by Karen Shepherd Through open doors, a waft has found an in,an entry point, a path to hidden roomsabandoned years ago. The air, so stale,holds sleeping ghosts that hang from ceiling beamsadorned with words and webs and dried bouquets.It’s not the breeze that makes them gently sway.A restlessness has been here, waiting. Lightwas needed to be shed, to break the Read More
Tag: poetry
Broken Thoughts
by Robin Ray Broken thoughts, spiraled conflicts,marriages sealed by shotgun flares, stiletto banjoes. These shoulders are trampolines. Strike and be stricken,the tallyman says. [The future might be brighter than I thought after all.] Celeste, I can’t find my slippers anymore, and there’s a boy outside, said he remembers you from a chalet in Aspen. Didn’t tip Read More
Best of the Net 2019 Nominations
Today we announce our Best of the Net 2019 Nominations. For those unfamiliar, Sundress Publications produces an annual Best of the Net Anthology to showcase online work. Submissions for the anthology, however, must come from the online publication that first shared the work online. In addition, for the 2019 anthology, the work must have appeared between July 1, 2018 and Read More
why
by Paul Robert Mullen doyou make somethingthat should feel like lovefeel like war? stretched across vast continentsmy iPhone vibrates as cities rock back and forthlike babiesin the palms of mountain ranges Paul Robert Mullen is a poet, musician and sociable loner from Liverpool, U.K. He has three published poetry collections: curse this blue raincoat (2017), testimony (2018), and Read More
Searching for Virginia
by Monica Kagan Slipping between the stones,I search for words clamped to rocks like leeches.One by one they fall and float away. Sagging into the water – she calls.Her voice penetrates my skin.Her tongue coils around my lungs. In the depths of my consciousness,thoughts splinter like a shattered vase.I lurch forward. Limbs numb,seaweed shrouds my body.Her echoes surround me. Searching Read More
For Thieves and Travelers
by Karen Shepherd Give the traveler bright moonlight but give the thief darkness. Mtembezi mpe mwezi, mpe kiza mwizi.– Swahili Proverb To thieves, give darkness. Strip the sky of stars,obstruct the paths with webs of maple roots.Hang thorny vines from broken limbs to creakin winds. Allow no safeguards in this night. Detect the hurried clamber, running farwith our character hidden Read More
Ananda
by Robin Ray Ananda, it’s been snowing since you hand-delivered your toasted envelope of admiration, erroneous sentence for inadequate leanings through corporate transfer of isolation laying behind you.Benign guilt in powdery form, hybridizing tulips with marbled sketch books, encourages fogs of sobriety, illusions of masculinity.Upon waking, you’re hard as petrified anger; ambition – baked in a half shell, your spine-cruising Read More
The Sky Is Also Blue
by Toni G. There’s a young lady in the corner, not so far from the dance floor, lost in the fantasy of what her first dance should be like and with whom. She waits with her head slightly bowed. Insecurity creates beads of sweat on her perfectly scrubbed and powdered skin. She looks down pretending to admire her new gown, Read More
Hate
by Alison McBain I used to say hate to people, objects possessions the dispossessing fragments of creativity changing sediments layers of years one by one pressed down upon one but most things are not bloody two-shoes flickers, horror movies ultimate the end most things are not to be hated most things lead perfect, pleasant tick-tock shelf-lives unseen unmoved unmoving not Read More
At the grave of your death, I smile
by Elisabeth Horan For why not; God’s been joking with us All the while; He whispers placation In our ears, plants lust for the sinner’s Alcoholic slide, leaves dust where a Mother, her child, she should find. My loss, and melancholy, were it not For our friendship, would be funny, Really, I laugh at the nose of death – Pointy Read More