Category: SUBMITTED WORKS
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“Moth to the Flame” by John Moody
Moth to the Flame I’m whirling my wings, of wrinkling papyrus, seeking moth light. They fray at the edges like rough sex. Wafting in a spiral of passion, I’m powerless. Your torch-thin candle kindles becomes my circled furnace, branding an orange-stain on my flight, scorched sepia. In the hover close to the flame, I flare. […]
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“Chimuara” by Dora Manuel Culabo and Landa wo
Chimuara You were gone – Broken ground All the beautiful lies of the Bible And the song for my ancestors, The woman in the cemetery is gone. You were gone – Broken ground You were gone – Lost soul You were gone – Scream of death The house of pain is gone A shout in […]
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“I Owe My Father the Earth as a Gift” by Jason Visconti
I Owe My Father the Earth as a Gift I must dress the seas and land in bows of ribbon, wrap up the happy family of the trees, pass the mountains at the giving table, spill into his pockets the reward of a stream, shield his shoulders with a coat of grass, and let the […]
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“The Roots You Swear By” by Michael Beard
The Roots You Swear By You bring me inside the greenhouse where you spend hours cultivating yourself. You measure that my heart takes one cactus to fill, and I insist it’s more like two if we don’t count the roots, and you say, always count the roots. An orchid brushes against my wrist and I […]
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“The Stoics” by Charles Kell
The Stoics False winter, suffering without words. On the riverbank frozen water, foot over ice. Brittle mirror. A boy fell in last year, branch reached out to catch a receding hand. Over in an hour. Mother collapsed on glass leaves, you held her shaking under a thick blanket. Never a word. No sound except pen […]
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Three Poems by Casey Knott
As Then If The toddler waving good-bye to her father’s casket as if goodnighting the moon or snipping the balloon worn at the wrist, and the pastor saying we shouldn’t grieve but be happy for the deceased now in the hands of the lord, as if death was a welcome thing at 32 or 4, […]
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“March” by Joanna Cleary
March “We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.” —Shakespeare, The Tempest (4.1.1887-89) Weeks ago, I read a poem about a lover Thawing with spring until she disappears With the snow, another about a father Light with illness as he leaves his bed To tend […]
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“might yellow mean daughter” by Angie Dribben
[might yellow mean daughter] might yellow mean daughter seed of the corn, bumblebee, pineapple, marigold flaxen flight of the monarch songbird: warbler: hooded, mourning, and Nashville burden of cowardice, of fear, of betrayal sour of lemons, liver-sick, infection on the roof of my mouth the sound of yellow chasing it away: Ram Ram Ram of […]
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“Sonia Yells Bitches” by Nuha Fariha
Sonia Yells Bitches and we all run into a yellow taxi our warm brown bodies rushing past frost lined treetops and white clumps of grass, barren fields, empty closed storefronts. we are laughing, we are still dancing, thump of reggaeton our warm brown hands searching for the handle, the blunt, the body for anything to […]
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“The Needle’s Point” by Ronald Pelias
The Needle’s Point 1 The accumulation of years of hands at work, of women’s hands, connecting a patch to a quilt a history to a life. 2 The splinter’s foe, the pimple’s demise, the disease’s downfall, the split skin’s savior. 3 Leaning down, another bent back, broken, paid for in pennies a day. 4 The […]
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