Finding Isabella by Sharon Perkins Ackerman
It is two weeks past Mother’s Day, late afternoon, when I see a doe on the neighboring pasture. Light slices across the grass from its peach horizon, nearly blinding. Around the fringes of haze, I see there is also a tiny fawn with noodle-like legs behind the doe, and a few feet away, the neighbor’s small bulldog bluff-barking the two of them. The doe does something that I’ve never seen her do before in her elegant tiptoe strolls—she lifts one leg and hooves the ground, then the other leg, same motion. Her head thrusts forward … Continue reading Finding Isabella by Sharon Perkins Ackerman
A Confession by Fred Wilbur
We usually consider mea culpas as good things, honest actions, purges of guilt, wiping clean the chalk smudged slates (to start again.) We want to regain a certain state of innocence, of internal peace. A sincere confession seems more purposeful than an everyday apology, a “sorry” which has become almost a place word in auto-fill conversations. So, what transgression(s) prompt me to spill my guts? Throughout my writing years, I have made notes on how I think poetry works (or doesn’t) along the lines of academic poets who write how-to books on how-to write poetry. … Continue reading A Confession by Fred Wilbur
Satellite Dream Dish and Blackberry Picking, 2 poems by Charles Mines
Satellite Dream Dish Another dream where I’m in trouble for being naked.And the NSA is scoffing at my latest memoir, Songs for Getting Drunk in Your Room. I awake to find it unreal installed in this beautiful field with only four seasons, transmitting messages through space through substances stickier than the concept of God. And when I feel this way I want for my brethren in orbit to send down their fears and insecurities for a change. To set them against the thousands of images taken from a thousand miles away, parabolically schemed to confirm … Continue reading Satellite Dream Dish and Blackberry Picking, 2 poems by Charles Mines
Minimalist Photographs by Michael C. Roberts
Michael Roberts describes his delicately conceived photographs as “minimalist.” “Starting last fall,” Roberts remembers, “I wanted to capture the very basic forms and graceful structures I would perceive while hiking in the Sonoran Desert. Carefully composed images with certain lighting and reduced background lent themselves to minimalism in nature and without the intrusion of color that often supersaturates photographs today. I love the simple complexity of natural structures. The images focus on one’s own perceptions and interpretation. “I seek to portray things and scenes that are overlooked or are mere backdrops to everyday … Continue reading Minimalist Photographs by Michael C. Roberts
Now She Resembles James Dean by Eric Forsbergh
Do you notice anything? Her comment, laid down like a mark. Often I’m the kid caught napping in a class. But not today. She came home with his haircut, not the soft shoulder flow we found agreeable before. Suddenly, it’s swept-back sides, almost a crest on top. Not even a tight bounce as she walks. Did I forget some part of her? Should I not assume an always tender look? This hair could stare down the police. Always, always I support her choice of cut and clothes with brief remarks. But appreciation as an … Continue reading Now She Resembles James Dean by Eric Forsbergh
Ars Poetica by Trudy Hale
The forsythia outside my window has given up the brilliant citrus yellow and is fading back to the sticky green leaves. I am trying to hold a dull panic at bay. My aim is to steady myself, my nerves. I do not want to doom scroll exhaustively, rants and laments of our country’s frightening descent into chaos. Look out your window, I tell myself. Write about the forsythia’s brave first burst that ushers in the redbuds’ purple halo. See the lime green of spring grass and tiny leaves. In Dostoevsky’s The Brothers’ Karamazov, Ivan, the … Continue reading Ars Poetica by Trudy Hale
running like water by Maggie Rue Hess
for Caitlin Daughtered with the dogwood’s dirge, we expect love to have seasons, ceaseless in its business of change, inconsistency its own persistence. Gravity and petals disclose the antiromance of an age ahead of innocence. The syllables in neglect are more dutiful than parents. Undaughtered onomatopoetics: the how creak of the floorboards, the could you of stiff hinges, a question mark of dust motes. When the father left, the river branched into three and she took a city of bridges. Maggie Rue Hess (she/her) is a PhD student living in Knoxville, Tenn., with her partner … Continue reading running like water by Maggie Rue Hess
The Art of the Dealer by Eric Lande
After lunch, Donald’s art dealer, Regina Slabokoff, entered his office in a state of agitated grace. Donald’s office had a style—a Mojo style—created by the great man himself. Mojo believed in comfort and security, and for Donald he had designed a desk in which his client could sit in its middle, as though in the center of a round doughnut. By pressing a button, foam panels rose and enveloped the sitter who then had the feeling of being back in the womb. It could also be used as a couch for afternoon siestas, thus eliminating … Continue reading The Art of the Dealer by Eric Lande
Ars Poetica, Forbidden Fruit by Gary Grossman
One mile into my daily jog, New Yorker poetry podcast in my ear, hoping for insights and hardware to Sherpa me up poetic Himalayas, and Mary Karr is reading Terrence Hayes’ Ars Poetica with Bacon, which leads her and host Paul Muldoon, to a number of salutary comments on rashers, including Mary’s confession that she never ever passes up bacon, and that given our genetic proximity to Sus scrofa, eating bacon is a form of Eucharistal sacrament, although as a Jew I’m thrown a bit by the host’s claim, though both Mary and Paul are … Continue reading Ars Poetica, Forbidden Fruit by Gary Grossman
Stolen Summers by Lauren Dunn
I’m sweeping up a pile of sand from the hardwood floor. It’s everywhere. Under each throw mat and area rug. In the corners of the room and hiding beneath the wicker chair nearest the front door. In the folds of the couch and the crevice of the doorjamb. As I sweep, I begin to gently cry. Big fat tears hitting my cheeks, rolling down my collarbone. I’m taken aback. The spool of emotion wound tightly inside of my chest unfurling. My mind is a carousel of slides from this summer and those before it. Sunburns … Continue reading Stolen Summers by Lauren Dunn