Bookending our VHS library
In the basement closet, beside ski suits,
Is our family’s one-man Capuchin Crypt,
A skull Dad kept from med school that just sits,
Waiting to be played with, bored, unburied.
By Michael Lista
Poem of the Month
I’m on St-Zotique and St-Laurent in the cage on the east side of the street shooting baskets alone. Despite it ...
By Roland Pemberton
The wind sprang and finally sounded so near,
it seemed we could almost see our hearts.
We heard the whistle of thought,
but she quickly passed us,
too far away to see or hear.
By Greg Santos
On a hot day in Yongchun,
a girl is sent out to collect bitter leaves for dinner,
and in her chore, is suddenly graced divine.
Already blurred from the sun,
the mutation is taxing
and she discovers that
apotheosis involves a lot of sweat.
By Gillian Sze
The kingdom
is up to you. Like
the manette
the cashier hands you
at the grocer’s — “your turn”;
“c'est à vous.”
By Mia Anderson
Somebody left the world last night, and last, and last, and last:1 wild is the glower2 of ...
By Sina Queyras
After we thinned out we joined clouds
darkening cleared land and then
we were the shadows of those clouds
crossing open heaths.
darkening cleared land and then
we were the shadows of those clouds
crossing open heaths.
By Peter Richardson
Walking down Rua da Caldeira,
on my way to the Street of Happiness.
Rua da Felicidade.
These narrow two blocks
were the hub of the infamous
Macau red-light district
back in the twenties and thirties, and after.
By Ken Norris
Its steady hands reckoning our course
around the face of time
make me uneasily aware
of my mortality and yours.
From vague gazes and half-finished sentences
the humming of our travel clock
coaxes us to parables, morals, cautionary tales.
By John McAuley
His barely recognizable corpse
had gone through
the passage rites
of propriety,
the grandiloquence
of motionlessness.
By Fernand Ouellette
First, post-diagnosis apology.
Next, a trained volunteer’s called in
to make the lonely wait less so.
Then, the oncologist comes armed
with a social worker, to talk it out, softly.
Next, a trained volunteer’s called in
to make the lonely wait less so.
Then, the oncologist comes armed
with a social worker, to talk it out, softly.
By Deena Kara Shaffer
One with the strength of many
alone in the distant North End.
People before profit.
it’s a seemingly endless descent.
Marlyn’s streets do not resemble
one with the strength of many
morbid singularities
entirely unaware of
people before profit
alone in the distant North End.
People before profit.
it’s a seemingly endless descent.
Marlyn’s streets do not resemble
one with the strength of many
morbid singularities
entirely unaware of
people before profit
By Jon Paul Fiorentino