Poetry

clinical (md wheatley)

i’m on vacation but i’m clinically depressed. even when i’m on a nice vacation, in a nice house, with a nice pool, spending time with nice people. i’m depressed. i don’t even know what clinically depressed means but it sounds smart and/or right. right as in accurate. like, i accurately have clinical depression. i brought…

Writing for a prize (Gretchen Filart)

For the hundredth time, I am writing about my stepdad. A 2000-word essay writing contest, a cash prize worth half our mortgage.  In me, yearnings crave a nod. Like telling those native English speakers who demanded “Get me somebody who can speak English!”,  back when I was still ‘Helena’ in ‘06, I am the goddess…

Plague of Frogs (Hannah Nathanson)

The first time I found a frog in my kitchenware, my sister found one in her bed. It was the start of the second plague, depending on who you asked. If you asked me, I’d say I didn’t know. That whole week, I still saw people on the bus crying. I still didn’t see if…

Author Bio (Francisco Delgado)

This sad brown boy grew up to be a poet. Thanks for reading. He is still taken with flights of fancy. His feet wander as much as his mind. You can find him on Twitter or at your mom’s house. Thanks for reading. This sad brown boy is now a dad. He thinks he understands…

When I grow up, I want to be an abomination (Tyler Raso)

I have been studying how to abominate. I take a class on the weekends where we touch the frozen coals of hell with our tongues and hold hands. I’m taking up painting too, because I like being changed by what I touch. We start every abomination class by breaking something: a window, our father’s watches,…

Coins (Allen Landver)

keep your eyes closed. Think about the spine of an old dictionary.  Whom it belonged to & if it changes. they said, keep it for your kids, My language either hasn’t changed or doesn’t  be-get. change. there. at the bottom of the well. through your sunlit mouth. *** Allen Landver is a bi-lingual writer and…

An Hour of Grapes (John Pinto)

I was thirsty and remembered I had forgotten  that you can eat grapes whenever you want.  For no reason at all, grapes. Another grape, another grape. An hour of grapes. A dinner of grapes, too full for dessert. Up  at three a.m. for grapes by fridgelight. I knew about water, of course, but  consider: a…

God ignoring the bleak midwinter (Doug Jacquier)

The bleak midwinter arrived in the middle of winter and it was bleak. Not moor bleak; more bleak than that. The wind was keen, not in that American neat way nor like mustard, but sharp and bleak because it was midwinter. I watched it being bleak midwinter but I don’t think God did. *** Doug…

The Sign (Maddie Kim)

At the beginning of the road was a sign marking the end of it. We sat down beside the post, our feet sinking through piles of leaves. Off in the distance I could make out a basketball court at the top of a hill. There was a turned-off boombox and a group of boys playing…

Sugarless (Olive Amdur)

It’s like this. The morning they tell me you died I buy myself frozen yogurt from the truck on 34th street. Remember the one we used to walk by high after leaving the park? With the pink and blue pastel flag raised from the exhaust pipe? We were always high those days so I forgive…

out-of-order (Scout Faller)

we did it ass backwards and we backed it up it’s not the unsung deep cut from the b-side of the forty-five it is literally fatboy  slim’s praise you satisfying like a lipstick revenge villainess or nasty things happening in  the dive bar bathroom with its one fruity seat we like the easily anticipated turn…

Boxer (Lindsay Hargrave)

A man boxes with the tile columns on the 13th street trolley platform. It’s not beating him but he definitely isn’t winning.  There’s another man behind the column, but he’s fine. The boxer feels he’s quick but not quick enough he feels and he fights, the tiles this time the air this time Coach “Harder”…

When I Knew (Aubri Kaufman)

June: her skin is warm in the spot sun can reach through the windowpane’s right upper quadrant like lips to a thigh it rests like cheek to navel it melts. It does not permeate or penetrate it uncurls, softer than the pillow down floats until it reaches her resting there careful to preserve, to perceive…

Rescue. (Fatihah Quadri Eniola)

I have scribed your name on a paper jet  and flied you into the day, away from the scuttling boat. The hyacinth macaws  shall take you with them. Your little poor eyes shall go  places they have never been.  *** Fatihah Quadri Eniola is a Nigerian poet, creative writer, and lover of cinematography. She is…

2 Poems (Susana Rodriguez)

why you think they call me pussy i forced my boyfriend to work two jobs to support the both of us  because i’m too pussy to be a woman and support myself but my pussy validates me enough and that’s why i’ve spent the past three years sitting on my ass hoping it gets fatter…

how google maps treats women (Anna Dempsey)

go down the dim alley  crawl on hands and knees under the bushes  shout that you are not wearing running shoes wade into the swamp and head south take a left at the white van in 300 feet enter the park that closed at dusk cut through three private gardens  take four rights cross over…

conspiracy to steal pink (nat raum)

— for Anish Kapoor, exclusive owner of Vantablack, the world’s blackest pigment i have to hand it to Steuart Semple: there is no better way to piss off an art bro so entitled he bought an entire color just for himself than to sell the world’s pinkest pink, so pink  it repels light to surge…

2 Poems (Chris Simpson)

MY FIRST ORGY I attended my first orgy, off the Caledonian Road. It was all I thought it would be (bar the parts where it was not). My suit wasn’t on for long and the smell changed at the rates of knots. Limbs opening and moving and being passed around as bottles of Fanta sat…

Coldness of November (Anurag Shinde)

it begins every yearit begins on my cold finger tipsI step into it with no feelingsI know I sound as if I could stop time or skip this particular month but its name sits on my tonguejust vaguely staring at melike chamomile tea without sugareverything seems slow as the days passthe mercury slowly fallsjust as…

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