New Year’s in Staunton A streetlight flickering, first cigars. A walk to an overpriced bistro, dried vomit on a parked car. Oh, lover. If there were ever a watermark on these pages, let it be your breath on my neck, the bounce of your thong, descending the basement steps. Birthday Suppose you answer the door … More Two poems by Jacob Robert Bennett
Winston was trying to cross the road at a busy six lane highway in the big city. He looked left and right, but there didn’t seem to be a pause long enough for him to get across. He waited calmly, but after a while he became impatient. He began to calculate how he could dodge … More Pieces of Winston by Debra Stewart
Dragon’s blood tree boughs stretch upwards from a grove in the limestone plain, well within view of red granite peaks whitened by lichen and towering above snails, beetles, lizards, and freshwater crabs, endemic denizens of an archipelago isolated in space and time. While monsoon winds reshape dunes, islanders trudge past the fuchsia desert rose whose … More Socotra by Brandon Marlon
Cap had the orders in his hand. “Don’t eat the Romans. That’s what it says.” “Don’t eat the Romans? That’s funny. Then, why are we here?” I had to ask. “We are here on orders. Don’t eat the Romans. Do everything else but. Take samples. Herd them up. Put them on ice. Just don’t eat … More First Contact, 25 A.D. Where Are My Eagles?! by Al Simmons
The rise of Papohaku Beach fills with builders. Worms of shaved wood curl off stone chisels. The breeze carries the scent of koa. They are hollowing out the logs brought down by Moloka’i men from the forest at Kualapu’u. Women braid luahala that will become sails. Girls sing of my triumph, weaving their spell into … More PREPARING FOR WAR by Kirby Michael Wright
Zac Reese was born in Del Mar, California, the only child of State Senator Randolph Reese and Lucy LaTour-Reese, co-host of the morning show, Wake Up, San Diego! Zac was a beach bum who believed a slow day on the waves was better than any day in the classroom. After graduating from college, thanks in no … More Making Waves, by Fred Vogel
Driving to Colorado
Clouds draped down a bare field, trails of mist sloping, stingers
of a jellyfish. … More Driving to Colorado, by Elias Sorich
Bradley Sands once said that his stories do not follow the laws of physics, but that their realities are only bound by the laws of grammar. This is evident in his latest book, Liquid Status, about one household’s transformation after a death in the family. But it is not a merely a metaphoric transformation, it is a transformation of their physicality: feet become boxes, armpits become doors. … More If It Turns Out Strange: An Interview with Bradley Sands
The mountain is exercise, meditation, and inspiration—time, space, and all that falls between. … More An October Morning at the San Francisco Peaks, by Monica Liddle
Sun Returns After gray cloudySkies drape too manydays, stark nude treesstrike harsh cracks intosnow that glistenshills under sun’sreturn. We had faithit would. Still itblinds, a surprise,and a disappointment,when cold remainsfogged by our ownbreathy clouds. Walk in the Field Gnarled shatteredtrees tangle brownunshorn prairiegrass. Wrapped arounda dark rustedmilk can riddledwith bullet holes,brush lines earth’scurve, horizondrawn in … More Three Poems by Richard Dinges, Jr.
