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Open Ending
by Renz Chester R. Gumaru We look and stare, Pretend that we don't care. Hearts start to race, But we hide the trace. Words stay inside, Feelings we set aside. Almost, but not yet. A love we won’t forget. No start, no goodbye. Just you and I. Smiles still sending, Our sweet open ending.
Renz Chester R. Gumaru
Jan 1
Things
by Roksolana Zharkova I will remember you Even after memory loss, Losing you like a sandal off my foot in very tall grass, like an earring from my left ear when I was little, like a panama hat from my head in a strong wind from the sea, like the letters of a language I didn't learn at school, like the streets of a city I've never been to, like the suitcase I happily carried, like an umbrella (I often lost umbrellas I left them on buses or at bus stops, on park benches, in the
Roksolana Zharkova
Dec 18, 2025
Heads or Tails
by Kersten Christianson Another summer road trip and she was off the island like a chickadee in flight. Winters were for clam digging by lantern, gathering, steaming, chowdering of bivalves; whereas summers were for pickle hunting, parachuting into one Saturday market, or another, searching for the best, magic dill pickles jarred by hand, proffered by cornichon connoisseurs. Saturday markets sparkle like a campfire. Iridescent bubbles drift on the warm winds, flutter around s
Lynn Peterson
Dec 17, 2025
Three Poems by Ibrar Sami
by Ibrar Sami Return The city is strewn with bodies, Just now, a few return alive. At the bus stand, a guest was supposed to arrive, Instead, a famished soul has brought the news. The stray dogs on the street, halted in their unadulterated mating rituals, stand frozen in their tracks. To uncover the truth behind the veil, with paralyzed consciences, every single scoundrel has lined up in waiting. Suddenly, a stranger, carrying a fiery blaze within his chest, stands at the cro
Ibrar Sami
Dec 15, 2025
Three Poems by Erica Swallow
by Erica Swallow Contented Cat Lady I don’t need to tell you That you make My mornings bright My afternoons light And my evenings just right. Tucked under my arm While I sip tea and read. On my desk, While I write. At my feet, While I sleep. You are the best companion. Without words, We know. Slow blinks, Low purrs. And just like you are the lioness of this manor, I am your tiger mom, Hunting canned fish and chicken goop sticks Like it's my god-given life purpose. And
Erica Swallow
Dec 14, 2025
Two Poems by Doug Tanoury
by Doug Tanoury Hudson River Day Line I would walk to the river in the morning To watch the sunrise In the early days after I left her For no reason other than — I Could! And every personal choice I made Conferred some dignity on me. The sunlight on the blue water paved A golden path to each new day, And I listened to the soft respiration Of the river, the sleepy, quiet sounds On a summer morning That I alone heard. The Redness of the Morning Light It was an ocherous sunrise,
Doug Tanoury
Dec 10, 2025
Two Poems by Esther Sadoff
by Esther Sadoff Moving Past I am moving past demarcation. I am moving past dates. I keep trying to close containers, to close each door, the last page of a book, but the leaves won’t stop curling, won’t stop blackening. The bed of flowers collapses: bright bulbs, bigger than my fists—soft implosions. Sudden pillage I can’t ignore. In School I Learned To Knit I assigned it to muscle memory. I could knit the air the same way. I played piano on any silent surface, moving my fin
Esther Sadoff
Dec 9, 2025
Two Poems by K. Lipschutz
by K. Lipschutz Poem for Roberto Bolaño, Boscoe and Me Death’s cheek he brushed, did he, the Latin American poet? I brushed my sleek black cat. Lucky boy, my sleepy friend, who doesn’t know about his late-stage cardiomyopathy as we brush cheeks or any other time. The Latin American died waiting on a transplant. Fame inched closer as his organ failed. My cat is blinking, he is waiting too, to hear the lines that will eclipse the lines that Kit Smart wrote for Jeoffry. We s
K. Lipschutz
Dec 4, 2025
Three Poems by Vivian Faith Prescott
by Vivian Faith Prescott What To Do If You Crave Fish Tacos? 1. Wake up in the 4:00 a.m. daylight. 2. You’ve packed your go-fish bag the night before— notebook, pen, snacks. Don’t forget the herring bait. 3. You and your husband and dogs load up the boat at the nearby harbor. 4. Decide on salmon or halibut before you go—halibut it is. 5. Your father’s been gone-fishin’ in the spirit world for 6 months now, so head to his favorite bay. 6. At the halibut hole, jig and jig to th
Vivian Faith Prescott
Dec 3, 2025
Marzipan
by Diane Funston The pastry held no visual memory. Round, flat, sugar-iced, upheld on a crystal platform, cut into rustic triangles, dessert after literary repast. After the first taste, memories melted as a moist dense almond filling from the flaky butter shell broke, sugar coating cracked, mixed together, like old photographs in a newly unstuck drawer. After the third sneaky slice, I was lost in grandmothers kitchen, at my old vinyl upholstered chair, coffee time in late af
Diane Funston
Dec 1, 2025
Three Poems by Sumayya Arshed
by Sumayya Arshed Morning Nihari the pot opens at dawn, red rivers of spice thickening with bone marrow, steam rising like a sermon, coating the kitchen walls in devotion. bread balloons on the griddle, each tear of naan a covenant, and my mothers hand dips first, steady, practiced, into the stew. the broth carries fragmented echoes of empire, remnants of the alleys of lahore, where nihari is medicine, memory, and morning all at once. ginger slivers gleam like sunlit scyt
Sumayya Arshed
Nov 27, 2025
Food TV Fantasia
by Giuseppe Farina Each morning espresso or cappuccino at historic chic cafe’s in rome, milan, venice and florence Under a rising Mediterranean sun At noon Ligurian olives, kissed with extra virgin oil Prosciutto di parma Pasta made by milanese hands Tuscan wine in murano goblets Bocconcini di bufala and basilico Al fresco beneath a Mediterranean mezzogiorno Vistas of dream cities in background Evenings Are slow passeggiatas Arm in arm Along ancien
Giuseppe Farina
Nov 26, 2025
The Barista
by Heaven Santiago She tamps to tame her temper, tampering with silver tools on dull, dead, decaffeinated mornings. She pulls dreadful all-nighters, sticks tricks up her sleeves, and can pull a strong shot of espresso. She takes in vicious insults like barrages of boxing combos or lime-brimmed shots of vodka. She soaks in her rage, to compact like a puck—like a machine would a strong shot of espresso. She yearns to break past some scumbag’s dry advances; The sly try to trespa
Heaven Santiago
Nov 24, 2025
My Mother's Table
by Giuseppe Farina i kept my mothers' kitchen table eight chairs long, solid wood large enough to hold a feast of plates and all of us to sit around sharing food and lives she made bread upon it, sometimes twice a week and Sicilian sweets none of us could duplicate even with her recipes found handwritten in her Sicilian slanted script if i had been born the daughter she had always yearned for could i have learned her secrets, memorized her hands as they mixed, kneaded and bak
Giuseppe Farina
Nov 20, 2025
Monster Cookies
by Kristen Baum DeBeasi For Flossie winter’s day — you will not leave my mind all afternoon four years before, I keep your house, my weekend job: face cloths all folded the same direction for your gnarled hands upstairs, houseflies buzz their last, then fall silent in the closet, your shoes right heel inches higher than the left under the eaves, your teacher’s certificate sits yellowed in its frame in autumn, before I leave for college you set out lunch we talk and eat, you s
Catalina Bonati
Nov 12, 2025
Two Poems by Martha Clarkson
by Martha Clarkson The Last View Teenager, trying to fall asleep I worried my father would die driving home drunk, crash into the big oak along the speedy median and I’d be stuck with my mother. But when the time came at 94 it was just an undramatic fade huge oxygen tank heaving by the bed, my stepmother asleep on the living room pull-out. I paced the assisted-living halls wandered into in a game room where we’d once played bridge felt-covered card table the thrill of a six-h
Martha Clarkson
Nov 10, 2025
Incursion on Filet Mignon
by Bryan Franco After he cut off a charred edge of steak: before he bit the first bite, he impaled the steak with a steak knife, which stood at a perfect ninety-degree angle perpendicular to the steak. He imagined himself a Viking on a pillage. The steak was a sentry to a castle he breached. The knife was a sword that had last belonged to his great-uncle. He swiped the sliver of charred meat into au jus pooling in the plate then dipped it into mashed potatoes peppered with bl
Bryan Franco
Nov 5, 2025
Sugar Momma
by Stephen Siciliano Apricot blossom and Spicy Rose Mint champagne through Your heart It flows. Coffee smoke comes a whisperin’ up. Let me drink from that Lovin’ Cup. Been Skipping down a Peppermint Mile waitin’ on your Vanilla Smile. Keepin’ an eye on your Butterscotch Clock touchin’ my lips to a Candy Apple Rock. Darlin' let me taste some more of them flavors you keep in that Sensations Store That Hickory Whiskey over Black Cherry Ice Chocolate Raisins and Cinnamon Rice Str
Stephen Siciliano
Oct 29, 2025
Passing it Down
by Donna Faulkner Roast beef in dripping. Baby peas backstroke in a gravy moat, avalanche down mash spud mountain. Yorkshire puddings - play fat aristocrat. Dinner at Nans chef's kiss.
Donna Faulkner
Oct 28, 2025
Chaos Was A Blue Cat
by Irene Cunningham the woman I saw within her had pale blue hair with electric highlights. She could nestle in cloud under the moon… in fact it appeared sometimes there were great grey wings puffing around her, camouflaging her nakedness. No one knows what she got up to on those nights amongst rooftops and spires, and mornings after the short disappearances, she’d sit facing walls, tail wrapped around her paws probably re-living reckless raving—I should’ve called her Harpy.
Irene Cunningham
Oct 26, 2025
Articles
The Morning It Started
by Elizabeta Žargi That summer I was travelling through Europe on an Interrail ticket — a month of trains and no fixed schedule beyond a language course waiting in Ljubljana. I had already spent a week in Malmö, made a delayed stop in Hamburg after sleeping through it once, then gone down to Geneva to visit Milena. Eventually I returned to Vienna, where I was staying with Gregor and Sandy. They were also planning to attend the course in Slovenia. I was meant to leave on the 2
Elizabeta Žargi
Apr 5
Dreaming of Kalbarri
by Meredith Stephens “Wake up! If we don’t get going now it will be too hot!” urged my fiance Alex. I couldn’t understand why we had to leave for Kalbarri National Park at 5:30am in darkness. Was it really going to get that hot? We quickly arose and headed to the car for the long drive. By the time we arrived, the day was breaking and we were among the first tourists to arrive at the famed Nature’s Window. We made our way along the trail to the window where international tour
Meredith Stephens
Nov 2, 2025
Between Two Skies: An Egyptian Heart in Albany
by Walid Abdallah When I first arrived in Albany, New York, in the winter of 2014, I felt as if I had stepped into a painting. The air...
Walid Abdallah
Oct 13, 2025
Reviews
Agnes, We're Not Murderers! Book Review
by Catalina Bonati 2/5 stars ★★☆☆☆ Agnes, We’re Not Murderers! by Jessica Alexander (to be published June 16, 2026) is a short, experimental novel about the spectre of Mary and her haunting of Agnes, a manor, a convent, and an inn. It takes place in an ambiguous Gothic European setting. The book is written in an experimental form that takes its inspiration from Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves. Some of the text is written in red rather than black, and there are footnotes
Catalina Bonati
May 14
The Story Eaters of Yamm Book Review
by Catalina Bonati 2.5/ 5 stars ★ ★ ⯪ ☆ ☆ The Story Eaters of Yamm by Kevin Hincker (to be published 17 June 2026) tells the story of Larry Palczewski, a struggling science fiction writer living at home with his mother. Larry becomes involved with Sky Company, a business urgently hiring science fiction writers to address imagined scenarios of alien invasion. He becomes the leader of the Alien Invasion Cohort, and their inanity provides humor for most of the story. At home, hi
Catalina Bonati
May 12
Our Sister's Keeper Book Review
by Catalina Bonati 2.75/5 stars ★★★☆☆ Our Sister’s Keeper by Jasmine Holmes (to be published June 9, 2026) is the story of Thea, who moves with her husband Kid to the prosperous all-Black town of East Cobb, Mississippi, where hauntings, called “groanings” pursue only the women of the burg. Similarly, Marah works as one of the town’s “carriers,” which is a woman who has been denoted to experience men’s burdens and to take them on as her own, relieving the men of traumas. Thus,
Catalina Bonati
May 7
Short Stories
Leaves
by Luke Lester Toby always gravitated towards his grandfather. His grandfather was a jokester. Twisting words, telling minor fibs to keep Toby on his toes, in his loving way preparing him for the world of liars and charlatans. He would do funny voices and make fun of Toby's ears, so the good-looking young tyke didn't grow up conceited. When he was younger, Toby had a dog named Charlie who lived with his grandparents because they had a place out in the country. He would spend
Luke Lester
2 days ago
The Good Scout
by Neil Harris "Men are always wicked at bottom unless they are made good by some compulsion." Niccolo Machiavelli It is night time and I am in the middle of a field in the North Bucks countryside. My heaving breath comes out like plumes of smoke in the cold and I squint into the darkness. My gang spots a group of shadowy figures hugging the hedgerow and we spring into action, chasing and screaming them into a corner. In the pitch black someone is pinned to the wet ground and
Neil Harris
Apr 30
Summoning Up Bella
by Peter Newall Why the silverfish had to eat the only photograph I had of Bella I didn’t know. When I considered all the books and papers stuffed into shelves and cupboards throughout this old house, most of which don’t matter at all, it seemed grossly unfair that they had chosen this particular photograph. It was a head and shoulders shot of Bella. She was posing rather archly with a camellia tucked behind one ear, looking up at the camera with her thick blonde hair sprea
Peter Newall
Apr 14
Poetry
Surges, November
by David Capps ‘I would kill myself, but I don’t have the courage’, I thought to respond when asked politely, ‘how are you?’ We were walking across the Green, in New Haven, and casually eyeing the naked Christmas tree, unstrung, yet already stripped of its significant dignity. ‘A joke’, I clarified, ‘A line from a Bergman film’. Maybe so. We were walking together across the Green, whatever else symbolized innocence and gave hope—Trinity church with its dank stained glass and
David Capps
4 days ago
Two Poems by Sarah Etgen-Baker
by Sarah Etgen-Baker Urban Meditation The subway whirs— a thousand hands press close in warmth, not fear. Streetlights blink like fireflies trapped in chrome. Laughter climbs brick walls, a thousand lives buzz, entwined~ The city breathes. We're not alone. Stacked Hexagons The city is a beehive— hexagons stacked, each buzzing with activity morning, noon, and night. Streets: wax-thin, sticky with footsteps. Buildings: golden, leaning into each other, their windows humming with
Sarah Etgen-Baker
7 days ago
A Dead Poet's Outcry
by Syeda Anika Mansour I'm a dead poet a poet whose words have withered like the youthful petals of roses after the scorching heat of Apollo's wrath. A poet whose emotions have ceased to nothingness, like the stillness of a hushed heart. A poet whose voice is lost among the restrictions imposed upon thoughts. A poet whose notions pass through the parting of the lips, only to return to an infinite bastille of thoughts inside! A poet whose failed expressions, not once but time
Syeda Anika Mansour
May 19
Art & Photography
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