Category: Poetry

Everyman’s Heart

Alexandra Meehan

Your glass is rattling, A broken bell on the rocks, But it is not time yet. You scrape the meat to the side, Then set down the knife, I Call you in to cut the cake— Red velvet, a flower arrangement For you to gently pick at, You lean over Read more

Alexandra Meehan

Alexandra Meehan is a neurodivergent poet and poetry editor residing in Gainesville, Florida. Alexandra earned her BA in English from the University of South Florida in Creative Writing.She has mentored lyricists and has worked as a professional writer and as a creative director. Alexandra enjoys watching foreign films, cultivating carnivorous plants, and painting. She is enamored by wordplay and has a lifelong obsession with Emily Dickinson. Alex's work has appeared in Feminine Collective and Rhythm & Bones Lit. She has a forthcoming poetry book. Follow Alexandra on Twitter @LexMeehan

Dreamland

Z. M. Wise

Cast away into mystic mind oceans deep, enter serene cerulean blue subconscious soul. Sink into quicksand, remains of the Cultivator of Sleep Production. Slip away with the wind’s best friend. Soulless green plateau flatland rises, mountain guardians defend their holy mooneyes. Tactful window eyes view the other side, a melting Read more

Z. M. Wise

Z.M. Wise is a proud Illinois native from Chicago, poet, essayist, occasional playwright, seldom screenwriter, co-editor and arts activist, writing since his first steps as a child. He is co-owner and co-editor of Transcendent Zero Press https://transcendentzeropress.org/ , an independent publishing house for poetry that produces an international quarterly journal known as Harbinger Asylum. He is the author of seven books and chapbooks of published poetry and a play, including: Take Me Back, Kingswood Clock! (MavLit Press, 2013); The Wandering Poet (Transcendent Zero Press, 2014); Wolf: An Epic & Other Poems (Weasel Press, 2015); Cuentos de Amor (Red Ferret Press, 2015); Kosmish and the Horned Ones (Weasel Press, 2018); Illinois Infinitarium (Cherry House Press, 2020); and The Nightmare Mask (TBD). His debut play, Bottles of Emerald for the Demon Queen (Transcendent Zero Press, 2019), was published in late December of 2019. His most recent chapbook of poetry, the mini-epic known as The Nightmare Mask, is searching for a brand new home. Other than these books, his poems, lyrics, essays, and book reviews have been published in various journals, magazines, and anthologies. Besides poetry and other forms of writing, his other passions/interests include professional voice acting, singing/lyricism/songwriting, playing a few instruments, fitness, and reading.

For Emily

Victoria Addesso

I give you the gasoline rainbow glistening next to the crumpled beer cans and soggy strips of newspaper. I give you diamond shards of broken bottles and the ruby ribbons of spilled Cabernet decorating the dirty gutter. I give you the tough greens growing between the concrete’s cracks and their Read more

Victoria Addesso

Vicki Addesso has worked in various fields over the years, full-time and part-time. In between family life and bill-paying endeavors, she works at writing. Co-author of the collaborative memoir Still Here Thinking of You~A Second Chance With Our Mothers (Big Table Publishing, 2013), she has had work published in Gravel Magazine, Barren Magazine, The Writer, Sleet Magazine, Damselfly Press, Feminine Collective, and Tweetspeak Poetry. A personal essay is included in the anthology My Body My Words, edited by Loren Kleinman and Amye Archer. You can follow Vicki on Twitter @VickiAddesso.

Aging Red

C. Streetlights

These days, they melt like a Dali minutes dripp- ing into the hours but seconds pour, pour, pour- ing into the days. I wear age like I do my lipstick – bright, bold, and red. I am red years old. Age is a number that deceives like a Seurat, dots Read more

C. Streetlights

As a child, C. Streetlights listened to birds pecking at her rooftop, but instead of fearing them, was convinced they would set her free and she’d someday see the stars. Southern California sunshine never gave C. Streetlights the blonde hair or blue eyes she needed to fit in with her high school’s beach girls, her inability to smell like teen spirit kept her from the grunge movement, and she wasn’t peppy enough to cheer. She ebbed and flowed with the tide, not a misfit but not exactly fitting in, either. Streetlights grew up, as people do, earned a few degrees and became a teacher. She spent her days discussing topics like essay writing, Romeo and Juliet, the difference between a paragraph and a sentence, and for God’s sake, please stop eating the glue sticks. She has met many fools, but admires Don Quixote most because he taught her that it didn’t matter that the dragon turned out to be a windmill. What mattered was that he chose to fight the dragon in the first place. Streetlights now lives in the mountains with a husband, two miracle children, and a dog who eats Kleenex. She retired from teaching so she can raise her children to pick up their underwear from the bathroom floor, to write, and to slay windmills and dragons. She is happy to report that she can finally see the stars.

MOST IMPORTANT DAY OF HER LIFE

Nancy White

She’s a shrinking silhouette. The cut-away dark around her burns. More work than sleep than fear than failing and finally (if lucky) the taste of iron and ceasefire. Give her a stone a stirrup a pocket of patches. How handy. How sweet. The drunkening cup touches her lip—too late to Read more

Nancy White

Nancy White is the author of three poetry collections: Sun, Moon, Salt (winner of the Washington Prize), Detour, and Ask Again Later. Her poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Review, FIELD, New England Review, Ploughshares, Rhino, and many others. She serves as editor-in-chief at The Word Works in Washington, D. C. and teaches at SUNY Adirondack in upstate NY.

Happy Birthday

Jacquie Prebich

danced out of my mother’s womb naked cold cocooned in the afterbirth of art cord snip cut cries turned to screams soul activated why why why oh how, the harsh lights hurt this was the house I was assigned to difficult damn difficult the odd child with tangled hair pretty, Read more

Jacquie Prebich

Jacquie Prebich was raised in New York City and currently resides in Los Angeles. She started ballet at age five and danced until her first pregnancy. Jacquie loves writing, producing, and directing. She created Ballet Theatre in 2006, a new performance concept combining classical ballet with acting, singing, and live music. Jacquie began writing poetry after undergoing rehab for prescription pain pills— an addiction that developed as a result of dance injuries. Jacquie lives in a scenic canyon with her family and rescue animals. She is currently working on her first poetry book. Follow Jacquie on Twitter @JwPrebich

36G

Christina Strigas

Living with them can be mostly a drag. I got them in Grade 10, a curse from Aphrodite. I got them gift-wrapped under cotton shirts, cotton bras,  wonder  bras thirty dollar bras, now 130 bare necessity bras, with black lace, purple flowers, a life of heaviness. I got cysts, I Read more

Christina Strigas

Christina Strigas is an author and poet, raised by Greek immigrants, who has written four poetry books. Her poetry book LOVE & VODKA was featured by CBC Books in, “Your Ultimate Canadian Poetry List: 68 Poetry Collections Recommended by you.” Her most recent poetry book, LOVE & METAXA, has garnered positive reviews, including Pank Magazine. Strigas’s poems have appeared in Montreal Writes, Feminine Collective, Neon Mariposa Magazine, Pink Plastic House Journal, BlazeVOX, Thimble Lit Magazine, Twist in Time Literary Magazine, The Temz Review, and Coffin Bell Journal, among others. Her poem, “Dead Wife” was nominated for best of the net 2020. In Spring 2022, she will be releasing her fifth poetry book by Free Lines Press, a French indie magazine that publishes experimental poetry. Twitter: @christinastriga Instagram : @c.strigas_sexyasspoet Facebook: Christina Strigas Author

FRIDA

Anne Whitehouse

“Love the earth and sun and the animals… And your very flesh shall be a great poem.” –Walt Whitman, Preface to Leaves of Grass   The address the woman at the market gave her led to a stone house with a wooden door on a rubbish-strewn street in Mexico City. Read more

Anne Whitehouse

Anne Whitehouse is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Meteor Shower (Dos Madres Press, 2016). She has also written a novel, Fall Love, which is now available in Spanish translation as Amigos y amantes by Compton Press. Recent honors include: 2018 Prize Americana for Prose, 2017 Adelaide Literary Award in Fiction, 2016 Songs of Eretz Poetry Prize, 2016 Common Good Books’ Poems of Gratitude Contest, 2016 RhymeOn! Poetry Prize, 2016 F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum Poetry Prize. She lives in New York City. www.annewhitehouse.com