Barbara Hamby: Ode on Anger, the Dalai Lama, and Elliot’s Red Boots
aren’t we more like pack mules
than gods most days, picking our way
across the desert or up a mountain path with avalanches
and the heaviest loads are our grudges and fears
Sydney Lea: But-cept
From a half-century ago, I remember wishing my oldest son would continue saying ‘upslide down’ at least until first grade.
Joshua Michael Stewart: The Book of Love
The love my partner and I share is a book we’ve read many times.
Jose Padua: Reflections on a Song by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson and Other Intervals Between Two Points in Time
Looking out
the kitchen
window in the
dim early evening
Martha Silano: I’m Not So Good at Corpse Pose
We’ve just woken from the dead, having been in deep rest,
when she rouses us with a clanging bell
Gertrude Stein: Two Poems
All this and not ordinary, not unordered in not resembling.
Barbara Hamby: Athena Ode
Road diva, divine mixologist, cancan dancer
of the mandible wars, show me the way of mind
over what’s-the-matter-with-you, girl, swirling from mouths
of righteous dudes.
Barbara Hamby: St. Clare’s Underwear
there’s your average man, hirsute and raging with testosterone,
Godzilla incarnato, King Kong with big feet, Frankenstein
hovering over some delectable damsel with skin like fresh pastry
Video: The Affected
Passengers and crew on a commercial flight question their ethics when an attempt to stop a deportation occurs on their flight minutes before take-off.
Arlene Weiner | Dear Editor:
We’ve subscribed to your magazine for a long time. We remember your recommendations for canned tomatoes and comparison of the nutritive value of brands of store bread, when those were … Continue reading
David Kirby: My Unhealthy Relationship with Life as We Know It
I’m fit to be tied, life. I’ve had it up to here. If you consisted of nothing but clichés, catchphrases, adages, old saws, mottos, slogans, and apothegms, we wouldn’t have … Continue reading
Barbara Hamby: Ode on Words for Parties (American Edition)
Why do we have so many words for parties, a slew
of them once you start looking: shindig, bash,
meet-and-greets, raves, blowouts, barbecues,
and more tepid functions, receptions, luncheons
Jose Padua: Blonde on Blonde
telling each other our secrets,
breathing in the sea salt air
and breathing it out again,
dedicating our lives to each other
Barbara Hamby: Ode to Anglo Saxon, Film Noir, and the Hundred Thousand Anxieties That Plague Me Like Demons in a Medieval Christian Allegory
Yo, Viking dudes, who knew your big-dog cock-of-the-walk
raping and pillaging would put us all here, right smack
dab in the middle of a decade filled with the stink
of war.
