One Sentence Poems

Ian Willey Awakening Not having watered the tomatoes for weeks it was a surprise to find on the vine, basking in an autumn sunrise, a pair of tomatoes, pale and sunken like the breasts of an old widow, who awakes one chilly October morning and realizes now is the time. My name is Ian Willey […]

Ian Willey The End If the sun were suddenly to explode we’d have eight minutes and twenty seconds before the shockwave reached earth to annihilate everything, meaning there wouldn’t be enough time to listen to “The End” by The Doors, though you could play R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as I Know It […]

Ian Willey We Pretend When she returns to the table having rushed off for an emergency breast pumping, we pretend not to notice the spot on her blouse and she pretends not to notice our pretending not to notice and in this way we get back to our prescribed agenda while the spot, barely there […]

Ian Willey Knowing That You stand by the river knowing that the birds flying overhead are people you once knew, that they will never come this way again, that the formation holding them together is a trick of the eye, that there’s nothing you can do about the gunshots rising from the reeds along the […]

Ian Willey Middle Age When we got married I vowed I would not become furniture in your home yet here I am now sitting around a bit threadbare and fading. Ian Willey, originally from Akron, Ohio, resides in the Inland Sea area of Japan where he teaches, does research, and writes.  

Ian Willey The Shot Clock There he was with his ball, the clock on its back, glass all over the floor, and I started to lose it, saying how many times this and how many times that, while he stood looking down, eyes bulging and wild, until I paused for breath, and he broke in, […]

Ian Willey Red Bandana If I set off on my run early enough I sometimes see that woman with the red bandana coming back from her walk, arms swinging, full of smiles, her legs long and painfully thin, like the screech of a pheasant staking out its territory, somewhere in the brush on the edge […]

Ian Willey Replicants I’m not sure when it happened but someone has replaced our son with a simulacrum, possessing the same DNA and general knowledge but without the will to utter more than a syllable or two when pressed, minus any interest in any of his previous obsessions like the flight routes of major airlines […]