Poetry
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Hope
Rachel Armes-McLaughlin Days like todayit feels like all’s about to end. The earthquakes with thousands lost.The floods, never seen before.The fires consume forest and home. Democracy gone. Then nights like tonight, there’s hope restored: Cory Booker on the senate floor,making history. A record broke.Wisconsin, fighting back against purchased votes. Blue Violets at the park,and news… Continue reading
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My Body, Your Choice
Skylar Clark Written November 8, 2024 at 1:00am—an hour after the election results. I always dreamed of having children. Two boys. Two girls.That dream, that vision, it’s been with me as long as I can remember.A life of love & chaos, laughter echoing through the halls of a big house on open land. Dogs running wild, playing with the kids.Their… Continue reading
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brick by brick
Melissa Lemay the school was builtwe sat in classroomseach day, rote memorizationof facts and figuresbut never learning about interest ratesor mortgages,real-world, real-life things we would use(not) taught to thinkin dewey decimal systematicallyingrained with fractureand parliament defined by etiquette and social order i took out my retainerand placed it onmy lunch tray, and threw it in the… Continue reading
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Bruised Orange
Patrick Dunn Imagine waking every day in opulenceSeeing only ungilded spaces in need of gaudy excessA photonegative emptinessToo cracked to developNot even as interesting as the old canister of filmMother left behind in the refrigeratorBack when child-mind wanted for cheap candyAnd connection What else went undeveloped? Imagine staring,Fixing something of thinning hairIn an ugly priceless… Continue reading
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Irish Hermitage Dream
Eileen ‘ike’ West An invisible menace threatens.I might blame the economy,I could say it’s people’s indifference,But it’s not.It is fear of the unknown, for sure.An unlikely unknown;As if lately, we’re overshadowed by ghosts,Phantoms from some dank corner of the collective mind. Where once the group psyche held a semblance ofPeace and grace,Darkness chokes out the… Continue reading
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Solitary
Rick Doyle I am a manI am a man reading a story in a newspaperabout another man who languishesin solitary confinement whose age is thatof my own son. Rick Doyle, poet and playwright, practices law in Downeast Maine. His poetry has been published in numerous journals, including Kaleidotrope and The Cafe Review, and won a… Continue reading
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The Mess of Thrown Off Clothes
Strider Marcus Jones i listento your love beads glistenin the flotsamof my room- we make themfrom samurai sword foldsat forge and loomin the mess of thrown off clothes. so many smoke me kissesat portal doors,and mithril wisheson primitive floors- take us back againthrough heath and fento imitatelost landscape- cycleand circlesky and stoneoutside and home- in love in lesswith your heavenliness,and… Continue reading
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How to Dodge Bombs
Patricia J McLean I think it could be a night like that night in Augustjust before Utopia got a new wall to replace the brokenfalling down, rotten wood wall Or before the night like that night, or another sort of night altogetherwhen the broccoli dies of neglect, tomatoes are so heavy vines breakthe garden is… Continue reading
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script eighty-five
Liz Mariani are you are the screenwriterresting in a field of garlic? are you are the bankersinking into another suburban fold? are you are the loverat the door on the floor at the door? are you the border guard?this is a field of garlic spin the clearcut field of snowchew the wind this is the… Continue reading
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The American Dream 2.0
Shannon Frost Greenstein Part One In America, we quantize our bodiesand the complexities of our brains –assigning each part a separate dollar value –because health insurance companies don’t deal in health;because health insurance companies deal in profit. In America, we employ thousandsin the manufacture of bulletproof backpacks;entire factories pumping out Kevlarlike this band-aid is the… Continue reading
The Chaos Section Poetry Project 