Gary Fincke: The Double Negatives of the Living
I could talk
Two hours past midnight with
My father in the steelworker
Idiom of his city.
Paul Christensen: A Velvet Gloom Before It Rains
The rain isolates you the way not even silence can.
Dawn Potter: Mother to Son
Always with the video games when you’re sad,
as if the gunshots are manna, or music,
which isn’t to say I think you’re planning
to shoot up a grocery store—no, no
Paul Christensen: The Pandemic Blues
Everyone around here is sluggish. The young woman who checks my purchases off the conveyor belt dabs her eyes and stifles a yawn. She keeps shaking herself awake as the … Continue reading
Paul Christensen: My Mazda and I
The monks of Europe often planted their vines in cemeteries to ward off thieves, and believed you could taste the blood of ghosts when you drank. My mother would sip her wine and look away dreamily and then back at me as if I had come home from a long journey, with the Mazda parked in her driveway.
Paul Christensen: What the Rain Says
She would die soon but neither of us knew that. Right now, the precious hours were dissolving in the pale afternoon light, just as the rain began again.
Michael Simms: Coming to Terms
There is no lasting happiness
in this world, only
particles of happiness,
fleeting, unpredictable,
transitory as a fragrance
or a falling leaf
Jason Irwin: Sickness Will Surely Take the Mind
Maybe it all started with the murder of John Lennon, or the books my mother bought me on JFK and MLK. Whatever the reason, by the time I was thirteen I was a hardened news junkie always looking for a fix.
Valerie Bacharach: Elegy for Nathan
An addict is an actor, able to look you in the eye, smile, and lie so convincingly that you begin to question yourself.
Sydney Lea: Gradus ad Parnassum
On the other hand, the open handed
blows left scarce a mark, applied to your head or neck
Paul Christensen: The Muse of Memory
Nothing stirs but the wind that rattles rain gutters and pulls on the hinges of blistered shutters. A pair of boots has been left out on a patio of gray flagstones, the mud still clinging to their heels like forgotten promises.
David Huddle: Parable of the Same Scene Every Day for Years
Consider my mother gazing out her window
over the kitchen sink as she washes breakfast, lunch,
and dinner dishes for fifty-some years.
Sarah Gordon: Threshold
You see them there
their arms weary with
holding the guns
withholding their fire
You see them in the light
Christine Skarbek: A Personal Pantheon of Phenomenal Fellows
On this Thanksgiving, I survey all the deliciously delightful people who have touched my life and kudize them all. However, there are four in my personal pantheon that are absolute standouts. Oddly, they are all men.
