He told the police sergeant, as he knew he would, that he would leave right away and help however he might. The address he wrote down was familiar to him. It was in the Flats, an old Holyoke neighborhood or section of the city once inhabited by many different ethnic groups, although now almost exclusively Puerto Rican. He shoved the paper with the address in his coat pocket and found his little black bag with the oils and other implements for giving what once was called the last rites of the church, but were now termed the sacrament of the sick, and headed off in the direction of the Flats. Sixty-six Center Street. He’d been there before, he was sure. Only the week before, the adjoining block had burned up. It was another of those…
Bhuwan Thapaliya – Seven Poems from Kathmandu
I’m sick of not seeing you He poured himself a glass of her thoughts two years after she won a scholarship to heaven to pursue her PhD in life after death and sat down beside her antique gramophone with his senses straining in the dark. “I’m sick of not seeing you, I’m seeing only the back of an African Wild Elephant and the wide open jaws of the vultures. Helpless days of confinement, a stultifying inertia and no knowledge of what comes next. “Where are your eyes in the sky, Grand Ma?” he sighed. Where are the bald eagles? Where are the rhododendrons? Where? Where? Where? He stammered and cried. What type of poem am I? “What type of poem am I?” I am as formless as the clouds, and as elegiac as the silence, in the itinerary of the noise. I am not a classic written by the author,…
“To Your Inner Slavery,” Poetry by Selma Haitembu
To Your Inner Slavery You try really hard not to show it I will not relent to evade my notions, Nor my ideas, hence the color of my skin Spoke before I could raise my head To your foot, beneath the very grounds I lay scythed by your scorn I will not relent in shame My mother, I wore as pride Ride me into the dangers of your color Your ignorance and frivolous abuse Your amusement related to mine Rooted from two different aspects I worry not where you are from Your stench has no beginning I worry only what you would do next To know, to finally see my color My mind in this brown skin bag Has gears twisted in complex turns I deserve to be here as well, it will show And below me you will fall soon Your hate of me will beg to exist,…
“Soliloquy in Blue,” A Short Story by Johan Alexander
Did she say something? Did I say something? Her brow illuminates under the streetlights and pulses with the beat of the windshield wipers. She won’t look at me: her eyes flash sequins at the sidewalk. Droplets floating, floating: translucent globes hanging in space. Then they burst apart. She shakes her hair and I can no longer see her eyes. Rain: I yawn through the misty rhythm. My eyes close continuously. Headlights and streetlights mix in the distance and through the murk I wonder when things started to go off course. We had danced together, squeezing particles of music from our sweatshirts. Then we ate at the Greasy Spoon, where she said it. The air between us is a stale sponge unable to soak up all these discarded feelings. Damp inside the car and heavy on my eyelids. I try to blink. The tires below us slime their way through the night. She sits in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead. What`s the point? She glances over, a quick reflex of her neck, surprised. I realize I have mumbled my thoughts aloud. Beads of sweat wander across my hairline. I keep my face forward. She turns away. Again. I roll down my window an inch. I open my mouth. A few raindrops land on my tongue. …
Laura Carter – Poems of Sensations and Memories
I pull away from the bruise. There is no bruise. It’s been said that language itself is a bruise, a collection of things to be feared. There is no bruise. I put off the pain. The pain returns. The body burns, as if in a fire, largely having been heated in winter by the obsolete feeling of the no. There is no no. I pull away from the no. The no, not having been part of the story, can’t really comment on anything. There are no people. There are people. Someone lights the proper way forward, as if in modernity, and I pull away from that. Why go? Someone on the other side of the ocean would pen a marinade and drink it down for dinner. I eat. There is no food. I see. There is no sight. I put away the bruise. Then, all…
“Walking to Rhode Island,” A Story by Stephen Brayton
The call came in just after 1 a.m. “Hey, I got a question for you,” the male voice said. “Am I right that it’s not OK to walk to Rhode Island on Route 1?” O’Connell on dispatch managed to get out “What?” before the guy continued. “Walking on Route 1 .. I didn’t think it was allowed and just wanted to check.” The voice sounded semi-sober; O’Connell had heard plenty worse. But sober or not, who would think of walking to Rhode Island on Route 1, aka Boston-Providence Highway? A four-lane divided highway lined with shopping malls, office buildings and car dealers. It had to be at least 30 miles to the Rhode Island line. Sure, there were stretches in Grenville with sidewalks; but had he ever seen anyone on them? And going south through Norwood, Walpole . . . Sidewalks? He had no idea. Still, the guy had asked. “Well, I don’t know there’s any law against it,” answered O’Connell. “Why are you headed to Rhode Island? Kind…
“Requiem of a Thursday,” by Luca Agostini
Steffan looks up at me, a cone of light following his gaze. He is wearing a miner’s headlamp and I can’t shield my eyes in time. I have already drunk too much and the Ketamine is starting to kick in. The music thudding from behind the closed door of the narrow bathroom seems that much further, dripping through the concrete walls of the 1960s East Berlin Platte where the party is. I rub my eyes, the cone of light still fixed on me. Is it gone? Yes, the cone has moved. I am relieved as Steffan’s earnest, slanted face looks up at me as if emerging from the black depths of an ocean, his face ghostly and shimmering in the light. I want to lean forward, to break the surface of the blackness around him, but I…
“Shush Please,” Poetry and Art by Tamizh Ponni
Shush please On a cold winter night I lay in the comfort of soft blankets and cushy pillows The non-stop titter-tatter against all tangibles mercilessly broke my hard-earned slumber Sliding and slithering over and over Crystalline droplets raced on the glassy tracks without much caution or trepidation. The uncoiled skeins of climatic emotions were desperate to bring glee into doldrums. I woke up, sat up and stayed up leaning towards the window pane, listening to their tantrums All night in silence, eyes closed, ears open It was a performance that clamoured for attention from lonely souls and midnight owls. I wish it came with a volume control The loud clatter and yellow lights, were acting like partners in crime brutally stirring up memories of good times Days that could not be reclaimed Nights and people…
Mbizo Chirasha – My First Year as Poet-in-Residence
Time has legs: it walks and of course it runs. Somewhere in the cybernetic land of the brave, America, a trailblazing coffee shop is situated, born from assortments of poetry biscuits, flash fiction soups that wink likea jolt of rainforest lightning. The Fictional Café, a buffet of literary commentary and steaming cups of cappuccinos,the sweet aroma of words waft through its glowing virtual walls, beckoning and satiating all sure creatives.Inside the Café, you are welcomed by a band of poetry baristas. I joined the Fictional Café as the Poet in Residence and the greatest blessing is a myriad of my experimental writings have been serialized, featured, and published within its digital pages. Jack B. Rochester and your team of literary champions:I salute you for the Poet in Residence position and for your confident investmentin my writings and mutual collaborative efforts. ***…
Mark Parsons – Poetry in Pieces
Leg Panel the color of raw steak discoloring once it’s exposed to the air slides on its runner, crosscutting fibres bunched into fascicles sheathed with elastin that shift like amoebas, contract, clinch, then dilate again. Panel after panel, runners underfoot and thickness of panels decreasing. A click, something catches. Or caught, something releases and scrapes to the opposite wall. This fleshly corridor can’t go on much longer: the panels can get no thinner. The thought of hiding once I’m out, the reason not to hide. Never did I present agoraphobia, or tendencies . . . say, vampiric. No symptoms of anemia. Never was a bleeder, in any sense. I have to keep my nerve. It’s all that separates me from my surroundings. My leg feels . . . feels like. Prologue Taking life one rescue animal at…