All types of powerlessness by Ashlie Allen
I like when I get dizzy and feel like talking about my misery after drinking. I can admit I am suicidal and laugh about it. Sometimes I try to crawl, just to prove to myself [...]
2016
Two Poems by Jenya Doudareva
Music And Lyrics By I was there I was there I was There I was there I was there when The clouds were melting icebergs Leaking into the sky, gazed at By a young boy born the [...]
Two Poems by Chloe Clark
All the Tea that My Creepy Heart Desires Lapsang souchong, oolong, or maybe pu-erh, tasting of hay, of smoke, of the sun rising in pine forests, but I could be wrong there [...]
Three Poems by Molly Kelley
A Quality Skull I have a quality skull. I could find it in the dark. Stripped of its skin. I could hook my finger through the eye socket and know. Non-plastic, insoluble. I [...]
Two Poems by Raphael Maurice
UTOPIA This is the hard land of miracles. Land of arias over the fields, land of music made by the god at morning. Land of nerves, land of the timpani-heart, savage, struck [...]
Toxic Shock by Alex Creece
First Aid 1.01: do not remove an embedded object yourself. Even after the obligatory hospital visit, I was never fully cleansed of each person I had loved. Some were ticks; [...]
No One Sees Until They’re Dead by Mary Julia Klimenko
Take me back to Italy where you threw my suitcase out of the third story window at midnight, and I screamed, “Fuck you.” and ran downstairs and sat on my suitcase in the [...]
Two Poems by Carla McGill
ANOTHER DRIVE This time I leave the circling freeways of Los Angeles, head the other way toward the burnt land of Arizona, the bare and intentional road straightening [...]
Pitiful by Jeffrey Zable
Driving home in a cold, pouring rain I spot this guy limping along in the street completely barefoot, wearing only a t-shirt with pants hanging halfway down his behind. [...]
Struck Birds by Catharine Lucas
San Gregorio State Beach, California Tide-packed sands; cliffscapes, buff and russet. One bleached rock thrust skyward, its sharp-edged gleam startling a blue so deep it [...]
Vending Machine Press Issue #14
Photo by: Johannes Huwe The very fine writers for issue 14 are: Summer Storm and Birds by Jason Brightwell I Want To Be Like Circe Poisoning The Sea by Deirdre Coyle The [...]
Summer Storm and Birds by Jason Brightwell
Evening sky sags in recovery, hanging a lantern — yellow half-light, birds recognize the nearing end of a summer storm. Still an angry rain kept time, assaulting nests, [...]
I WANT TO BE LIKE CIRCE POISONING THE SEA by DEIRDRE COYLE
When the god, Glaucus, fell in love with the sea nymph, Scylla, and Scylla rejected him, Glaucus went to the witch, Circe, for help. Of course he couldn’t take [...]
Three Poems by Sarah A. O’Brien
This Isn’t a Poem About Cold Hands my hands are cold at the moment (when aren’t they, really), so they look purple (this purple coat isn’t helping much with that). [...]
Two Poems by Benjamin Blake
Capilano and Marine Cheap car stereo sings an overplayed radio rock song As little rivers run down the dirty windshield Store opened a minute ago Not that you care for [...]
Two Poems by Leisha Douglas
WAITING Dogwood buds like tiny fists defy gray skies and leafless trees. Amid the pallor of necessary fire, I wait curled inside myself. Though white ice patches the lake, [...]
Two Poems by John Stupp
Colorado Sometimes it hits me the last time I saw my dad he was in a cardboard box at a crematorium in Colorado cold as porcelain before the conveyor moved I was too late [...]
The Ultimate Dinner Party by C.B. Johnson
Nobody knew it but it was the eve of another historic money crash, the kind that has bankers jumping out of windows from great heights. Lucky Mackenzie was happy, but his [...]
Arriving at LAX by Pamela Hammond
Flying in a 747 at 30,000 feet, through the porthole, a sunset wedges between the Pacific and mango-colored clouds. Nearly home. A relentless city ahead. The ocean slips [...]
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