Spring 2020
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Pant Legs Protrude
Gritty sneakers, one sock, raggedy pant legs protrude from a soiled pockmarked box abandoned in a doorway the wrest of him slumbers hidden in precious privacy. Next door excited people queue up for a grand opening salivating for pricey chicken and waffles and the hullabaloo of musictangledchatter to numb conflicted hearts. Written By: Grace…
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Court Geometry
r r u e b b pavement cassette tape beat don’t chase the ball into the street l r e e a th hardwood scoreboard screams television bleacher dreams he and i…
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Away
Our eyes met amongst the oak desks and rough wooden school benches, pencils lost between their skinny cracks, and stray chalk dust on shiny wax floors that reflect your blue sneakers reaching out to mine But only briefly— you headed out the door, shoes squeaking in the wax. Written By:…
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Quiet Places
quiet places there’s something about walls and ceilings and their clearly delineated lines are rooms put together / constructed that way to give us the illusion of order providing a familiar / predictable space to come back to to exist in after spinning in the maelstrom of life ? clearly, they don’t satisfy every…
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Buckets of Rainwater
Proudly, he awakens his three youngest at dawn, they’ll share eggs, herring and tea. Zeb, his oldest won’t visit from his conscription in Sanai for another 3 to 4 months while an opaque gray of sadness clings to the walls and his wife Sedja’s ashes sit above the makeshift mantle, her lungs first, then…
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Dialectic
The absence of Desire is sometimes Called peace. See flowers. Smell them. See birds. Hear them. Imagine their absence. Who can deny life’s desire for more life? The absence of desire is sometimes called peace, But perhaps only by those too weary To witness spring. Dialectic by Jason Syzdlik Jason…
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Our Backyard After You Left
The stairs to the backyard are dusty with un-swept dog hair. They cling to my footsteps as I run by; the need to follow still hiding in their genes. The chickens peck holes into the sweet nasturtium caging them in. An unlucky worm is found between stalks and chicken wire. The path to the…
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“my new friend”
“my new friend” don’t follow me like that with your sleazy saunter and those toned (bone-d) twigs wobbling wedges dollbaby dress hippie handbag and impossibly long locks the color of crows (screaming murder!) the color of cats, those black island cats, following me all over staring me down with eyes the color of citrine don’t…
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Advice for Modern Americans
Don’t let your children study abroad, Don’t let them go overseas. The things that they learn in the rest of the world Are things that can’t be unseen. Don’t let them work in a foreign concern, Discourage that class in Chinese. They’ll never get work at the Credit Union, They might also bring back ideas.…
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This Morning
I went for taro, custard, and red bean buns. Shrieks above from an argument broke my somnolence; a gull defended the cross it perched on from a circling raven’s assault. The vanquished raven landed and sulked. Do I call it augury, score a win for yang, or remember Jeffers, who wrote, “it is bitter…
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