Probably Quit” DS Maolalai
the click of the corkscrew against the bottle and art tore up and destroyed with matches. I see poetry now full of people wearing shirts …
“The God of Good Things” by Snata Bose
The rain cut me a river wide enough to savour my numbered gardens— each with their own cloud. And in each I bred a different …
“A New Kind Of Love” by Sanbud Tehrani
It may not get any better Despite the that’ll-do-pig-that’ll-do condescending words of some highly carcinogenic celebrity whose comparative lifestyle may as well make them a …
“Monograph” by Gary Glauber
Home, a major chord, played to sustain. Pattern of wallpaper’s texture ingrained into décor of mind. As chorus hook plays over reminisced wonder, synapses fire …
“Ice Cream or Moxie” by Kristy Gherlone
In the heat of the summer, back when Willow’s mother slipped in and out of lunacy, sometimes she’d wake up at night to find her …
“I Hid to Never Emerge” by Suvojit Banerjee
The snow in my lawn isn’t white. It is rusty like the color of my flowerpot. “Papa, can I go out and make a snowman?” …
“Teeter-Totter” by Sanjeev Sethi
Spindrift from your biocellate field leaves me smooth and serene, your voice hijacks my uneasiness. In the parlor of our pact flurries of foregoing …
“Exit” by Anupama Kadwad
I force myself to open the closed lids To catch a glimpse of my surroundings Try my utmost to overcome the lethargy Shake myself free …
“Red Wine for Winter” by DS Maolalai
the snow melts grey into late december and mean music is making a sudden comeback in the bars saxophones and tatters of rattled live drumming …
“Modern Sunsets” by M. A. Istvan Jr.
daytime gutter vomit scared to change your way from one that has been making you money color-segregated schools for the blind the increasing pressure to …
“Pledge” by Sheikha A.
Some lands are royalty in just existence: the dragging of the boat from sand to sea, the thick of the tongue on the roof of …
“This is not a Democracy!” by Sanbud Tehrani
“This is not a Democracy!” More equals loss… Fight like this great and disgusting world is laughing at us. We let this happen, we march …
“Nothingness” by Anne Strand
I’ve been awake since 4 a.m. But that was twenty hours ago, and now we’re here, at the party, and …
“Cold Frame” by Sanjeev Sethi
Love like Eucalyptus or Lavender was sabuline. Cacoethes for your company I understand now: the arenosity I had to encounter by cholla-like jabs too. …
“untitled” by Darin Milanesio
Life is supposed to be music But we are the notes not the listeners Maybe we are God’s music Chords being strummed on some cosmic …
“Ship Inside a Bottle” by Charles Rafferty
Her new boyfriend had a ship inside a bottle. You’d ask him how he got it in there, and he’d act like you …
A poem from Simon Perchik
Editor’s Note: Per the author’s request, we have left this piece untitled. * These crumbs are from so many places yet after every meal they …
Excerpt From “We Three Kings” by D.M. Rice
D.M. Rice is a non-binary writer from Dallas, TX whose work has been featured in the Aletheia Journal, Sybil, The Bandit Zine, and the anthologies Rec*og*nize, …
“The Hitchhiker” by Michael T. Smith
It was late enough that she didn’t even feel tired anymore. Clarissa squinted so hard her eyes hurt. She tried see through the fogged-over windshield …
“Writing the Believable” by Alex Clare
Hey everyone! Matthew here, we have a special Friday post for you! You may remember Alex Clare as the author of He’s Gone, a mystery novel …
“Occupy the Present” by Ken Allan Dronsfield
Whatever be the season, perhaps you are the reason, for the shadowed man whom limps down the narrow lane. With help of a burled cane, …
“Stag” by Megan Denese Mealor
Megan Denese Mealor has been published widely in numerous journal, most recently Children Churched & Daddies, Beakful, streetcake, and Harbinger Asylum. A two-time Pushcart Prize …
“Four Teacups” by Irtika Kazi
Four tea cups lay unattended since Mittag – on the black, bedraggled table in the canteen. You and I – drinking each other in— …
“The Clues Within an Adirondack Glade: Son to Father” by Greg Lucas
Now that you’ve passed-through woods deeper and darker than these — climbed into eternity — can you tell me, when our hearts stop, and we’re …
“The Laptop of God” by KG Newman
You’d expect the power button to be a rare diamond fueling a holographic desktop, folders overflowing in bitcoin. Or that answers just appear, thoughts as …