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 [...]
Poems
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, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Seasonally Affected and Disordered by Judith Cody
Sky stuffed with leaden clouds seeming ready to suffocate like a soggy pillow feeling like the regulation issue California winter winding-clothes triggering Seasonal [...]
Garden Before The Move by Jean C. Howard
Like an old movie, sepia tone soaking through light falling frame by frame, slow death rattling across the pavers, Or even flashing birth—forecasting shadow as well as [...]
Miscreants and Family by Len Kuntz
Mom is still in bed at noon The cats traipse across the sink like tight rope walkers. My friends never come over anymore and that’s just as well. I blink as shooting stars [...]
Vending Machine Press Issue #13
Photo by: Johannes Huwe The very fine writers for issue 13 are: A Milton Bradley Game by Hilary Sideris Radio Truth by Ashlie Allen Walking Home From My Fathers [...]
A Milton Bradley Game by Hilary Sideris
The object, for a girl eight to fourteen, is to be ready, to swoon if he’s a dream, recoil if he’s creepy, having acquired three color-coded cards, assembled an outfit to [...]
here is a list of things you left behind by Alison Leigh Znamierowski
10) purple clovers plucked & siphoned by hungry mouths on summer walks, discarded into roadside fields 9) a missing brick or, an empty space in the wall next to the [...]
Six Poems by Aaron Graham
THE BOOTS ON THE GROUND The boots on the ground aren’t boots they’re packs of young men roaming streets eternal out-of-towners in combat patrols come to see the [...]
Vending Machine Press 