Category — Poetry

by Dretta Grace White

And home is gone

And the smooth
White stones
We walked along

Harmony’s transfigured
To offend and blend into
Darkest blackest shade

As if the light we shared

Were never made

by Michael Constantine McConnell

Mother, I’m falling
apart and don’t know
what to do. I’ve turned

a good woman’s love
into ink. You taught

me how to read,
and, now, I am a man
of words. Mother, shrink
me into a seed; rest

me on a delicate
pillow. I need whisky

[Read more →]

by Monique McDowell

The woman
in the mirror
You see today
Is a woman
Who reflects
Beauty
Strength
Gentleness
And love
She indeed mirrors
The unfading beauty
That lies within

by Persis M. Karim

Are the deep breaths
you’ve held in
when you knew
better than
to unleash
your tongue

Say it like it is

and the body can
no longer—

contain them.

by John Ian Marshall

Within these fields of intertwined grasses,
A smile, study of outstretched hands, dancing,

Dancing in a simpler past, blues tunes play on
A tiny, tinny radio, everywhere the kind of bliss

Which only occurs in dreams, spiraling, spinning,
The best of which we are awake in. Splayed

Fingers trace the tall weeds’ uneven tops, where
Even the ringing silence sounded so good.

*Tintinnabular: of or pertaining to the ringing, jingling of bells.

by Adrielle Perkins

There is no absolute truth.
I find frenzied universes
burning, churning, swirling
in my soup bowl,
but, for you
it yields only steam.
There is no absolute truth.
And that is absolutely true.

by Darla Himeles

I went out to buy smog today
after two years away from my
concrete Pacific, my crashing
head smelling waves
as I landed at the storefront
where smog is sold
as an eye shadow color.

It is not the same
as my heavy home horizons,
but it is perfect.

[Read more →]

by Fred Longworth

Do not try to save the day.
Allow it to slide off the edge
of the earth and into the gutters
below the horizon.

Let the maintenance crew
sweep it into baskets
and burn it with dead leaves.

Later, as the workmen hasten
westward, following the debris
of other sunsets, hail them.
Ask for the ashes.