Archive for Other

  1. THE STILLED WHEEL • by Jeff Jeppesen 1 Comment

     
    In a park in a Russian town,
    close to where an accident happened, stands
    a Ferris wheel that has not turned in many years.
    Candy colored paint is flaking but still bright.
    Most of the wheel’s hundreds of bulbs are unbroken
    though unlit.
    A park like this should never be so quiet.
    And despite what you may have heard, when the sun [...]

    Other

  2. WHEN FIRE TURNS TO ICE • by J. Clayton L. Jones 2 Comments

    I remember the Frost poem, the anecdote about
    when the astronomy professor came up to him
        at the faculty mixer, he in his awkwardness trying
    desperately to make conversation: Al Gore on 30 Rock
               smoking cigarettes without filters in the southland where it
                       never gets this cold or during the winter we’ve never sweat
              frozen bullets before [...]

    Other

  3. TURN • by derenz 6 Comments

     
    in autumn,
    where foot-fall
    and hoof-fall
    once dented the soil,
    a verge is moulded
    by the tread of tyres
    destined
    to be squeezed
    between vessels
    of steel and trestles
    of wood.
     
    A fortress of crates
    attend at a gate,
    as a mechanical
    harvester -
    with skirts and belts
    that shoogle
    and sort -
    grubs spuds
    from shawless
    plants, where
    tattie-howkers
    once finger-picked
    stents, joked
    and sang, ran
    from the man
    from the buroo,
    ignored sore
    backs, and earth
    caked skin,
    to heave themselves
    and their spoils,
    up [...]

    Other

  4. BED OF TEARS • by Amy Corbin 19 Comments

     
    I had always been afraid of what giving me “something 
    to cry about” would feel like.  Like soap wedged between  
    clenched teeth wasn’t a good enough reason.  Reason could  
    have been his belt.  Belt thrashing my scrawny legs.  
     
    It was true what he’d said about pain. Pain was seeing
    that note on the door “evicted”.  Evicted [...]

    Other, Relationships

  5. MY SKINNY EXOTIC DANCER • by Christie Isler 8 Comments

    Feathers.
    Fine overlapping scales
    of dust
    except edges
    where light flashes
    tinsel
    turquoise threads and
    gaudy neon
    jerking on a
    chicken head string.

    Just as brown
    is earthen,
    delicate brushstrokes
    of an exotic hand
    casts
    each fan an
    unearthly dancer,
    a painted bird
    on humble field,
    until the stage light
    looses shades once green,
    now blue-cum-violet
    and the bird head bob
    emerges
    the flirtatious dance
    of a fancy chicken.

    But who would scribe
    this poem
    on poultry
    when verse is
    the river rearranging
    stones like typeface
    on [...]

    Other

  6. DISTANT WAVELENGTHS • by Magdalen 6 Comments

    Gamma’s radio only plays
    oldies, and it’s tough to tune
    it in. Static sizzles between
    entwined stations, while the
    receiver thrums on the fringe
    of monotony.
     
    Late at night, when she’s all
    but forgotten me, I listen
    to music from the Dead or
    burnt-out stars, and riff on
    squelched tears in the dark,
    dark matter of my heart.
     
    Gamma’s radio only works
    in short bursts of [...]

    Other

  7. FIBONACCI PAEAN • by William Dexter Wade 17 Comments

     
    I
    stand
    amazed
    beside my
    youngest granddaughter
    and step back to look up at her
    fourteen very short years after
    I felt her first breaths
     resting so
    very
    small
    in
     the
    arms
    of a
    grandfather
    who did not dream that
    one day soon she would jump higher
    than he stands, watching, filled with pride
    as she gracefully
    arches back
    above
    the
    bar
     

    William Dexter Wade is a Senior Scholar in linguistics. Turning to fiction in retirement, he has published two [...]

    FIB, Other

  8. GEORGE #3 • by Nick Weingartner 2 Comments

    I wonder if you were happy when you died
    you seemed so calm all the time
    But, in reality, I don’t know a damned thing about you,
    No matter how much I read, watch and try to distinguish
    To me all you are is an assembly of 0’s and 1’s,
    And a pixelated face.

    Nick Weingartner is an [...]

    Other

  9. TALKING TO DEAD POETS • by by Michelle Lin 10 Comments

    Teach me to die
    with one eye open, the pupil
    a peephole—
    a pit to swallow the world

    Michelle Lin is a creative writing student at University of California, Riverside. Despite her family’s wishes for her to become a lawyer, she fell in love with poetry at a young age and pursued it ever since. She lives in Torrance, California [...]

    Other

  10. SNAPSHOTS • by Jeff Jeppesen 7 Comments

     
    We’re riding a crowded bus to escape the rain.
    I tell him I’ve used my Olympus thirty-five to capture
    a nice landscape; a far off oil derrick
    in silhouette against a sunset in a field of scrub.
    And with my zoom, I get sharp close-ups of my daughter.
    We lurch and rock in the sticky vinyl seat.
    My friend the photo-journalist [...]

    Other

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