Bodies Exhibit – By Fern G. Z. Carr Black walls, track lighting, spectators milling about silently, reverently surrounded by vascular systems preserved in fluid, skeletons, diseased organs, foetuses in jars. Hollowed out corpses in life-like poses play soccer, hold hands, boast their musculature – a post-mortem artistic rendition of red meat. In a display case, a […]
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AGE HAS ITS PRIVILEGE – By Ray Gallucci When you are old and prone to mold, It matters not if you they’ll scold For skipping meetings by not heeding Platitudes they keep repeating. It’s right you’ve earned to choose to spurn What management claims you should learn. Once you have heard it all before, Their tired words are just […]
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In this small, blue room— overheated, clenched by melancholy, I sit the night, guarding carnival goods, blood potions, the knife thrower’s serrated blades. Two buskers beach-walk a tune, harmonies muffled by wave’s insistence. A mathematical conceit of stars burning to earth enriches water’s lap against pier beams, a night sailor’s crossing. Taken on as apprentice, the alchemist insists […]
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Stone Slate – By Melissa R. Mendelson They tell me that I am alive. If that were so, shouldn’t I breathe? Listen to your heart, and I’m stupid for listening once more. I don’t hear anything. Check your pulse. “I am checking,” I scream. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. How could they tell me what they tell me, and how could I […]
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Wings of angels slice through darkness, and the sun rises again on a world torn. And lines in the sand vanish, and the tide of war grows red. But we are still here. They take us in their arms, their life for ours, and battle keeps them from home. But as the sun sets, we look to the skies, seeing […]
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A Nuclear Childhood What if your parents had never met had never married had never yelled at each other and instead had wed someone they loved and lived peacefully all those years. That would have been their Eden but you shaking there now decades later wouldn’t be with us cursing the tremors of a […]
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Donald Trump and Mother Teresa Time’s a jet plane when you’re young. You go to school get a good job marry someone nice and have a family if that’s your calling. Then the kids grow up and move out and things start falling apart even if you have a pension and many now won’t. Poor health sneaks in like a submarine and in […]
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Those who sent their men to war Still wait, forever wait Their return at full moon. Those whose men returned long ago Still wait, forever wait To be issued their fortune. We hoped amidst the struggle Our blood shall dry not, but sprout Into long-bearing palm trees of joy As we wrestled with nightmares of time We remained awake […]
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MEETING (By Nicolo Santilli) to our fellow cosmic travelers who traverse the geography of the earth in dreams and waking and having walked a thousand winding starlit streets know the joy of finally meeting
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ON PORPOISE Am I watching the dolphins Or are they watching me, Somersaulting on backfins, While I swim clumsily? At the junction of our worlds Where the land meets the sea, Somewhat shallow for their twirls, I can stand awkwardly. I’m not native to water; They’re not native to land. Still each other we ought to […]
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