The sun peers down from above, spilling light on the ground; the clouds hang haloedby a fading gold. Daylight’s verve recedes as the purpling sky spreads across the horizon. I […]
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Category: Poetry
“floating away; on a vessel long derelict” by Kate Shannon
if you are listening, I am here, wracked with a Martian longing dreaming of stowaway spiders who would weave sickly webs over semi-important fixtures: reviled queen who presides over her silken court,an army […]
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“Emma Marries for the First Time at 54” by John Grey
It’s part dream, part afterthought. All those years, Cupid’s arrows landed wide of the mark, struck her friends instead. And now, at last, one thumps into her glutenous maximus. It’s […]
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“Function” by DS Maolalai
her body falls out of her underwear with the impact of apples come down out of trees. it’s hot, this afternoon, baking in august. we are out on the balcony […]
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“The Furrowing” by Julie Allyn Johnson
I asked about her yearnings, her desires, as I suspected they might, perhaps, mesh with my own. It was worth a try, an attempt at some sort of shared, miraculous
camaraderie.
“crickets, tell me that” by April Yu
the night has not stolen the taste and shape of my grass-drowned flesh. after all, your croaks already drink the air from my lungs until your survival and my death […]
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“Last Meal” by Jason Brightwell
Tomorrow is too late. I’ve been listeningto the ground lick its lips, laying plans to closeon your heart. To beat the earth, brown batter, to bake afuneral bread. Toleave me hungry. […]
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“The Refusal” by Lock Howe
Lock grew up in rural Tennessee in a conservative, Baptist area. Raised atheist and liberal, Lock struggled with feelings of isolation and confusion, themes that are prominent in their writing. […]
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“Blowing Out Candles” by Daniel Romo
For Devan Daniel Romo is the author of Bum Knees and Grieving Sunsets (FlowerSong Press 2023), Moonlighting as an Avalanche (Tebot Bach 2021), Apologies in Reverse (FutureCycle Press 2019), and […]
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“Beautiful Grief” by Jason Brightwell
You wore your grey fate perfectly—laughter, golden touch. It was a show, of course. Even as tiny hope waved over private blue melancolia, it stirred up a sludge,lingering at bottom’s black. You and […]
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“Sacrifice” by Lock Howe
Lock Howe grew up in rural Tennessee in a conservative, Baptist area. Raised atheist and liberal, Lock struggled with feelings of isolation and confusion, themes that are prominent in their […]
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The Scream by Nikola Sojka
I want to scream until my voice blistersAround the hot cinders of the words I spitI burn out next to the Sun and SisterWhere my Mother and Father lit the […]
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“On Visiting My Dear Friend” by Martina Reisz Newberry
You and I will read our ways into the eternal whatever—questioning, wondering, wandering under skies grown gray with concern or maybe apathy. We’ll play outside until the streetlights come on like small meteors in […]
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“Dorset” by J.R. Barner
The most beautiful woman my father had ever seen, Except, he kept insisting, my mother, of course, Hailed from Grimstone, Stratton parish, in Dorset. So, I set out to find […]
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“Seeking” by Pearce Green
my youth has drooped, the trees in the forest too.beard grown thick, wet the bed black;death calls our names alphabetically,the rooster still crows in the afternoon, waking me.stopped taking my […]
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“Ctrl+Z” by Deborah-Zenha Adams
(+_+)? A decade lost your last message sprang back to life today :O unwittingly resuscitated by a software upgrade. : – ) Happy Thursday! Such a great….xD …laughed so hard I cried<3 I’m so […]
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“A Danish Summer Night Spent With My Ghost” by Adam Curt Custock
It’s a blue-lit Danish summer night; the calendar is nearing summer solstice; birds are singing at the ungodly hour of 3 AM. Pt. 1 blue lightblue lightnot quite day, not quite […]
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Five Haikus by Joshua St. Clare
sand dollar the boy buys the moon the ocean chestnut cache the squirrel forgets a forest root cellar Hunger Moon in the bushel baskets Messier 14 by the roadside Queen […]
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“Misplaced Affections” by Sinclaire Dickinson
A golden retriever of a womanjust met and she’s practically sheddingin your lapshe steps away from packing heroverstuffed bagwell-meaning but not seeing boundaries that should go unsaidtells you she’s consolidating […]
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“Winter Haikus” by Laura Zaino
winter haiku dark lines of sleepingtrees draw stencils in the skyabove pure white ground winter haiku icicles flourishgray clouds linger exactlywhere they are meant to Laura Zaino is a lover […]
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“Fallen Leaves” by Rhys Lee
Rhys Lee is a Masters candidate at Mount Saint Mary’s University. He has poetry published in The Driftwood at Point Loma Nazarene University. Image
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“The Last Atlantean” by David Henson
Atlantis Without Birds Marble women in gardens used to reach into the sky and gather birds by the armful. Raindrops brought them down in scores to swallow worms they turned into wingbeats. You could […]
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“For Scale” by Daune O’Brien
My mother sayslife is goodshe is happydown sixmaybe seven —- no, eight poundssince catching upto her too-thin sisterwho is losing weight to chemofastand I want to say somethingbut I don’tstop […]
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“Dart Away” by Jamie Spenser
Jamie Spenser‘s poetry has been published in New York Quarterly, Sheila-Na-Gig, and Disappointed Housewife. His outpourings about TV commercial production and the art-rock band Devo have appeared in Perfect Sound […]
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“Layers” by Matthew Freeman
Lots of human brainseventually get to wherethey saynone of this had to bethis way.Other brainsknew all alongthat everything is necessary.It’s sad, though,because so many thingsare terrible and evidently wrong.And even […]
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“Susan” by Holly Day
I stood and watched you sleeping, hadstood there watching for nearly five minutes inthe shadow of the hallway for nearly five minutes of circustime before I dropped your purse on the […]
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“Arizona” by Zoë Blaylock
Emerging writer Zoë Blaylock was educated in the school of hard knocks and droll encounters but credentialed by Harvard. She works in research/healthcare ethics in San Diego where she lives […]
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“Seeds of Racism” by Dave Luker
At dawn, in the distance, a kitchen radio slips commodity prices through a screen door into a farmyard, echoing off the metallic green of a behemoth 18-row combine set to […]
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“Mothering” by Jazmine Aluma
It’s the way I pause when I come across Goethe andwhisper the name—Gir-tah.To make sure I still remember how it’s supposed to sound on the tongue. To remind myself it does not feel how it looks. […]
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“Shovelling” by Frank William Finney
Hole here. Hole there.No treasure. Not even athud. Days. Nights.So much dirt. Some people askwhat I’m hoping to find. I’m tempted to show themthe tunnels I’ve found. Frank William Finney […]
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“Another Life” by Helen Nancy Meneilly
Helen Nancy Meneilly is an Irish poet whose work explores issues of identity, language, and womanhood. She is currently studying for her MA in Creative Writing through the Open University. […]
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“A Case for Violins” by Frank William Finney
Pulled from the mouth of the mother tongue. These words are all I carry now. They bend. They crack. They disappear. They hide inside the inner ear. They shake the […]
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“Fever Dream” by Rebecca M Ross
Rona piles rice from path to porch like snowdrifts sprinkled with crayon colored carrots, peas, corn– until the guardrail disappears under an ever-growing mountain of cooked rice. I steal furtive […]
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Four Haikus by Constance Mello
When I awake I Like to think about us two Alone forever Sweetest saccharine Inside your mouth I lose my Self hour after hour Diet Coke kind of Love. I […]
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“Text Me When You Get Home” by Helen Nancy Meneilly
night falls like a brick. urgent tongue of wind stuck to the back of my neck, hair wrapped around my throat. fist of keys in my coat pocket. wraiths of […]
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“Inaccessible” by Connie Woodring
I was afraid of my abusive and controlling ex-husband, but I didn’t know this until 10 years after I divorced him. I wrote hidden poems, feelings hidden. Hidden in notebooks […]
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“Lava” by Cameron Morse
From my hurt back the snow-lit predawn sky is pewter, or lava, according to my best guess color chart on Pinterest. “Pewter” works, but I like lava because it feels […]
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“How to Use the Supermarket When You Are Losing Your Mind” by Rebecca M Ross
When in a supermarket in a town not your own do not start screaming “Where are the olives? Where are the fucking olives?” as you race down the aisles Do […]
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“Retribution” by Ash Evan Lippert
Ash Evan Lippert is a clay artist and emerging queer poet residing in the South Carolina upstate. Their poetry and fiction center on the exploration of liminal states of consciousness, […]
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“I’ve Barely Been to College” by Kailey Tucker
Autumn snapped my spine like the sudden flash of a spark, waking up the dark. She brought rain and left me blooming, treading my fresh soles on top of crumbled yellow bladed leaves that change […]
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“Getting Somewhere” by Cameron Morse
The more times I go back for more and find it there like a bowl of dogfood left out on the back deck by an unknown and therefore unthanked hand, […]
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“A Winter Prayer for Color” by Ash Evan Lippert
Now is the time to find color where you can—in poinsettias, pine trees, fire and wine,or strings of Christmas lights hung like prayersto glow warm against the winter’s gathering dark.Now […]
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“Hoops” by Stephen Kingsnorth
In vest, short shorts, quick reflex points, our up and over, chain-link fence, we traded jokes, paraded skills, especially under watch of girls, as learnt to make a better pass, […]
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“The Calling” by Christina Eagen
without askingearthquakes rumbled to announce thearrival of mountains rivers roared to forewarn rocksof their ravage winds howled to demand fishermenback to shore wildfires raged to birth new lifein the forest […]
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“Undisturbed” by Russell Willis
Ethicist and online education entrepreneur, Russell Willis, has been featured in THE POET Magazine Profile Series and his poetry has been published in over twenty-five online and print journals and […]
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“Meditation in an Office Tower” by Dale Cottingham
Thrusting one creased pant leg in front of the other, canter-leaving ankles, knees, thighs, my leather shoes clacking slate as I amble toward and away, in one motion. Steel, sheets […]
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“The Art of Remembering Your History” by Christian Ward
I do the same ritual every morning while the clouds wrap their blankets around the sunlight: Practice Italian and Spanish. Trace my fingers along paths of cheekbones inheritedfrom my mother and all the […]
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“Loch Ness Monster in the Rain at Night” by David Henson
A fang of lightning crashesa branch into the wind-clawed loch. Thunder drives eels to the bottom. Water flashes downa mountain rising through the skin of the lake.The monster loves the […]
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“So Many Ways to Live” by Victoria Woolf Bailey
When that moment arrives(by car, by bus, by daybreak) We live in it like a house(condo, apartment, tent down by the river) Imagining we may see it all again(later, someday, […]
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“Mussel” by Christian Ward
Every shell is dipped in night. Place an ear against the ceramic to eavesdrop on fox squabbles, crows watching rubbish bags left split open like unfinished operations, brambles unfurling their […]
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“Drowned Man Lives Again” by John Grey
There was a lot of crazy thrashing at first and I was cursing myself for not keeping at it with those swimming lessons, and I had unkind words for the […]
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“Interrogative Sestina” by Mark J. Mitchell
Who is the bride of August? Wheredoes she send her lost birds and whatare they born to see? You? They sing. Who,precisely, are they naming? Just whenwill they return to […]
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“Passing Through” by Dale Cottingham
“There is no answer” you said “to whyin an inquiry because an inquiry is to find out why,”your voice rising over us like a storm,a sample of the truth from […]
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“Out of the Picture” by Lou H. Second
A painter lives in my town. A talented painterno doubt. A famous painter too. His creationshave been known to save souls and to bestowone upon those who never had any. […]
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“Cherry” by Stephen Kingsnorth
Why do I keep the best till lastwhen eating cake;quite unlike wine.My mindful taste budsfind their pace, start marksfrom first eye-captured plate,declared by sharp seep under tongue,gland leak swamping salivary, […]
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“An American Experience” by Dale Cottingham
While I waited at roadside I thought,why not try some loveliness. So I did.I saw visions in far reaches, feltthe soft touch of silence, melodiescame from solitude, it was like […]
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“In My Space” by Anthony Ward
I look into my eyes in order to witness nebula reciprocating light from the midst of darkness residing behind them radiating with life out of the pulsating silence of consciousness […]
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“Before” by Margaret Krusinga
Margaret Krusinga lives on sixty acres she and her husband manage loosely for wildlife. Diagnosed with MS in 1976, she graduated college under a cloud, in 1977. Poetry has become […]
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“All my Ex-Employees are Crazy” by Joel Robert Ferguson
The polar bears are circling us, the John CageChristmas mix, the hors d’oeuvres and those bodies that servethem. adjacent, a sealkeeps practising the same underwater back-flipoff the glass we’re standing […]
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“Abruptly-” by Shalini Singh
Hotaru ika are a glow-in-the-dark species, hiding in the translitic a mesmerizing light courtesy of a network of thousands of photophores, drifting long hairs of a wild woman situated over […]
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“Summit Negotiations” by Stephen Kingsnorth
At the cake bazaar,annual in the village hall –Mrs Baker’s acid voice –I stall to scan those sweetmeat plates. The granulated cog biscuits,as if surfaced breeze-swept snow,fawn-mellow, flat,centre-nippled, cherry-topped;the scarlet […]
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“Messages from Colorado” by Cameron Morse
Cameron Morse is Senior Reviews editor at Harbor Review and the author of six collections of poetry. His first collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press’s 2018 Best Book Award. […]
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“Rows” by Stephen Kingsnorth
A strange condition for a rowamongst the headstone rows that flankthe hill side cemetery,that hangs and flows,marble chips and chips off marble, chip paper,scree of lager cans and driven flowers;sunlight […]
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“A Literal Littoral” by Charles J. March III
Will we ever make it through the foreshore? Our erosive time is lost in this hour. Did we make the most of the coast? For sure. The beaches marooned our […]
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“Lookalike” by Cameron Morse
It’s funny how franticallya few leaves appear tobe waving at me when I liftmy eyes to the maplethat tried to kill me yesterdaydropping a hefty javelinjust a couple feet frommy […]
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“Tethered” by Sarette Danae
His is a lariat love, beginning with a wobbleAs it starts to unwind. Then stretching fastInto a wide-spreading circle, swinging wild,Arcing high, landing without warning,Just a thump and a cinch. […]
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“The Wish” by Paul Rabinowitz
What if I couldpaint like youpiercing light throughdarkening skies if I could weave storiesby blending chaptersabout love and discontent what if I stood nakedsang love songsthat pry hearts openlike the […]
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“Brutal Roux” by Elyse Jancosko
Becca add morebutter Becca. That’s no way tomake a roux. Don’t just measure on a whim.Your flour and fat. Or fluid and fault.Meat drippings, maybe. That ratio. That ratio!That’s what […]
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“Bird Calls over Puget Sound” by Sarette Danae
There is no chirping from gulls, no chatter back and forth,No songs at sunrise or ushering in night. No lonely callsFor a lover to echo back. Among gulls There is […]
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“Still in the City” by DS Maolalai
on hills by park pathwaysand beds of fresh petal,we collapse on our elbowsand tightly scrubbed grass.twist off ourbackpacks, wet with the weightof the sun and the weightof our warm cansof […]
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“Tenderness” by Mary Paulson
Through the eye of a dream,the round pit of a binocular opening,I recognize myselfstanding in front of a stranger,his gun barrel pressedagainst the bone between my breasts. We’re in a […]
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“To an Armoire” by Goddfrey Sue Hammit
The armoire tips from out the truckbed withThe same uncertain, blind leap of a fishFlopping from a boat sole, hoping only to landSomewhere wet, to break a surface and fill […]
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“Fanfare” by DS Maolalai
I piss. it feels okand then after I walkthrough the house going backto the kitchen.and you are not herein any of the house,or at least you are notin my parts […]
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“Two Gates For Ghostly Dreams” by Dawn Bratton
That motherlode of Sun right thereliterally blasting me in the face with its gloryit’s so far away (1 au, to be exact), but all this brilliance over vast […]
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“Searching for the Cottingley Fairies” by Kim Malinowski
I. Snapshot Click. WHIRR. Shadowed still frame capturing fae.Ethereal grace magnified by child’s wonder.Muted only by adults’ misunderstanding “genuine.”Why would fae be less real if crafted by paper?Paper and glue […]
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“Ruins” by Mary Paulson
Mary Paulson currently lives and works in Naples, FL. Her poems have appeared in Slow Trains, Mainstreet Rag, Painted Bride Quarterly, Nerve Cowboy, Arkana, Thimble Lit Magazine, and Tipton Poetry […]
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“Picnic” by Matt Dennison
Jane floats her tablecloth across the floor,sets out fruit, bread, wine, says: Here, look closely. See the red so forcefullywoven into the curtain? Mother’s blood. Scattered like burst petals across the sofa? Mother’s […]
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“String Man” by Hadley James Hoyles
A heaviness paws at the groundsupporting the birch-wood tablewithout sound, left in the lurchwith this godforsaken mourning shroud. He lives so little, his face can matchthe umbra where the light […]
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“The Sands of Time” by Rebecca Johnson
Amber, scarlet, gilded daffodil. All sits quiet, calm,and the sun sets as I turn to you. It takes a second but then I see a granuleof sand that chips away, […]
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“No Dreamin’ at the Double Tree” by Suzanne S. Rancourt
everything smells like soap except that one hallway smeared withvolatile coconut particles, reminds me of that porn theatre in somedank Indianapolis district wild with heavy air and greasy tanninghuts, but […]
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“Avril” by Hadley-James Hoyles
The dull beep raises my guardas the seconds canter in the frostlit up by an anaemic starin the echoes of the morning. A glib voice asserts itselfinto my tame fantasy:-Not […]
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“Hope is a Blue Jay” by Rebecca Johnson
I.As snow settles upon the landand brings with it crisp, frozen air,I’ll hear the cardinal’s jarring callas it echoes in my anxious mind. The cold and weary world revealsthat ancient […]
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“Pennies for Pilgrims” by Julie Allyn Johnson
Julie Allyn Johnson, a sawyer’s daughter from the American Midwest, began writing poetry after her retirement from IT work in 2017. She loves hiking, gravel-travel photography, riding bikes, altered books […]
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“The Dunes” by John Grey
A walk over the dunes, round a naked headland crisp white sand the walk liberating an escape from routine the hues golden, rising and flowing, and taking account of my […]
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“sky shocked night” by Robin Wyatt Dunn
sky shocked nightterrific lashesturning bright the nails in the coffin of the bluetrembling each one of us appointedlike idle children choosing teamsour regaliaonly ordinary hats and shoesshining the bruised curl […]
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“Waiting” by Christine Webster-Hansen
Eyes linger, unchanged photos thickened with dust,body-locked, estranged face gazing at the mirror,clutching at the mind, recalling memories dimly-flung,cycling again through sitcom and rerun.Bras holding the biblical fall,suspended breasts clasped […]
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“North Jersey” by John O’Brien
Train tops tick tackingnext to half melted snow banksholding up the trafficlike everything else.Ruminating on pavementin our collective toyotawhich will always havethose wheezing tires.My face melts at the stop light.Another […]
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“The Surgeon” by Cameron Morse
If I check my Facebookfor likes I must want to be liked but why no one who sends me wishes knows my birthday * Would […]
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“Waking Up in California” by Jennifer Novotney
My mother is already uplong retired from work, she putters aroundher house all day, buying things and giving them awaycalling friends, taking short walkskeeping herself busy in the hot heat […]
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“Jupiter’s Raindrops” by John O’Brien
Jupiter’s raindrops area phenomenon thatfollows close behindmoonlight and aftersexand the sonnetof moments wherecollecting my pantsmixes deliberately withstaring and thispale shimmer ofmelancholy. This isa lesson inanger, incorporating goodsexualized, paltry moodsand little […]
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“Turning Back, Going Forward” by E Martin Pederson
It seems like paradise, but it’s a mirage. No more concrete walkways through the wired treelings, by the serious cyclers, no kids with frisbee dogsNo more lawnmowers and leaf-blowers and […]
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“Physics and the Corridor Removed” by James B. Nicola
When I greet “semi-strangers,” sometimes strangers, with Hellos and How-Are-Yous you say they do not warrant, it’s because of Physics, and the empty seat that stared back at the class […]
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“The System of Considerations” by Keko Prijatelj
InsectsPerfected in that specific environmentIn thousands of nights & darksCrashing into that bulbLight impacts of ferocious attacksCongratulated admiredEach character with its own specialtyA monolith of single purposeIn thousands of nights […]
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“Perfusion” by Cameron Morse
Perfuse mebrain scanner Push your fluidsthrough my blood vessels my tissues Let whatever in me that is at issue be scanned interior scar star-birth tumor […]
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“The Body Electric in Several Takes” by Edison Jennings
An ivy educated American male, bespoke suited but modest and sincere, once seated and lighted to good effect and confident of his look and manner will, when gently prodded, confess […]
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“The Road to Cavalry” by Arthur L Wood
How many days to Calvary? I asked the rich man’s child. Depends on how you’re travelling; Are you dying or exiled Or seeking sweet contentedness? And then the rich man […]
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“The Mosquito and the Bell Jar” by Carol Motta
Our balsa-sweet Mosquito flies low and slow into the burning sun, undetectable by radarI hear only air scratching past the belly of the holdNo bomb today, just a tired man […]
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“We have Always Lived in the Castle” by Tara Campbell
We have always lived within these walls,this gleaming, shining castle on a hill,a beacon held aloft for one and allto marvel at, imagining the thrill of breathing liberty and chipping […]
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“Diadem for the End of the World” by Randi Sanders
Seven billion was the end predicted by that movie where the population was fed on a questionable combination of soy, lentils, and plankton that wasn’t really plankton because we needed […]
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“Antidote” by Kate Copeland
A fire sunset facing her, thunder didn’t show, how much she even wished for this sky to hurt, to rive in two, boiling the river This house helps her to […]
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