J.R. Solonche Request When the man in the next room died, his daughter gave his flowers to the nurses, so Emily, listen to me, when I am the man in the next room, give my flowers to the ugliest nurse only. J.R. Solonche is the author of ten books of poetry and a frequent contributor […]
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H. Edgar Hix “Always Thursday”
H. Edgar Hix Always Thursday He keeps himself alive and well by riding his stationary bike ten stationary miles every stationary day. H. Edgar Hix is ready for more, particularly in small doses, but also finds what already is is difficult enough to keep up with.
Read MoreLysbeth Em Benkert “Amorphous solid”
Lysbeth Em Benkert Amorphous solid I will hold my palm against the window between us, and I’m sure to push through if I just wait long enough. Lysbeth Em Benkert is a long-term transplant to the upper mid-west where she teaches writing, rhetoric, and literature.
Read MorePamela Joyce Shapiro “Every Morning”
Pamela Joyce Shapiro Every Morning When you are reading in front of the Eastern window, light resting on your graying crown, as though you were a deity of fictional thought, fraught with some mind’s best idea, a story filling you like pomegranates and lemons, I imagine you younger, writing lines in the marbled notebook that […]
Read MoreJudith Waller Carroll “My Heart is a Tangle of Colors”
Judith Waller Carroll My Heart is a Tangle of Colors Pale pink blending into orange, yellow weaving across red, a pattern as intricate and lovely as the valentine my son made for me in preschool, a zig zag of white paste bleeding through the center like an old scar that’s healed. Judith Waller Carroll’s poems […]
Read MoreJudith Waller Carroll “Stairs Leading Nowhere”
Judith Waller Carroll Stairs Leading Nowhere Stone, tangled with vines, listing from one side to another as they rise up the slope much the way a body moves as it climbs or the way your golden retriever, the feathers of his tail swaying, leads you to this hill that once led to someone’s home and […]
Read MoreJohn L. Stanizzi “POND” 5.6.19
John L. Stanizzi POND 5.6.19 11.32 a.m. 55 degrees Profligacies in orange and black, black and red, white and white, white and yellow, officers of influence, their color remains after they have flown, and the toads are a nimbus of sound in the bright afternoon, their chirring rising and rising to a stop, a dialogue, […]
Read MoreJohn L. Stanizzi “POND” 5.5.19
John L. Stanizzi POND 5.5.19 10.57 a.m. 53 degrees rain Purest concerto of toads and peepers around the pond, the woods on the outskirts, everywhere, until I approach and they preserve their silence in the nooks in which they hide in the open, invisible right in front of us, like dollops of gray clay given, […]
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