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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Tag: Metaworker original
“Pop” by Benjamin Schmitt
Getting all the feels with SZA tonight as that rack of wine from yesterday makes its way through my wrists and ankles Sometimes a voice can bury its dead in […]
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“Other Wars” by Greg Farnum
1 It was a very bright hat. It was mostly black, but it was a very bright black. Same for the gold that spelled out the words RETIRED ARMY. You […]
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“Ode to a Speck” by Thomas Piekarski
Out of respect I acknowledge you’re a speck on a papered wall in the midst of a tornado. You’re expected to show your worth, follow directives they demand. While others […]
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“Field Trip” by John Grey
You wake up on the fourth floor to the garbled coo of some window-shopping pigeons, dress quickly, pick at breakfast, clamber down the dark stairwell with ears closed. Today, no […]
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“Zoom In-Out-In and Cry” by Hibah Shakhez
Earth o’ mine green red brown and blue, They ask me which colour you are And laugh when I cannot answer. Could I lie you were one all through? But […]
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“Bones” by Japhy Mitchell
The winds switch faster thanThe clouds can circle Under avalanches of ink Saviours and Saints allBuried beneath Invisible tombstonesProphets gone, mixed with dionysian delusions Bound and bold Eating them for lifeStuffing […]
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“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 set. I turn over in […]
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“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 ilk, Bucking the frothing cream […]
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“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 in my middle of nowhere, how […]
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“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 items found hiding out in […]
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“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 the skin lesion on his […]
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“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. I’m getting better and better […]
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“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 blowing. ‘It’s that beat,’ I […]
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“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 born, Breen spent the last […]
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“A Bride” by Michael Howard
It was official: Angie Lash and Marco Di Luca, twenty-one years her senior, were wed.
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“Flatline” by Mark Hammerschick
“through the view/of a hollow lens/like an eye surprised/by lost sight”
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“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. My boss would now be […]
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“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 the portals if I knew […]
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“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 of the creek. The sun […]
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“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 speckled frog half digested, white […]
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“Dopo Mezzonatte” by Marina Kazakova
Dopo mezzanotte! Dopo, dopo! The door pops open, out of the dust the ocean unfolds under the ropewalker’s high gloss black shoes. He floats among the buoyant atoms- the iron […]
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“Plywood World” by Fabrice Poussin
Another stormy night in their neighborhood a warning came for twisters, hail and fire no one said anything about ghosts in the dark. Eerie hours when the clocks have failed […]
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“The Crack Up” by Steve Carr
Morning, a hot wind blowing from the east sent the tall yellow prairie grass bowing in ripples toward the old house. Colin leaned against the wood post to the barbed […]
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“The Road to Gold Ridge” by Jennifer Swallow
The photos on the website of the Gold Ridge Inn showed a log structure with a wrap-around porch and a hitching post for the horses of gold miners long gone. […]
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” ‘Ain Ghazal” by Robert Beveridge
In a chamber with three hundred ninety eyes there is no place not to be seen. No blind spots. The corners, the ceiling, on the back of two cattle statues […]
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“Ghost Machine” by Terry Tierney
“My mother says the camera steals souls,” #MetaworkerMonday
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“Death and Mercy” by Kim Malinowski
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 knighted, unable to cry out […]
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“Horseshoes.” by DS Maolalai
somewhere up here you might bite the whole horizon. love pours in like an emptied sack of apples. tastes fresh like apples, and smells like apples too. I am on […]
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“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 would grow more frailthan the […]
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“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 is a talk show of […]
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“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. She has a B.A.in English […]
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“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 where the edges become light, […]
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“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 need to get too comfortable. […]
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“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 insects grows sparse.The reflections of […]
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“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 feathers on their necks as […]
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“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 fingerprints like silt at the […]
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“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”? Told to lie on a […]
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“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. Don’t you know how muchI […]
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“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 first in seven years. I […]
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“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 overprepared hiker complete with stuffed […]
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“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 the office and in celebration […]
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“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] [a confused] [audience] [sat in […]
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“Spinning the Sensualist” by Michael Grotsky
One lost Saturday night, around the last rays of the summer that never was, Yoshimi and William-James, one of the finer couples in their little town of exiles, invited Morrison […]
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