Six Prose Poems by Alistair McCartney
When I die, my memory—or do I mean your memory of me?—will dissolve like the Platonic (abstract) form of a cube of sugar in a cup of tea, like the post-abstract expressionist (Neoplatonic) form of the corpse of a boy in a hot pink ceramic tub of hydrochloric acid, correction: sodium hydroxide... Read More
Two Poems by Sawako Nakayasu
Girl F’s the getting, and tiredness is the reference, and the other is girled by their initials. There’s the decisive finding, that is, the name-outer, the girl-eacher, the come what may, but there are also some extremely marching shes, which makes Girl J say very well why there was so much Hi, name, fuck, of... Read More
Excerpt from Agnomia by Róbert Gál, trans. from Slovak by David Short
Even errantry has paths to follow. One could speak of being freed of the compassion that necessarily follows from circumstances. In her case, this means that when they’re dancing and she’s twirling around them she’s the only one who’s not dancing... Read More
The Lydian by Théodore de Banville, trans. from French by Patricia Worth
Not long ago and not far away, a sculptor in love with his statue, as in the days of Pygmalion the King of Cyprus, reproduced the same miracle and brought her to life, transforming the marble into living flesh through which glorious blood flowed by his will and the force of his overpowering desire... Read More
Two Prose Poems by Michael Trocchia
He left the shovel out back, leaning against the elm; he left his radio on, tuned to a static sense of time, a pair of wet boots at the pedals of the piano, and his wool cloak, stained with wild game, draped carefully across the keys, as if to warm the heart of a winter... Read More
Love, Anti- (notes toward) by Anna Moschovakis
I never made it to Love, and now I hear it’s defunct. Anti-Love meets regularly, though attendance is spotty. At least I’ve done most of the readings. Love, by contrast, will be a recuperation project... Read More
Three Poems by Gail Hanlon
After drones became the size of hummingbirds (and even the size of a grain of dust, it was rumored), we started to reevaluate the whole idea of shame. It was a sort of Garden of Eden scenario. But we could no longer cover ourselves. No longer seek cover... Read More
Excerpt from Situ by Steven Seidenberg
He imagines the frustration of his having to rise up—to lift himself up—as though it were an insult, an offense against the effort he’s embodied by this strain. His frustration at the endless repetition of the exploit of attaining such a meager state is considerably greater than the same plight first approached from the perspective... Read More
Excerpts from When the Ground Would Break by Emmalea Russo
We hold hands but I know this shouldn’t be the way our bodies interact. I refer to him using terms of endearment—baby, babe, hun, sweetie. The two of us are confused about this. But our hands keep clutching. Life will be a series of sites and non-sites, I think. It will go on and on... Read More