Fast Food Service – Frank De Canio The one girl commandeers my frothy shake. The other, wary of the method used to garner it, starts probing in her wake, in the event due process was abused. And I feel safer by the measured means she musters to make certain of fair play. But having validated the machine’s efficiency, she […]
Read more
Voyage to Italy AND IN GREAT PARNASSUS THE DWEEBS HELD SWAY SIFTING AND RISING FROM THEIR HARD BEDS BECKONING AND WELCOMING THE BECOMING OF THAT MAN WHO DRIVES DOWN THROUGH THE BUFFALO HERD AND THE HERD OF THEM PREGNANT AND BRIGHT BRIMMING WITH THE WONDROUS THE LORE AND THE SHINE THE MIRACLES FED WITH FORKS […]
Read more
I hardly Knew You We remember a lost President, assassinated, promises unfulfilled, who dazzled the nation with youthful vigor almost unAmerican glamour, and many reminisce of what could have been, forgetting the best and brightest sent abroad in the Peace Corps, instead of working at home to cure national ills, forgetting how close he came to incinerating the world, […]
Read more
INTER ARMA SILENT LEGES* (Based on the movie “The Conspirator,” about the trial and execution of Mary Surratt, one of the convicted conspirators of the Lincoln assassination) “In war, the law falls silent,” As Cicero first said, For when the times are violent Emotions trump the head. No “habeas” of “corpus” Or “sparing of the rod” Can […]
Read more
On the tips of our fingers Is playing, the spring Hide and seek With colors! But beneath our feet No lush green grass, Only poisonous shrubs. From the mouth of desires Uttered rain drops pattering And, in our brains Bright red fire! With wings widely spread Dancing, black owl the angel of death The future though uncertain, […]
Read more
The Silvering I AM LIVING WITHOUT MIRRORS WITHOUT THE VIEW OF RIGHT AND OF LEFT I KNOW NOT IF MY BEARD IS SHORN IF MY HAIR IS KEMPT IF MY COLLAR IS CLOSED I STEP DOWN FROM BATHROOM TO HALL AND SEE ONLY THE FRONT DOOR WHICH, ONCE OPENED, EXPRESSES THE FREE SUN AND WIND […]
Read more
A pile of leaves, a hissing clump of dark greens and crisp browns, sliding along a sidewalk, swirling in a wind gust, propelled in a circular momentum, created for three seconds a glimpse into existence at its most fundamental, its most naked, its core. Author Bio: Austin Alexis has published in The Ledge: Poetry and Fiction, Paterson Literary […]
Read more
Action Paint Stripper He did it: Bared around as a torn poster – Slashed in irrigation, blatant in life. Squeezing out worms, slugs And snakes ablaze; All burst to flood Then blended underlay – A laminated rainbow. His luminescence crossed exposure’s edge; Flesh writhed erogenous, Prime canvas scrubbed. Paint frames contorted To every edge and corner, […]
Read more
A Made-Up Place I’d love to sit by the old stone wall I made up once and roll it away to find a stairwell behind, a journey into a deeper unknown mystery of my mind, returning to the core of who I was, my smallest form, so that I might learn something new for today.
Read more
Elizabeth, Mother of my mother, her knotted knuckles cradled my scraped elbows, the heaviness of my childhood heart. Her beauty unrepeatable, blistering. She stands hunched over the sink, peeling potatoes, buttering bread, in the yellow light of the pre-war kitchen she is ageless. When I think of home, I think of her, kindness dripping from her embrace like honey. […]
Read more