Ocean A few feet out the swell begins Pushing toward the front, where we all stand Rolls upon rolls, the waters seem to be in a rush Sashaying swiftly, to make way to the shore When the people notice the tides rushing forward, With haste they move away Don’t want to get swept under, so …
Dear *** (Because of the visual element of “Dear” by lindsay l, the poem is published here in three panel of jpgs to preserve the line breaks and the blank erasure spaces. Each panel includes the corresponding words in its ALT tag.)
What Jesus Said While in Line for the Bathroom Shit is a more onerous theological problem than is evil . . . [because] [t]he responsibility for shit . . . rests entirely with Him, the creator of man. — Milan Kundera It’s a shame that an absent father figure should define me so much when …
Then by Micah Ruelle “What’s fair of two people to expect from one another?” My mother and I ask each other. We find no conclusions, agree on no answers. Only that we must resolve to keep asking this one, singular question. * For two years, I left the body. Whether it was apt to return …
Bed Start sleeping in the middle of the bed. It’s yours now. Act like it. No longer relinquish a healthy and alluring half to a ghost, Refuse to honor a memory long since past simply out of habit, Not respect. Sleep fruitfully and restfully with your limbs splayed from side to side, Pillows placed in …
Endings are just new beginnings Inspired by Traci Kato-Kiriyama’s “Obon, circa 2020 -or- Fools Dancing in a Time of Pandemic” from her book Navigating With(out) Instruments. In Cerritos, the only home I have known for the last 18 years of my life sits faded with rusted steel gates that my brothers and I painted …
The Rest of Me by Jessica Moreno Words don’t feel like enough. The colors I need do not exist in black and white and cannot be found in the difference between cursive and plain text in a size 12 or 14 font. I am nothing capable of being captured and condensed by syllable after syllable …
Multiverse I step into the light infinite stories collapsed into one no longer a possibility a wish what if only me, singularly in the darkness a murmuring of all my ghosts meeting watching calling what if a doctor a writer a mother a scientist a man how many of me fall away in the dark? …
I buried him here beneath this ocean sand is where I dug a hole and buried him. When I met him in December, he had promised me the world, that his friendship would stand so tall by my side, like his legs on my bed. In January he fled and the heart he awoken split …
A Goddess in Purple Rain Behind glass, a lady is lit-up inside the laundromat. She’s folding sheets, pink curlers of baroque in her hair, singing and creasing a t-shirt with sequins. Her arms and hips stretch out to a body of air—the room filling with sound. And I am humming inside her—inside her body, burning …
Cynthia Atkins: Three Poems from Still-Life With God Read More »
Rebekah Wolman, “Mourning Jewelry (San Francisco, February 2021),” 2021 Jack Grapes Poetry Prize Winner selected by Judge Clare MacQueen Writing that’s lyrical and emotionally evocative grabs my attention. I also like writing that’s accessible and yet inspires me to learn something new. This poem does it all, while painting a brilliant picture of the SkyStar …
Rebekah Wolman: “Mourning Jewelry (San Francisco, February 2021)” Read More »
billy says he misses poetry mentors and I tell him, my dude, we’ve always been old. we’ve all opened for six degrees of saul williams, all had a cigarette outside of the venue next to the mighty mos def, we all ate pizza with sage francis. we passed out flyers at the other venues, we …
I Remember I remember speeding down the railed ramp, at the back gate of the Heritage Park island near the bathrooms, on my skateboard. I remember finally making that turn onto the stretch of sidewalk next to the small parking lot. I remember not making the next, sharper turn, skateboard flying into the street …
Purple Like Iris I chose Cisco Kid, Tonto, and men dressed in black. I cheered the loudest when the Indians attacked. I chose loners, despising cliques at every age but secretly hoping one day I’d get picked. I chose revolution, not evolution. I carried the Red Book, Soul on Ice, quoted from Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy …
SALAS In my freshman year of college, I was a part of a history research project. Its goal was to find out the history of Salinas and study its immigration patterns, Paint a picture of how people immigrate to Salinas. Discover what led our people here. The seeds planted into the nation, the blossoming of …
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