by Lisa Reily a blur of trees, branches thick with snow,bent with the weight of white. chocolate mud as we step from the businto a flurry of snowflakes,skidding our way to the café, passing fat stray dogswho know the food is bad enoughthat scraps are on their way. back on the bus to eat sesame bars,to sip hot coffee from Read More
Tag: memory
Visitation
by Tiffany Belieu Rainfall of tires on asphalt. Subconsciously,a count begins, un-mourned graveson the side of the highway. Guts the consequence of quickness.Creatures who leapwithout looking, spindly leg blown glass fragile, mar the pristinemourning gown of our drive time.Tragedy is an unfolded map in lap en route to an open casket.Lilies, a dozen ghost brides trumpetingmournfully from the backseat. In Read More
Winter Olympics
by Ashly Curtis My best friend and I ice skated on the kitchen floor,twirling off wooden chairs, gliding across tilein our pink ruffled socks. Salchows, Lutzes, evena rare triple axel or two. It was 1998. Olympic season.We held up handmade signs in the living room,blocky marker letters cheering on the figure skaters;Tara Lipinski etching beauty with her blades, carvingballerina. My Read More
Rock Paintings (2)
by Don Thompson Oblivion carries out its briefagainst color, relentlesslyturning the past pewter or dunso that once vivid eventscome back to us insipid,wrapped in spider silkand sucked empty. Yokuts memories are shards, basketstattered like abandoned bird nests—grave robbers’ leavings. But some murals must endure,sequestered in caverns no one ever found,unfading chalk and graphite pigments,cinnabar and volcanic ochre yellowimported from the Read More
Seers
by Narmadhaa Sivaraja They observe,from the sidelinesbehind human boundariesmutely. Ghosts of past,felled by hunters,now shed skins, peeling,naturally. Wheels pass by,not unlike time,in twos, threes, and sixes—boundless. Fiercely defiant,owners of the land,masked in ashen white—eucalypti. Narmadhaa (or N) writes haiku, free verse, opinion articles, and flash fiction on The Chaos Within. N has a self-published travel haiku collection on Amazon Kindle, Read More
Relevant Elephant
by Pax Morrigan Picture yourself on a steppe cast in starlight withElephants gathering round the bone pitSaying goodbye to old matriarch Amba whoLed them courageously, brimming with grit Time repossesses her pachyderm carapaceTaking the ele and letting the phantOut of the bag to rove omnidirectionalHaunting all continents, ghost gallivant Waltzing through air on a jumbo safari sheArdently travels on slipstreams Read More
My Grandpa Knew Mr. Parkinson
by Bojana Stojcic “Let me help you, Grandfather,” said a voice to the old man as he stumbled walking away from the table. Grandpa nodded back, put on his hat he wore with style and, with a profound mistrust of anything new, left the room, unsure about where they had met. “Even elephants forget,” Grandpa joked. What he didn’t see Read More
Squirrels
by B F Jones Squirrels. Rendered malevolent by the distortion of a cubist dream. A murky forest, somewhat tilted, humidity emanating from the ground, dark trees towering above. And the squirrels. Their rustling. Their twitchy accusing stare, ridding me of sleep. Night after night, trying to understand the sudden fear, trying to remember. – Those squirrels, do they do Read More
The Last Waltz
by Steven John We found each other late in life, in the most fateful way. Two lonely people. Paths crossed. ‘The Last Waltz’ she called us. I’d meet her off the train once a month. We’d go to the station hotel for tea and toast to settle jittery tummies. I carried something stronger in a hipflask but she never needed Read More
Paragraphiti On The Cusp Of Living With Olives
by Gerard Sarnat You walk into the room With your pencil in your hand You see somebody naked And you say, “Who is that man?” You try so hard But you don’t understand Just what you’ll say When you get home.– Bob Dylan, Ballad Of A Thin Man i. I don’t remember when The Pilgrim’spork pie hat & suit bobbed Read More