Keith visited Aunt Viv in Knoxville when, could luck be so good, he found that The Monkees were performing. October 30. Oh hallowed and sacred day. Yes, Mike wouldn’t be on stage, but… Davy… Micky… Peter. Not nostalgia—this was church, the downtown coliseum a cathedral. Christians had Christmas. Keith had one glorious Colgems label single […]
Author Archives: Dale
trade you for the collectible marbles by Keith Nunes
shaky footfalls, crisp new face asking me to wipe a mouth that’s been talking nonsense all night, golden syrup drip, dripping up the tie through the right eye spoiling the left-over tongue toppled into a room full of echoing bones, wailing in the ceiling, islands waving with flippers stolen from cut-gut movie pirates you grab […]
Does It Matter by Lee Kaloidis
That on this Friday morning to the soundtrack of the garbage truck, my nosy neighbor’s cheesy greeting and the impossible logic of dharma raveling and unraveling through my head I try to pull a rotting sparrow from the vegetable garden’s net, its red skull smaller than a cherry tomato, a feathery knot so frenzied it […]
Road Kill by Max Hipp
When the Crown Victoria sped through the intersection, we screamed for Kitty to get out of the way, but she just flicked her tail. The chrome bumper knocked her to the curb. She kept clawing the air until the icy wind took her. We waved down the driver, beat on the hood. What was he […]
Sophie’s Story by Robert Nisbet
It was unjust, I was sure, but the gossip was seething, and there’s always innuendo, there’s spite, and obviously something had gone seriously wrong. But I knew the lovely man he was and I knew how much it was hurting him. I said very little to anyone and he and I just met, quietly. For […]
Nominations for 2016 Best of the Net Anthology
We are thrilled to announce our nominations for the 2016 Best of the Net Anthology, published by Sundress Publications. POEMS: What the Walls Heard: A Concert in Three Acts at the Bataclan, by Georgene Smith Goodin November Song, by Ron Gibson, Jr. Shakes for His People, by T.L. Krawec Untitled, by C.M. Keehl […]
Chloe – April, While the Traffic Passes by C.C. Russell
You’re blowing on the dandelions, puffing their soft seeds into the air through the neighborhood and watching them careen around the houses in the spring breeze. The cars drive by with their windows open, spewing sound. You dance. You dance to their music. Your face cracks open from joy. There’s mercy and then there is […]
Lovelorn by Santino Prinzi
It’s like walking into a hall of mirrors and seeing no reflections. Your fingers touch the glass and there’s no returning warmth. You’re missing–where are you? You turn to face another mirror–nothing. Standing in the middle of this abyss you hold hope in your palms, it’s slipping from your fingers, vanishing into the darkness. Bye-bye, […]
Cellar Shifts (IX) by Chris Bronsk
I’m down in the stock room counting cordials when the barback bundles in. He can’t change the gas for the soda gun, so I show him, joking, no quick hits. He says he’s not a red balloon. A month before he leaves he’ll tell me, at send-off drinks for the waiter he calls chupacabra, that […]
Alleging Romance by Ken Poyner
You assemble the car out of ordinary things: cabinetry, dining room chairs, a bed worn out, three chickens and an old dog from Henley’s. Its engine is the heart of a bear. You draw the choke and the heart sputters, coughs itself into rhythm, pushes blood into the axles. You proudly slip into the barbed […]
Middle-Class Magic by Jess Mize
Clear water; crisp transparent natural liquescence. Glass memory. The air up there holy. Let the sun melt into the horizon, ooze into the sea and just fade away as our memories, mirrors, and lives. Germination occurs mainly in autumn. Too much rotten human waste from the fabulous summertime. You always said life has taken you […]
Municipal Waste by Robert Beveridge
“Stop the Ebola patients from entering the U.S.”–Donald Trump (via Twitter) You’ve spent months behind the wheels of excavators so you could practice the delicate art of filling in cracks. They gave you a certificate yesterday, silly gothic font over preprinted credentials, to be presented with photo ID, W2, pay stubs, and the placental blood […]
What to Write Home About by Jenni Garber
Any cat without a face. Piercing your first penis. Chipping your first tooth. A child named Alchemy. Middle school anal sex. Tallahassee. Confederate flag tattoos. Dashboard fiber optic Jesuses. Monocles. American flag pasties. Stains in bathtubs. Peach-pie moonshine. Befriending a chicken. Coffins. Your boyfriend’s girlfriend’s baby. Storage shed movie night. The word, petrichor. A bum […]
Cicadas by Ingrid Bruck
Cicadas arrive a month later in the northeast than the southwest. In Texas they are raising mayhem by early July, they have a longer time to deafen all who live nearby with their strident calls than in the northeast where I live. It’s late summer when cicadas hatch in Pennsylvania, climb trees and start making […]
The Hat Horizon by Aaron Morris
When the sky collapsed, could no longer function as it did before, we understood pretty quickly that it had to be replaced with hats. We weren’t too sure about using the stovepipes due to their size and the way that they could obstruct both the sun and other hats, but besides that, just about any […]
At War with Ghosts by J. Todd Hawkins
We wrestle all night with them, actually. Throw them against the walls and watch them slide down to the hotel carpet, pooling in the shadows before reforming again. We have been here before, but never here exactly. We have been traveling too long, remembering too much. These strains of others’ blues coat us like road […]
Nampa by Steve Bogdaniec
Today we laid off another 5000. Some town in Idaho, not sure where. I knew a woman from Idaho once, waitress at this one dive at school. Never knew why she moved out here. Nice woman, though. Uniform was pink cotton with waves of white lace, thick chocolate brown pantyhose, tobacco perfume and crooked teeth, […]
Peacock Green by Charley Rogers
The colour is Peacock Green. Or so it says on the bottle. The shimmer catches the light, and she sparkles as she moves. Peacock Green. Bold, bright, assertive. She paints on the colour hoping its essence will seep through her nails, through her hands, into her skin, her blood. That she will become this bold […]
Man vs. Wild by Nicholas Rys
After the president was eaten alive by bears on national television the country fell into various states of dilapidation. In a rare moment of unity both fans and critics agreed it was a riveting and appropriate end to what ultimately amounted to both a condescending and overextended stay. The survivalist-themed reality TV program was previously […]
A Chat by Joanne Jackson Yelenik
Hello there Aryeh, I do want to hear your questions—the practical, about Michaeli, your day, the learning, Shabbat, what to do now, next, later, when. And more than that, our laughter, my telling of the applause at the poetry reading, your designing on the computer, the focus group reactions to my novel, your voice, how […]
On Prospect Avenue, Newark, DE by Andrew Graney
One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” — Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus I just think motherfuckers wanna laugh.” — Harris Wittels, Comedy Bang! Bang! I Here you are, in your doorway, saying Andrew! saying a shot of vodka? Yes. I hate vodka. I don’t care. I’ll chase it with a joke. Your laughter—rushing down my spine—a gust of […]
Important Changes
Hi, guys. Quick update here on a change to our journal that we’d like you to be aware of. As most of you know, we’ve got a brand new website and we’re no longer publishing through Issuu. Along with that change, we’ve decided to move from being a bimonthly journal to a quarterly publication. So, […]
Depeche Mode, the Killing Silence of Space & the Void Inside Us All by Charles L. Crowley
Nothing will kill you. Nothing will tear you apart, limb from aching limb. Nothing, yes, just beyond these walls—nothing will rip you to— “People only listen to Depeche Mode on the weekends,” he says, as he fills my cup. Our fingers lightly touch and then he goes to change the song— Enjoy the Silence[1]—enjoy this […]
That Southern Ghost Two poems by M.C. St. John
That Southern Ghost Crossing an alleyway, he hears two sharp honks from a car rolling down the ruts of ice toward him. The sound snaps his thoughts clean in half—her smile through the windshield, Cheshire in the reflected trees, is all he sees now. Those are familiar teeth, he thinks. The tires crunch snow. The […]
The Rationale by Ken Poyner
Between us there is notice. A braille of recognition, a mummery of portraiture. You expect cycles of me, rumors of left-handed gods, a great passion for ingestible stones. Mine is the part of meeting expectations. Yet expectations supplely oppress you. And here I am wingless, and for the full moon grieving sinful, rich feathers. Feel […]
Upon discovering my mother’s suicide note, again by Cimmaron Burt
“Knowing the imperfection of repair, I realize it’s not something in me that is causing the contradictions it is something that is not. A discarded shard. A sobering thought the longer one lives, the more times a part of them will be injured and subsequently fixed — minus bits of essence. Therefore, death is the […]
Evidence of Common Descent Two Prose Poems by Howie Good
Evidence of Common Descent Now that we have moved the clocks ahead, I keep glancing around for the inevitable beggar. Good thing you aren’t here. The clouds resemble moldy photographs of potbellied pink cherubs. I have never seen that before. God’s own son must be stuck at Customs in a railway station near the border. […]
Somewhere in Rooms with No Mirrors A Collection by Steve Passey
Somewhere in Rooms with No Mirrors I’ll tell you about responsibility vs. accountability: You know these boys, these girls – “Team Leaders”, Capos, Corporate motherfuckers coming to pass down the word from on high. Got that degree, got off the farm and here they are saying “We all have to tighten our belts” – Meaning […]
your love life as told by book review outlets Two Pieces by Michael Prihoda
your love life as told by book review outlets “…a tour de force; each page pushes the boundaries of what love can do.” – New York Times Review of Books “The most stunning thing to happen in love this year!” – Publishers Weekly “More like 50 shades of NO WAY!” – Village Voice “…bitingly visceral, […]
I’ll Trade You Maude for Lou by Jaclyn Adomeit
I trade funeral cards with people I meet in seedy Vietnamese restaurants. Today I exchanged ‘Maude Podiluk; 1961 to 2013; for none of us liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself, Romans 14:7’ for a ‘Lou Mbituyimana; 1946 to 2015; Fuku sui bon ni kaerazu.’ I have a whole slew from friends’ parents: […]
Talking to the Dead Two Haibun by Deborah P. Kolodji
Talking to the Dead In California, the night is swollen with lemon blossoms. Easily lulled by porch swing sways and creaks, my eyelids start to droop and I dream talk with an aunt in Minnesota. sudden leaf rustle my father calls about her funeral arrangements Drought Our address is odd, which means we can only […]
The Memory Machine (Public Beta Release) by Ian Gibbins
1. Initialisation Demanding neon attention, our apparatus fires up, beckons contact, seeks conversation. Freshly minted coins drop, trip subliminal gears, follow snakeskin boots, bind our wind-burnt ears. We absorb these restless pulses, lasers shimmering cool through grid-locked holograms, intertwined with spectral traces too well-known to be true. What can we do but precipitate a surreptitious […]
Bluebeard by Dion Farquhar
Raising his wine glass to toast his wife at dinner, one-percenter Bluebeard matter-of-factly observed, “Market’s a code for private, selling off what was once public.” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the servant flinch. As he droned on about the centrality of levels of liquidity achieved by derivatives and the positioning of […]