A Boxer’s Bell Arty was born in the coal mines, hands blackened by the hardness of a coal miner’s life, a tough guy who learned how to street fight. Like a boxer, he took a boxing stance at the sound of the bell, any bell—even a cowbell or a school bell. He threw left hooks […]
Read more "A Boxer’s Bell"23 collected like sweater thread into his script floor gathers elephant trunk smolder knot at the neck and fissure what was discovered not a skeleton key but skeletal completed over the length of a conversation about spouses the weight of the wool is still there though our language is not pictorial but this is one […]
Read more "In The Orchard | 23"Nature is Calling Grass of mysterious light, Do you become dry from lack of love? Nature has this bearing on all of us, Take out a white paper. Draw the red cardinal bird Singing wet songs for your neighbors. Purple lilacs left a trace of dry dirt But for once They were alive with love […]
Read more "Nature is Calling"Permeating with Cockroaches the bathtub water runs constantly but only cold now, the cockroaches scurry, a Make America Great Again inspired nationalism pride parade, crossing the Atlantic, in lonely plastic bottles wrapped in corporate ad slogans and drifting hate, a last call to: a last stop in: Morocco Albania Ghana Argentina, suicide seems like an […]
Read more "Permeating with Cockroaches"The Middle Verses the past bleeds, a black river the future stretches out, a winding sheet, and all that lies in the sun bears witness to the soft vowels of the earth the sky is a radiant flower a camellia rain falls like petals like broken bones chasms open mountains echo a lost word in […]
Read more "The Middle Verses"Naming of Parts After Henry Reed Spring eased the almond blossoms open and promises of cherries while we named parts left over from winter. Collusion. Taking away, reducing, throwing in the trash legal widgets that keep the water pure, air open to the cherry’s pollen flight. We named parts with words round to our tongues, […]
Read more "Naming of Parts"Eulogy, Old Pine This plank in my hand feels warm. My fingers, cold. I am alone in my wood shop with pieces of a working class tree who was sticky and rough, who could be prickly when pushed, who whistled, who drank only rain, who manufactured cones at prodigious rate, who sheltered the nesting owl, […]
Read more "Eulogy, Old Pine"Overnight Mom’s short-term memory no longer tethers one moment to the next, so I’m at the hospital to stay overnight with her following breast cancer surgery. Though she still has moorings in the distant past, recent events float quickly to a further shore, so my job is to keep retying her to a drifting present. […]
Read more "Overnight"Andreas Block is a young transfeminine writer based in the Chicagoland area, pursuing a BA in Creative Writing at Beloit College. They enjoy exploring a wide range of genres in their writing, from poetry to sketch comedy. They are also a performer, having acted in a number of theater productions throughout their collegiate career. Kid Pat Have […]
Read more "Kid Pat"21 flesh color absence lineation and left alone in favor of foliage clogging foreground my inaccuracies never become forests like this winter helps the artist covet sky less it’s honest a gray third call it good Justin Runge is the author of Plainsight (New Michigan Press, 2012) and Hum Decode (Greying Ghost Press, 2014). […]
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