Thirty Things a Poet Should Know      

you will pay for your coffee
no hat is right for every occasion
when you hear a bird call, give it a name
cows kills more people each year than sharks do
few can name the sixty-some English names for pink
death does not rhyme with health, but wealth rhymes with stealth
many writers composed their best work during pandemics
when your read a poem, your audience may think bear foot when you say barefoot
one of the greatest poets wrote an ode to salt
the world’s largest salt mine is 1,800 feet under Lake Huron
tears evaporate unless you catch them
when praise is needed, do not hesitate
embrace yourself as both title and footnote
learn from the wind’s scansion of a noble fir in a squall

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Confluence

The cowboy entered on a gray horse. Wearing a white Stetson,
with tan hands, and tight jeans. He rode up to a Walmart
in Eagle Point, Oregon to buy dog food. He heard
a woman scream, pointing to a young man riding off
on her bike. The cowboy cantered after the bike thief,
threw his lasso, brought the kid down, tied him
to a tree and called a policeman who thought
the capture was totally slick.

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Impossible Sunrise

As if this city, composed of skeletal pink coral, arose from the basin of a dried-out ocean swept by desert-spanning wind and now echoes through my sleeplessness again, a speechlessness ripped apart by joyriding motorcycles.

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Well of Souls

Robert Walton is a retired middle school teacher and a lifelong rock climber with many ascents in the Sierras and Pinnacles National Park. His publishing credits include works of science fiction, fantasy and poetry. Walton’s historical novel Dawn Drums won the 2014 New Mexico Book Awards Tony Hillerman Prize for best fiction and first place […]

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Horses

Horses I know about the wild horses in your head. Your skin, that sings with the sandstorm of their manes. My pulse also gallops with their racing. The grasslands of my soul have been swept flat with the winds wept by their tails. My heart has been worn ragged by their hooves and I can […]

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To Be Precise

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, South Carolina Review, Stillwater Review, and Big Muddy Review with work upcoming in Louisiana Review, Cape Rock, and Spoon River Poetry Review. To Be Precise it occurs to me as I watch you sleeping how you are the result of an […]

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Order Up: Memoirs of a Waitress

So, today—well, it’s like everyday, but sometimes more connective than others. A small sea of tables wait quietly and orderly in the dining room. Glinting glassware waiting to be filled. Empty tables waiting for me to wait. Every newly seated table is a microcosm, a little world unto itself. Walking up is a quick study’s […]

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