Cliff Saunders has an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Arizona. His poems have appeared recently in The Wayne Literary Review, Pedestal Magazine, Wilderness House Literary Review, Pinyon, San Pedro River Review, North of Oxford, and RipRap Literary Journal. He lives in Myrtle Beach, where he serves as co-coordinator of The Litchfield Tea […]
Read more "The Strongest Love"End-of-August Misgivings of the Old Woman Jealous of the First Grader’s New School Shoes the sign down the road – do not pick blackberries – yellow jackets our final peach pie pits and skins swarming with flies a sketch of bird song in a failing tree broken fence railings dry foxglove seed silent rocks in […]
Read more "End-of-August Misgivings of the Old Woman Jealous of the First Grader’s New School Shoes"Kort Ploshay grew up with a telephone party line, the local library, a slide rule (a slight improvement over the abacus) and the US Post Office for communication. Now he designs cutting edge enterprise software solutions for the United States Army. Kort was an active Bard from 1963 through 1975, singing folk songs, writing and […]
Read more "An Occasional Waltz"Eve Taft is a writer who lives in Minneapolis. She loves James Joyce, rainy days, and stories about magic. between the lake and the mountain for Doug Green when the wind comes, as it always does the old house shakes, shivers sheets of rain hurl against it unconcerned, the walls and windows settle looking over […]
Read more "between the lake and the mountain"The Darkening Summer’s fruit is rotting. I will use it to fertilize my seeds. When the world terrorizes me, I will hold up the mirror & ask: How do I terrorize myself? My path is strewn with bones. I will make a flute to play! Is magic, then, all in your head? wondered the initiate. […]
Read more "The Darkening"This is the last in a series of three installments for Visitant featuring collaborative works from poet Dennis R. Kolakowski and artists Bruce Pipman and Charles W. “Bud” Gibbons, III. Biographies and back story below. No Creek Up Here Every beer I ever swallowed has been a fair investment in this moment, but Lord what I wouldn’t give right now […]
Read more "No Creek Up Here"My husband explains harmonics to my mother. She keeps mishearing him and he repeats himself. Several vodkas make him patient. “It’s more complex, but at the same time, mellow,” he says, laying his hands on the Wurlitzer. My mother, with chess pieces in her hair, in her pajamas, in the autumn of her life. This […]
Read more "You’re Not Just Seeing Things"after Adrienne Rich fox danced between me and the very still water headed north past geese and white-beaked birds leaving V’s in the water, far from the cocker spaniel five minutes before or lighted towers brightening our left sides as we risky walked beneath darker skies, I felt the opaque absence of fear for her […]
Read more "a standing still"I get Seasonal Affective Disorder every year. It usually sets in around November, but I’ve made it to December without much struggle before. It’s right on time this year. The switch from Daylight Savings hasn’t helped either. Now, when I get home from work, it’s already dark. I don’t feel any motivation to forage because […]
Read more "Honey Mushrooms"I spent last October rafting down the Rogue River in southern Oregon for four days and three nights with my boyfriend and a handful of his whitewater-loving friends. I had never been on a raft before the trip, and the experience was euphoric, tranquil, otherworldly. It was like a mission to the moon. We were […]
Read more "Rafting the Rogue in October"