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Quietning Man by Sheldon Lee Compton

What helps is to have a total lack of curiosity. That’s what he told them. It was the first time in seven years he had said more than a single word in response to someone. [...]

November 17, 2020

The Price of the Ticket to Heaven by Raphael Maurice

Stay & hold me & these suffering hands. For I won’t be long. I will not remain unread like a book for God does come & blows the dust from my back & says [...]

August 14, 2019

Psychic Mountains Ten Thousand Feet High by Sheldon Lee Compton

Clifton’s home is the same as anywhere; curses and miracles happen in the same small steps, and the difference between the two are twin mysteries. But it’s not the same, [...]

August 8, 2019

I am my own planet by Meg Johnson

I don’t suffer from night terrors, but if I ever do, I hope I scream out, Neely O’Hara! I could scream this out while masturbating. I’m masturbating for Mormons. They [...]

March 22, 2019

Coffee and Cigarettes and other poems by Benjamin Blake

Coffee & Cigarettes Sometimes, life doesn’t seem so bad A pot of black coffee brewing on the kitchen counter Cigarette burning peacefully away in the ashtray One soul, [...]

March 1, 2019

Sore Spirits and other stories by Ashlie Allen

Sore spirits The reservation spirits are sore again. They need our energy. Mom locks the door, useless as it is. We can hear them crying as they stagger towards the porch, [...]

February 22, 2019

The wine label as poetry 3 by Lindsey Thaden

The wine label as poetry, 3 Ingredients for fermentation: Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara Smashbox Halo Perfecting Powder Urban Decay Vice Lipstick – Backseat That black, [...]

February 18, 2019

A Small Bestiary Within by Raphael Maurice

[A Small Bestiary Within] They want a sweet country boy, tender, true as hell. At least they seem to, they do, until failures mark up his face. Until his tail even, is short [...]

February 18, 2019

The King of Hearts is the Loneliest of Kings and other poems by Steve Passey

The King of Hearts is the Loneliest of Kings Scars and Tattoos: Every scar is a story; a tattoo is just someone else’s art, so The King of Hearts rests on my shoulder. [...]

February 18, 2019

Off Season & Real Image, Lens, Virtual Image by Jenya Doudareva

Off Season Sticky heat, sounds of electrical lines, traffic, commotion – all gone. The blue of the sky is crispier, the trees are fiery red and orange, and it’s [...]

November 26, 2018

A Victory by Raphael Maurice

The ocean was black near the shore and farther out a storm was massing in the sky. He sat, looking out over the water, looking up aimlessly at the night from the tiki bar, [...]

November 22, 2018

The Heart Is an Organ on Fire by Sheldon Lee Compton

Tracy had sensed Bruce was different but had been too interested in his company to see any sign of it early on. The church carpenter shook her hand, the last load of old [...]

November 15, 2018

Leaving Deneb by Jenya Doudareva

Two deer along the trail yesterday. First, they hesitated as I passed them – muscles tensed and ears on alert, but eventually decided against fleeing, evidently, and [...]

April 18, 2018

Autumn leaves and other poems by Alison Znamierowski

Autumn Leaves with Pictures we opened each other like maps explored, traced our fingers along every outline, got utterly and joy-fully lost and at last convinced ourselves we [...]

October 23, 2017

A Blossoming Storm Shades Reality and Insomniac Act by Alexis Bates & Logan February

Some physical existence & the yearning, always. Sky, jaw-wide, hurtling fictions to the ground. Witness this descent in slow motion, this deft dive & this graceful [...]

October 23, 2017

Splintered Love and other poems by J. B Stone

Our love used to be this cozy little cabin Secluded from the irrational drama The world throws at others Our love wasn’t strong enough As the cabin started to split apart [...]

October 23, 2017

The Unmaking of a Savior and other poems by Khaya Osborne

i am an unsovereign, yet abandoned nation. my capitols have all their own names but look the same: faceless, skin thin as the lesions left by raw flax leaves, their cheeks as [...]

October 23, 2017

ACQUA DI PARMA and other poems by Frank Rubino

Not that green afternoon, when walking by a taco truck near Montclair High School, I felt a bird drop a load on my forehead. It was like a squeezed-empty toothpaste tube. [...]

October 23, 2017

Nightswimmer Poems by Todd Mercer

Hazard Warning, Ludington Beach closed, high surf warning. Turbid storm waves churn out there six or seven feet. Unsafe, they say, but now’s ideal for me. I leave the car [...]

October 23, 2017

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In the spotlight

sometimes people ask me if i’m mad and i say no by Shy Watson

by Vending Machine Press in Poems

order me caviar you cheap fuck order me caviar my bones become dismantled in the rain what more could you want from me my tender fragility signed, i promise im interesting [...]

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Past Contributors

  • Facade by Ian Scott McCormick

    March 16, 2017

    Phil tried to remember what it was like when he went off to college, 25 years ago. He tried to remember what that state [...]
  • A Call to the Stronger Sex by Christine Stoddard

    March 6, 2017

    Ancestors whisper hungrily from their cradles of stars They will haunt us until we women-folk feed their obsession for [...]
  • Unrecovered Poem by Samantha Madway

    September 2, 2016

    Rooms filthy from all the sorrow. Trashcans filled with tissues filled with snot. Dark circles dyed under every eye. Dead [...]
  • De Stijl by Sarah Vernetti

    September 2, 2016

    Claire stands and struggles to find her balance. The walls, the floor, the ceiling converge as a single plane, the seams [...]
  • Lightwood by Steph Post

    May 1, 2017

    There was no one to greet Judah Cannon when he got out of Starke, so he just started walking. The sky was gray, the air [...]
  • The Huldufolk by Liz Kay

    May 17, 2017

    You had spent most of your years gazing at the moon like a thick haired child on a Christmas advert but the orange plane to [...]
  • Make Believe by Tom Pescatore

    June 1, 2014

    Did this happen yester- day or were you standing outside my window under the cool rain of primitive stars of all those years [...]
  • No Picture

    Three Poems by Bennett Allen

    November 1, 2015

      Losing My Edge What’s it like to be a gay warden? Sorry, deputy warden I want to ask him but don’t He [...]
  • No Picture

    white sheets and cow milk by Ingrid Solbrig

    January 15, 2017

    I want to write [a poem] about us but there is no us There is you, far and me, too close. There is you, unknown. I want to [...]
  • Autobiography by Deirdre Coyle

    June 1, 2015

    I was born in a haunted mansion upstate. We moved. I lived in the South. I learned witchcraft in my sleep. In a dream, the [...]
  • Commitments by Kelle Grace Gaddis

    December 29, 2016

    His coarse beard was an array of auburn, brown and gray strands, hairs upturned and twisted out to the side refusing to [...]
  • Stomped Full of the Great Because and other poems by Claire Kelly

    October 23, 2017

    Reasons followed her pretty-girl looks like the bows on a kite tail. Her dad taught her to shoot, showed her pictures of [...]
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