Jordan Smith: Ducktail
if you want
A good story, he told me, I mean one
You can take to heart, don’t ask anyone
With one foot out the car door
Sydney Lea: Black Marks
On this Sunday morning at the end of November, I’ve been walking the Snake Road, its tar still dry; our winter is predicted to be warm this year.
Mike Vargo: Living in the Republic of Unreality
The practice of living in unreality consists of three sub-practices: Denying real reality. Bingeing on pseudo-reality. And adopting a myth.
Video: Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer
Grandma got run over by a reindeer
Walking home from our house Christmas Eve.
You can say there’s no such thing as Santa,
But as for me and Grandpa, we believe.
Lex Runciman: Two Poems for Two Poets
Madeline, mother of poems, bright flowers
This day wild on your desk, bless you your sky
That does not let go. Your St. Ursula of bilocation
And irony, bless us here and bless us again there.
Heidi Gerard: Addiction Recovery Is Hard. Funding It Shouldn’t Be
I work with moms and kids on their recovery journey. Funding for centers like mine is woefully small compared to the need.
James Wright: A Note Left in Jimmy Leonard’s Shack
Near the dry river’s water-mark we found
Your brother Minnegan,
Flopped like a fish against the muddy ground.
Bhikshuni Sukka: The Way Back Home
Look at me. Even on the darkest night, I could show you where to find enough light to make your way back home.
Kristofer Collins: Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues
a laugh she must have gotten
from her dad, some proud and slightly
embarrassing inheritance, but hell this
thing boomed around the bar
Jose Padua: Those Years That Went Down
daytime drunks
still gather,
no longer hidden by
the ornament
of night
Ellen McGrath Smith: Hand me your last resurrection 
like a small child hidden in a hollow tree
while the soldiers kill his family
Kristofer Collins: Gene’s Last Chance
Pity Gene for washing up here
dry as no August ever was
in Pittsburgh, scorched and sanded
of tongue and bereft of options.
Michael Simms: Heart of Glass
In Herzog’s great visual opera
The hero stands on a cliff
Above a valley where a river
Of molten glass carries
Light to the sea
Mel Packer: Angie’s Place
Where back in the corner, there’s always some guy in a Pirates ballcap with skin like an old leather shoe who’s nursing the cheapest beer on tap….
