Short Fiction and Poetry

Summer Is Dying; Bowl of Black Petunias by Michael Lee Johnson

Outside, summer is dying into fall, and blue daddy petunias sprout ears— hear the beginning of night chills. [...]

Effigies; Allowed To Follow by Michael Igoe

If they're posed as reverent, the strong lack any strength. But in the final days they're the same as ever. [...]

She Gave Up The Colorful World; June 1st by Yuu Ikeda

Emotionless breeze blows. Bloodless skin feels it. But frozen lips never move. [...]

Lost Thoughts by Kenneth Vincent Walker

When I think about all The strange ideas that I hadn’t shared—that Evaporated in thin air; [...]

Shining Bitter Smiles; Burning Out A Fuse Up Here Alone by Paul Edward Costa

You know, I take data from what I’m told plus what I see, plug it in and the equation keeps spitting out incoherent [...]

Seduction; Choose A Career by Bruce McRae

Instead of writing, learn to read palms or spin plates or swallow fire. Become a casting director. Join a sailing crew. [...]

Reality by Kerstan Batchelor

Reality may be a poetic fusion of illusions and daydreams, yet it feels the same as bittersweet betrayals [...]

Shortlist Saturdays: Playing Dress-Up by Katie Cossette

When my grandmother passed, I inherited her wardrobe. At any moment, I can be transported through time and space. [...]

James Bond and the Demimonde by Elliot Wilner

After a yearlong, tedious hiatus Cruelly wreaked on all of us By a novel, evil coronavirus, Our hardy group of men The same six elders [...]

Sleeping Beauty, again for Anne Sexton by Alan Bern

Now after fifty years my once professoressa I am still afraid to write this You were my sad mother too [...]

Shortlist Saturdays: My Name Is by Marion Lougheed

When I was eleven I wrote my name on notebook pages, tested other lineages on my tongue [...]

My Authentic Self by Laura Stamps

“Dear Elaine,” she writes. “Should have been a nun. Should have. Would have been a good one too. [...]

The Riddle of Shakespeare; Those Dark Halls of Ambiguity by Ian C. Smith

At their second world convention those Shakespearean scholars fight for seats in Washington’s Hilton just for the privilege of hearing [...]

Shortlist Saturdays: Easter 2023 by Richard-Yves Sitoski

Fall let go of leaves like a drunk his inhibitions and winter proved that cold is lack of heat. And now it’s time for buds. Erupt! [...]

We All Die Young by Paden Smith

We all die young, For the decrepit existence is no longer living. Blue-hot vigor cruelly fleeting [...]

Shortlist Saturdays: Dead Crow Walking by Emily De Angelis

Why do crows walk off asphalt when they can fly away from carrion and car to road’s edge? Is it just corvid attitude [...]

My Dreams Write Me Too; Break A Leg by Hibah Shabkhez

Each stone of these stairs rasps like a regret, Like the memory of a child's flushed face Clouding with hurt, [...]

Shortlist Saturdays: Deer King by Christina Hennemann

I cross the bridge and find you soaked in dew, overlooking the clearing. Doe eyes and roots crowning your antlers, you wait for me [...]

The Favour; What Is Happiness by Royden V Chan

She had over-slept. There was no time to make her usual breakfast — she would be late for work [...]

impressions, times, atmospheres; angel of earth, angel of sky by Brian Michael Barbeito

do you ever remember the spring or summer sun, the rains that make the wildflowers to blossom and the wood and metal bridges [...]

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