suicide
paula’s weak moment
leaving me early
sad lonely feeling
nightly she returns
softly whispering
her lost love
still in my heart
bliss
alone in library
empty used bookstore
roaming shelves
sacred experience
like attending church
feeling hopeful promise
quietly turning pages
becoming dreamer again
freedom
waking to birdsong
before first light
building small fire
boiling water from stream
instant coffee
oats in tin cup
ready for journey
picking way over deadfall
brushing aside cobwebs
escaping...
J. Ross Archer
The blinking red, white, and blue lights I saw in my rear-view mirror startled me. Daydreaming, I must have not been paying attention to how fast I was driving. I pulled over and waited for the officer to approach my car. I knew to be aware of...
Jessica Bergquist
I wonder how this looks, but I don’t wonder long enough to stop myself from walking in the door. I am faintly aware of the story that the tears in my black dress tells everyone around me, but I still open the door. It’s the first time I’ve...
Nikita Parik
Caked in mud
caged in faith
prayers keep me alive
108 names but
I recognize none
(“Devi 2.0”)
The binaries of personal and public must be subverted when seemingly personal concerns voiced through personal expressions transcend to achieve a universality of sorts. In her debut poetry book, Apostrophe, Barnali Ray Shukla’s versification of seemingly...
THE MAGIC OF STILLNESS AND THE CHAOTIC
Some people, lost souls,
caught in the absurdity of noise,
create magical stillness
out of the chaotic
outwitting comprehension.
Other lost souls,
caught in the absurdity of silence,
create the chaotic
out of magical stillness
sidestepping incomprehension.
I, confused by both noise and silence,
adoring absurdity yet not knowing
which is more magical
or comprehensible,
stillness or...
Anthony Ilacqua
The soda burned my nose a little. I took half the bottle in one swallow anyway. “I want to see the glass blowers,” Jill said.
I pulled the soda bottle away from the face. “The air feels good here,” I said. The clouds over the ocean were rolling in...
They Won’t Forget to Pray
(verses in response to “So Long Marianne”)
In the night,
you asked for silence
to speak to angels
for Marianne, for Marianne.
You opened your lips
and dry as they were still breathed
the confession of stillness.
Darkness approached as you addressed
love in its trembling thoughts.
I can’t hear your voice.
It is quiet and...
Love-Child
Hugging his belly against my womb
He chimes exuberance galore
Through the placenta of my soul
And chase my hum in a strum
Like a frisking fawn
With melodies stacked
Under a banished bay
Drenched in kaleidoscopic notes
We gather them with bare hands
To compose the sky mottled gray
Like a charismatic vowel
Dilating a barren consonant
He conducts
In return,...
TRIATHLON
Jane was in Vancouver one day and she stood
at the window and saw a woman crawling out
of the sea. The woman started running really
fast on the beach until she reached a bicycle
and then she hopped on it and kept going.
“Wow!” Jane said, “I just saw the evolution
of mankind in...
POTPOURRI
1.
The other day
When we became very political,
We flagged our posts;
After the sabbath,
We put hashtags
On our souls.
2.
We survived like tramlines in the city,
Some parts remained,
Some tracks gone,
Some lines forgotten,
Some kept like tradition.
3.
That plectrum which you held
Between your fingers
And with which you awakened
Fire and ice,
Found that under the mattress,
And you told...
Distant Thunder
I. Monster Mash
My sister noticed first:
“You walk like an old lady.”
I was forty-six, but she was right.
I could not, would not, see.
One day on the beach in Hermosa,
walking along the shore,
I stopped and looked back.
The sea tried to hide the evidence
but I was too quick:
step slide, step slide,...
The Evolution of Female Characters in Fantasy fiction: A Comparison between Indian and Western Authors
Writa Bhattacharjee -
Writa Bhattacharjee
Fantasy fiction is one of the fastest growing genres in Indian popular culture today. Spurred by access to international books and media, as well as the rise of a new breed of authors, fantasy has been rising in popularity over the last couple of decades. But what exactly...