Mel Packer: The Bend on the River Road from Homestead
A falling down, bullet-pocked sheet metal wall
Once erected to mark the edges of the
South Side Jones and Laughlin steel mill
Laura McCullough: Hero With Only One Face
He tells me in his diminishing days, death not yet active,
but clearly begun, about his siblings, family shufflings,
foster homes, the orphanage. Who said they would
but then could not, who promised this & forgot that
Elizabeth Romero: Surfaces
We are trapped waiting
Moving behind the windows
The night weeps and heaves
Michael Simms: The Ruins
the air full
of transparent wings,
the fox crossing
the innocent road
full of weeds
Raphael Falco: How Bob Dylan used the ancient practice of ‘imitatio’ to craft some of the most original songs of his time
Bob Dylan is both a modern voice entirely unique and, at the same time, the product of ancient, time-honored ways of practicing and thinking about creativity.
Emily Dickinson: The Color of the Grave is Green
The Color of the Grave is Green
The Outer Grave—I mean—
You would not know it from the Field—
Except it own a Stone—
David Kirby: Broken Promises
I have met them in dark alleys, limping and one-armed;
I have seen them playing cards under a single light-bulb
and tried to join in, but they refused me rudely
Kate Daniels: The Poem
Niobe had just lost her son.
To help herself, she read a poem
to those assembled in the funeral home
Gary Fincke: Headcheese, Liverwurst, a List of Loaves
Our refrigerator
Opened to liverwurst,
Headcheese, a list of loaves:
Luncheon and Luxury
Sandy Solomon: Metaphoric
Like leaves to sun, people in the room turned
toward her when she appeared at the door—
plain as metaphor—beaming.
Alexis Rhone Fancher: In Pursuit
A missing person has the right to be missing, she told me right before she disappeared. What does that even mean? I asked the detective. And how long am I supposed to mourn before … Continue reading
Michael Simms: GUSHER by Christopher Soden
Learning to be oneself and to love oneself is the central narrative in Gusher, a remarkable book about a gay man growing up in Dallas, Texas in the 1980s.
Vox Populi 