Category Archives: Poetry

LISA ALLETSON: Discordant

Artistic, Poetry, Submissions, Top Stories, , , ,

A man wrote a song and died.

Trembling, the song tried to sing herself. Each day she practised, flexing melodic limbs, strengthening pale notes, until she came to understand discordant beauty.

That day, her song spilled into rivers and comet trails, spread throughout galaxies.

The universe leaned in to listen.

Lisa Alletson is an emerging writer whose work has been published in The Globe and Mail, Ginosko Literary Journal, and The Write Launch. She was born in South Africa and lives in Toronto, Canada. Follow her on Twitter at @LisaAlletson.

JANET CLARE: Routine 2019

Poetry, Submissions, Touching, , , , ,

Despair of evening gives way to terrors of the night, to sleep, disrupted, dreaming of elegance, of past and future nightmares. To wake to morning and rise, to work, to read, to listen for wisdom, to love again and hope for another evening, another night, another dream of another day.

Originally from New York, Janet Clare lives in Los Angeles with her husband. She’s had short fiction and essays published in literary journals online and anthologized. She studied at UC Berkeley and UCLA. Her first novel, Time Is the Longest Distance, was published December 2018 by a small press out of Australia, where the story is set. She is at work on her second novel, A Different Happiness.

MATTHEW COWARD: Last Words

Artistic, Poetry, Submissions, , , ,

As Granny evanesced,
she left a whisper,
words which echo
endlessly.

She said,
“From magic we come
and to magic we return.
Remember:
I am reeds bending in the wind,
the brush of soft willows,
birdsong before the dawn.
I am not gone from this world,
but with you
always.”

Matthew Coward is a habitual daydreamer, occasional writer and proud night-owl. He writes fantasy inspired flash fiction, short stories and poetry.

JUDY DeCROCE: Lily

Artistic, Poetry, Submissions, Top Stories, , , , ,

Lily
sits on a park bench.
Pigeons know her.
They cluster… fight… peck.

The children recognize her too:
the one who feeds the pigeons.
Lily giggles, opens her purse,
sets it on the ground.

“She’s crazy,” the children taunt.

Pigeons though, coo, bob…
fly into her purse
filled with sky.

Judy DeCroce is a poet / flash fiction writer and animal lover. She has been published in Pilcrow & Dagger, Amethyst Review, The Sunlight Press, Cherry House Press- Dreamscape:An Anthology, and many others. Judy is a professional storyteller and teacher and lives and works in upstate New York with her husband, writer/artist Antoni Ooto.

AZARIN SADEGH: The Malady of Abandon

Artistic, Poetry, Submissions, Touching, , , ,

The old man’s smell in her palm
Memory spread the pang of last lovemaking
Dark rain pecked the windows; dark sun shone; the coffee mug held her hands
New Yorkers’ podcast still on; it kept rewinding
Yet she couldn’t stay in this repetition of life
When they were both evaporating.

Azarin Sadegh, a 2011 PEN America Emerging Voices fellow, a LARB contributor, and a former student of the late Les Plesko, is working on a new novel.

COREY MESLER: Voices

Artistic, Poetry, Submissions, ,

Virginia Woolf heard voices. They told her ruthless things.

I wake from a dream where I was drowning, my clothes bright flames, billowing around me. I wake and I walk to the stream where the water over the stones sounds, for all the current world, like the wings of angels.

COrey Mesler has been published in numerous anthologies and journals including Poetry, Gargoyle, Five Points, Good Poems American Places, and New Stories from the South. He has published over 20 books of fiction and poetry. With his wife he runs Burke’s Book Store (1875) in Memphis.

AUTUMN BOLTE: Young Adult

Artistic, Poetry, Submissions, , , ,

Turn on lo-fi music. Drive my car so I can nap. Wake me up anyways to kiss. Roll down the windows, wind tangling my hair. Take me later for a bike ride; take me anywhere. Let me pick scabs off my knees without judgement. Let me be a kid again.

Autumn Bolte is an undergraduate student at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, pursuing a degree in Sociology with a minor in Creative Writing. She also interns with the Education Justice Project and works for the university’s Technology Services. In her free time, she enjoys writing short stories and flash fiction that attempt to examine the complexity of human nature. See more at autumnjbolte.weebly.com.

CHARLOTTE McELROY: Age and Insurance

Artistic, Poetry, Submissions, , , ,

Leaves dance with the fall breeze
The sun steals the early frost
The moon waits in the wings

I shiver in respect of nature
I shiver in respect of my age
Eighty years young

I am beyond the age of expectation
for women according to the insurance
companies age calculations

Charlotte McElroy is an 80-year-old retired teacher. She is finally following her dream: writing! Thank you for giving her this opportunity.

GRETCHEN IVERS: Get Back in Your Box. You’re Making Me Think.

Artistic, Poetry, Submissions, , ,

How Dare You humanize yourself?
How Dare You leave your assigned statistic?
How Dare You plead for the rights I forget I have?
How Dare You be more than a job-stealing terrorist?
How Dare You challenge every single assumption I’ve built?

Oh yes.
They were right.

You are very dangerous.

Gretchen is a university student grappling with understanding the breadth of hurt in the world.

CHARLOTTE McELROY: Harvest Time

Artistic, Poetry, Submissions, , , , ,

Winds whisper the sounds and sights of fall; fading flowers and falling leaves.
Dancing shadows slip away at dusk to appear again in the chilly dawn.

Golden wheat fields fall to the force of gobbling combines.
The Meadow Lark’s song signals change.

The harvest moon fills the night with mystery.

Charlotte McElroy is an 80-year-old retired teacher. She is finally following her dream: writing!