Beached Turtle
Stephanie Zepherelli Honolulu, Hawaii, USA beached turtle its plastic necklace too tight
Pulp Nonfiction
By Janis Butler HolmLos Angeles, California, USA He has stepped from a dark waiting place. He has moved toward her body with the crude insistence of a bad plot. Her mind is stopped. She is fixed in the wisdom of stories learned too well: Be calm. It is inevitable. Do not struggle. He will only hurt you more. For one long moment she stands mute, without motion. She could die of suspense. Then (here's the reversal) her pen is in her hand and stabbing through his flesh. Unhappy ever after, she will live to confess how the fury in her…
Why He Won’t Eat the Hot Meal So Charitably Provided
By Janis Butler HolmLos Angeles, California, USA He sees how the lettuceslides around the plate,yellow and cunning,mysterious in its ways. He notes that the friesare pointing southeast,that they are sharp and oiledand spattered with red. The tomato slices whispersoft pink obscenities,their harlot song callingto his lips, his tongue. He smells in his burgerthe black, smokey fleshof things small and tender.And he's back at My Lai. And he's up and running,he's running, and around him,the jungle, the colors,the chaos, the horror. He's running and stumblingand heaving and moaning.He's running, and he's thinkingthat he wants to go home. First published: Red River…
Health Crisis
By David JosephsohnGreensboro, North Carolina, USA health crisisher long journeyto another state Cold Moon JournalJanuary 6, 2024
Barbed Wire
By David JosephsohnGreensboro, North Carolina, USA an unplannedbody piercing—barbed wire
Border Crossing
By David JosephsohnGreensboro, North Carolina, USA border crossingyesterday’s strugglesreplaced by today’s
Tomorrow
By Jenny Ward AngyalGibsonville, North Carolina, USA only two Monarchs spiraling up the sky maybe they'll see tomorrow
War News
By Jenny Ward AngyalGibsonville, North Carolina, USA war news . . .a road-killed Sparrowcradled in my palm
One Clover and a Bee
By Jenny Ward AngyalGibsonville, North Carolina, USA Dark-eyed and playful, childlike but childless, Elizabeth Ann needs an emergency hysterectomy or she will die. Her lithe young body recovers quickly from the surgery. It’s hard to know if she grieves—but her caregivers do. Elizabeth Ann is a Black-footed Ferret, cloned from the frozen tissues of a Ferret named Willa, who died more than 30 years ago. The few hundred Ferrets living wild today are all descendants of just seven taken from a Wyoming ranch in a desperate attempt to save them from extinction. They’re inbred and threatened by disease. Ferrets eat…
Dead End
by Sangita KalarickalEden Prairie, Minnesota, USA My Monstera Deliciosa looks sad. The leaves are starting to yellow. I glance at it, note the stressed, drooping foliage. I have to deal with it, I know, but there are so many things to tackle first. My dinner is on the stove and I have reports to finish. I can get to it later.Some days in, the plant almost screams at me. The leaves have started to curl. I have a look. Again. Thrips. Darn these stubborn bugs. I need to deal with them soon. But first, the sink is full of dishes…
Spring Breeze
By Theresa CancroWilmington, Delaware, USA spring breeze . . .the beggar and Ishare smiles
Battlefield
By Theresa CancroWilmington, Delaware, USA battlefield...all the facesof sunflowers
Air Raid Siren
By Theresa CancroWilmington, Delaware, USA air raid siren—a little girl lullabiesher doll
Patchwork Quilt
By Kelly SargentWilliston, Vermont, USA
Humanitarian Aid
By John PappasBoston, Massachusetts, USA humanitarian aidspilling out of the baga parent’s hope
Boy with a Bow
By Gary LeBel "Bring me my Bow of burning gold"William Blake, Jerusalem He may be all of ten. He's hiked on ahead of his elders and younger siblings, taken the leadon the trail, a blazer, protector, explorer, loner, or budding alpha male. As he walks someten to twenty paces ahead of me, I can hear him as he talks to himself or perhaps he'ssinging. Missing its quiver and arrows, he carries a bow at his side, but soon hangs it over hisshoulder so that it rides his back like an Arthurian knight, or a Cheyenne leading his pony.When he slows…
Plastic Apocalypse
By Anna CatesWilmington, Ohio, USA “Doomsday is quite within our reach, if we will only stretch for it.”—Loudon Wainwright III Time moves counterclockwise to heal the breach.Do we dare to name it, to face what we betray?Toxic world; do we dare to eat a peach?Time moves counterclockwise to heal the breachWhile those who long for doomsday reach—The fruition of our blunder, Orwellian, they say.Time moves counterclockwise to heal the breach.Do we dare to name it, to face what we betray? golden tonesof a seaside sparrowwho will listen?
Ode to the Dragon Rider
By Anna CatesWilmington, Ohio, USA I have panted for green placesstanding before statues:admirable men to questionable menmortals on horses, Confederate generalsto conquistadors, cowboy cliches, Marlboro Menof deceptive advertising, the old and uglyeven the beautiful, masterfully chiseled cold stoneor too hot to touch in record-breaking heatleaving a thirst for boundless verdancyan infinity of flowers and trees, a landof clear water and skies, for you and meand every peaceful Ferdinand.* Ride fiery dawnon a monstrous snakewith wings! *In Munro Leaf’s children’s classic, The Story of Ferdinand (1936), the peace-loving bull, who preferred smelling flowers to bullfights.
To Each Their Own
By Anna CatesWilmington, Ohio, USA version of justiceimage of godprayers at duskon either side of invisible linesshifting left or rightat the whim of strong menmuscling pawns . . .they aren’t so mean, are they? a white butterflyenters his dream— the fallen trooper
New Year
By Sankara Jayanth SudanaguntaHyderabad, India new year...the bullet-riddled shopfrontgets a makeover Failed Haiku, Issue #85