The Almost Real Thing by Leland Neville
“Our reconditioned 3D printer just made that gun,” said my boss. “The genuine ones were used by real cowboys during famous gunfights.” #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
The Metaworker Literary Magazine
Where great stories are forged.
“Our reconditioned 3D printer just made that gun,” said my boss. “The genuine ones were used by real cowboys during famous gunfights.” #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
Nate turns me toward him, my round belly the bumper between us, his brown eyes plead with me. “Everyone has evacuated. We have to go now. Please.”
#TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“The bang came afterwards, as if the earth had just regained consciousness and gravity returned with violent force.”
#MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
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On my sister’s 21st birthday, I visited her at the Cook County Jail. Looking back, I wish I hadn’t been so annoyed to see her …
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I am lying flat on the ground in a quiet living room in a quiet home in the kind of quiet suburb everyone’s at least …
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If only Joyce hadn’t taken that damn selfie. Her and Tate, laughing at a truck stop in Mexico, drinking beer with lime, his cotton t-shirt …
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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 …
The burial begins slow, carrying up the earth over the barrow for the devils, each in turn highing their breath and turning over the gravel, …
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 …
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 …
Jerry backed the ’68 Ford Fairlane into a driveway, then jammed it into Drive, and stomped on the accelerator. The tires squealed and he crossed …
At the Senior Center, we challenge stereotypes about old ladies. We practice yogaoutdoors for “social distance.” If it starts to drizzle, we ignore it. If …
I played with the curls of your clipped auburn hair that I kept sealed in your grandma’s silver locket, because you always said I didn’t …
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 …
Down in the willow garden, where me and my true love did meet,There we sat a-courting, my love fell off to sleep – “Rose Connelly,” …
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 …
Are you dead, Maria? One Hour It seems so. Seven Days Their black clothes. Their black veils. Their white handkerchiefs, dry in their pockets. None …
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, …
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 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 …
Pauli stood at the railing on the back deck and flicked glances at the giant red sun fall slowly to the ground. The surrounding sky …
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 …
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 …
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 dull beep raises my guardas the seconds canter in the frostlit up by an anaemic starin the echoes of the morning. A glib voice …
Episode Description: Editors Matthew, Elena, Marina, and Darin talk to Kate Shannon about her wonderful poetry! We touch on the history of the form, some …
If I check my Facebookfor likes I must want to be liked but why no one who sends me wishes knows my birthday …
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 …
Laura Becker is a visual art student at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Her work explores emotional and psychological contemplations through collaging and fusions of …
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 …
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 …
The bus climbed slowly up the gravel road,the inside all dust and sweat, smellingof leather seats, of engine oil.The travellers rubbed together, chatting,recent arrivals to …
When Emil was in Youth Brigade, his labor unit was relocated to a region called “Janesville Wisconsin.” The territory had already been processed by a …
once, mothers waited for their dead children in damp bodies untilno more noises crept from their wind-polyp’d throats, until a dozen moons passed, a skinned …
Even without a caress its petals wait, try more red than usual then sweets, sent along with the scent from the latest hillside till one …
Through a broad valley of baked brown dirt and sparse green trees,past mudbrick and stone villages of flat-topped houses, we climbthe Humvees up the mountain, …
Bob Sanders awoke one morning from a dream to discover that he no longer existed. He had died in the night. He had been fifty-eight …
Did they tell you Inferno was made from glass? Clear as truth turned upside down You can see through to the bottom of the world …
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“through the view/of a hollow lens/like an eye surprised/by lost sight”
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 …
She wasn’t a phoenix, but she knew ash. She painted herself with coals, with cinders. War paint disguising the woman of the woods. She felt …
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. …
“In the dead and dark of night,/
upon a haunted gorge they rise.” #metaworkermonday
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 …
Having little to his name when he died, the reading of Henry Fromm’s will went quickly. Nothing surprising or contentious. On paper he never did …
I sat and held the world’s coldest hand.One whose skin had been taken by ice. The palm of a dried …
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 …
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 …
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. …
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 …
Come with me, it won’t be far; we have all night, and the seasons with it, in your heart: I’m dying. I’ll tell you about …
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 …
I watched you slide swiftly into the fog encapsulating Eagle Junction railway station. Scraps of rust leaking with oil-stained dew flung into the past, and …
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The letter I wrote Lilly first thing after I found out talks to her in the present tense, like she still exists, because she does …
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I. I jump at the slightest touch on my cracked back. Fierce mountain wind rushes around me. My ears, too long and pointy. A cold …
Addison Namnoum and The Metaworker Editorial Staff would like to dedicate this poem to the victims of the Orlando shooting, and to their friends, families, …