helen picard

Two Poems by Helen Picard

Rusty Rood From the second floor window, the red roof of the house next door reflected A strange, rusty glow at twilight. In the summer, bugs would be caught in the purgatory [...]

February 1, 2015

Take as Directed by Thomas Kearnes

August 1, 2015

Greg wants to quit the Effexor. He washes up for bed in the bathroom. I’m already under the covers, seated against the [...]
Sounds of Home by John Talbird

June 20, 2017

He’ll never go back. John’s twenty-four and independent and has no desire to speak to his parents ever again. There’s [...]
church tit-mouse witch and other poems by Jacklyn Janeksela

February 21, 2017

so easy to call them chicken bones & even easier to read them should the weather be just right, clank a bell or a chime [...]
Two Poems by Leisha Douglas

March 19, 2016

WAITING Dogwood buds like tiny fists defy gray skies and leafless trees. Amid the pallor of necessary fire, I wait curled [...]
In Which All of My White Ex-Boyfriends Simultaneously Run For President by Khaya Osbourne

May 29, 2017

the careless whisper, soft pair of lips, hushed ‘i love you’ that you threw into the night comes back to your [...]
Two Poems by John Stupp

March 19, 2016

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 [...]
Vending Machine Press Issue #6

October 1, 2014

Dear Readers, Welcome to the new issue of Vending Machine Press. We would to thank everyone in the writing community for [...]
Vending Machine Press Issue #12

November 1, 2015

Photo by: Johannes Huwe The very fine writers for issue 12 are: Two Poems by Michelle Brooks At Least by Jennifer Saunders [...]
On The Lace Lichen Trail She Mourns A Tree After A Week Of Storms by Lisa Meckel

December 10, 2016

Off the trail, another great pine massacred by wind and rain. This great gray-chested body felled, no longer a giant against [...]
Sea Shanties by Alicia Bones

August 14, 2017

1. Couple years ago, I bought a boiled crab off a man on the pier. I’d just started eating it when someone shouted, [...]
Untitled #3 by Mike Lafontaine

June 1, 2014

My father appeared to me in a dream last night. I was walking down the street in my old neighbourhood. I was looking at my [...]
Planting Flowers and other poems by Paul Wiegel

February 20, 2017

Each one blooms a beginning. They look like white teacup tops, or like a lobes of the brain with all those tucks and folds [...]