“Desquamation” by Frank Njugi
“At the height of my loneliness, I examine ways to escape my skin.” #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
Category: Poetry
“The Remarkable Life of a Celebrity Mountain Lioness” by Tina Plottel
“my swift nights powered by / Starbucks are behind me.”
#MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“Detour” by W. Barrett Munn
“There is Juan Valdez sweat and mule shit / in the bottom of my cup.” #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“Murder in the Dark” by F. J. Bergmann
She came out of the woods with nothing but a blanket sprayed with white and silver paint #F. J. Bergmann #TheMetaworker
#MetaworkerMonday
“Hypnagogue” by F.J. Bergmann
The moons of twenty-eight yesterdaysare strung across silent twilight,a pearl necklace on the plump blue throat of a cyanotic stillborn prepared for burial. Under the phasing …
“American Arcana: That Lone Harpy of Appalachia” by Kate Shannon
around these parts, you’d hear about trail angels, their wings spread between those parched white blazes. offering plenty and good.take your rest beneath their wings, …
“Ennui” by Alexander Lazarus Wolff
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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
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 …
“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 …
“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, …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
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 …
“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 …
“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, …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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, …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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? …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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, …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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. …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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, …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …
“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, …
“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 …
“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 …
“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 …