All life sets itself upon us like a dull, iron-colored grief,
and the discipline is
to realize that we haven’t died
yet. [...]
Online Exclusives
12.21.10
Still Life with Nixon on the Beach
by Elissa Field
The boat came close to the shore, its sails silent, but we could hear the hissing of water against its fiberglass hull. I told Nixon I want to be away from here. No more following the season, island to island. He may have heard me, I’m not sure. [...]
12.07.10
Our Latitude, Our Longitude
by Ryan Call
The story of how I came to drift so aimlessly, my airship pendulant and high above this wrung-out earth, begins long ago, during that period of uneasy calm before the weather turned so foul. [...]
11.26.10
Habit
O. is really suffering
and I do not believe
that she is suffering
fog ruins the moth
how could O. suffer [...]
and I do not believe
that she is suffering
fog ruins the moth
how could O. suffer [...]
11.05.10
The Crossing
There is singularity
and there is the enclosed shell of the singular.
A long way from home the shelled pieces
shell-shocked you could say. How can anyone [...]
and there is the enclosed shell of the singular.
A long way from home the shelled pieces
shell-shocked you could say. How can anyone [...]
10.29.10
Two Stories
They were the first, in fact, to make up stories. Others before them had told tales, of course, had lied, had imagined things, but these were the first to rely strictly on language, its symbols, its logic, its effects. [...]
10.21.10
Three Poems
Dozens of beds burrowing in the yard.
The saddest time is remembering names
& shivers. You have resonating cloud lots. [...]
The saddest time is remembering names
& shivers. You have resonating cloud lots. [...]
10.14.10
The Wentworth Hotel and Ballroom
by Thomas Gough
Why is it that when I cross the final street before the Wentworth Hotel my eye is drawn to the weave of electric bus lines bolted with cables to the stuccoed buttresses of the retaining walls, to the concrete-based streetlamps where I have never failed, and do not fail tonight, to see the house painters in their white uniforms? [...]
10.07.10
Five Poems
the opening. that joinery is alarming. ulna, radius, elbow, humerus, shoulder joint that brings sight to the edge of this and other half-born worlds. [...]
09.30.10
Three Poems
by CJ Evans
I hear liquor and lather
and wood. I press my ear
to the bottom, and I hear
the steel, the concrete [...]
and wood. I press my ear
to the bottom, and I hear
the steel, the concrete [...]
09.22.10
Five Poems
09.15.10
From No T(h)ere
by Mg Roberts
Men complicate women’s desires, mother tells me. Finishing with, there are women who wish to take yours away. Her smile shifts into something more human, more woman, like fibers reaching across. [...]
09.07.10
Five Poems
08.24.10
Three Poems
She recalled the general pleasantness of the atmospheres during those last moments before she became for them a kind of monster [...]
08.17.10
Three Poems
by Nancy Kuhl
tiny bell rant coincident near curve
wet sunlight negotiating sill and
chipped-paint ceiling a lesson by hint
and degree I’ll tell you why and there [...]
wet sunlight negotiating sill and
chipped-paint ceiling a lesson by hint
and degree I’ll tell you why and there [...]
08.10.10
Love, an Index
Fate, about which Breton and Eluard asked in an issue of Minotaur:
What was the most significant moment
of your life, and did you recognize it at the time? [...]
What was the most significant moment
of your life, and did you recognize it at the time? [...]
08.03.10
The Broken Cup
Talking about Trotsky who appeared as a character in a book you are reading, you set an empty wine glass on a thick tile coaster. [...]
07.27.10
Three Poems
by Eric Higgins
Today, in passing, I grew sick of the world
of author’s ideas. I crossed a street
and arrived into rubble. [...]
of author’s ideas. I crossed a street
and arrived into rubble. [...]
07.20.10
Six Poems
The codes were suspended there,
in a place discovered later,
when we found out about the rain. [...]
in a place discovered later,
when we found out about the rain. [...]
07.12.10
The Delicate Architecture of Our Galaxy
My mother lived in a mason jar. Twice daily, I took the lid off. She said it was to allow her to breathe, but she only seemed to dive deeper. [...]
07.05.10
René Renée
by Tom Cotsonas
The story is about a woman who is dreaming she is dreaming, and who in the dream’s dream wakes herself up because she knows she is frightened of dreaming. [...]
06.28.10
Teratology
by Kyle Winkler
Teratology, the study of human monsters, is a young science, one that is desperate for respect, or, at least, attention. [...]
06.20.10
The Father’s Tale
by Julia Holmes
The world was once pure: animals tilted their perfectly formed heads to listen to the workings of the great clock, the sky-blue waters churning over the sunlit rocks. All was well. Then a twig snapped. Something was coming. It was I. I was traveling in my characteristic way: lumbering, unstoppable, crashing through the fragile woods. [...]
06.13.10
Three Poems
06.06.10
From An Archive of the Lives of Retired Gunslingers
Oxskin Murphy was born to a poor Oklahoma cattlehand and his wife, and was so legally named Oxskin his father, his mother having died during childbirth. In a squalid cottage on the fringe of the large ranch on which he worked, Mr. Murphy intended to rear his son as a gunslinger, and, indeed, Oxskin’s first revolver and holster were given to him on his sixth birthday. [...]
05.23.10
From The Mayflies
by Sara Veglahn
A package tied with twine is thrown off the bridge. A leather satchel full of letters is flung into the river. Shirts, sweaters, hats, gloves are tossed off in fits of joy and fall to the river to be taken away the current. [...]
04.30.10
A Terrible Thing
No one would have disputed it was a terrible thing. It was a terrible thing. A thing that had happened, that frequently happened to very many people they had individually known and some whom they had known together. [...]
04.23.10
Zelda Revisited
by Brian Oliu
Unlike before we start not in the middle of a decision, not in the middle of the egg, but in a house that someone has built. [...]
04.16.10
From The Source
The story is essentially the same: if you are intent on your climb and would never consider cutting back, then balance the sphere of ordinary understanding not in any mere figure of speech, still bent over the shoes you’re mending, but in actual fact loosened from its anchorage to the body. [...]
04.09.10
Five Poems from Mouth of Hell
Strange impatience of horses. Jumbled crossbows, arquebuses. Some luxurious circus or royal company. [...]
03.31.10
The Hollow Leg
Late one night, a father bends over his workbench, removes his daughter’s right femur, and sharpens it into a walking stick. [...]
03.24.10
Three Poems
by Erin Gay
When I karate chop the world in half, I need you my side. Everything has two pieces and you’ve never tasted an orange so ripe. The seeds are not visible but sonic. [...]
03.17.10
Four Poems
Everyone had a mother then, a working train set,
and a nearby promenade to daze among flowers
whose names were difficult to pronounce. [...]
and a nearby promenade to daze among flowers
whose names were difficult to pronounce. [...]
03.10.10
From Sign of Order in the Universe
In the overture a finch caresses a watermelon with its beak. It is a large watermelon and the bird is very small. You are reminded of several images but one or another stands out. [...]
03.03.10
From Rune to Ruin
I can see the sky so white it’s leached of white and branches of winter trees like rude lace. [...]
02.24.10
Soldiers
by Porter Fox
The soldiers marched off the TV screen in two columns. There were thirty of them dressed in desert fatigues. They barely fit into Frank’s living room. [...]
02.17.10
From Marvels
01.27.10
Three Conversation Pieces from Unlucky Lucky People
Despite the soot that tumbles from the sky, our old people look good—the color of milk and veal roast. [...]
01.13.10
Three Poems
by Jason Myers
When sanity grew tiresome, I went walking through the ghetto.
I bought kidneys, watched buildings crumble,
offered no hand, no kind word. [...]
I bought kidneys, watched buildings crumble,
offered no hand, no kind word. [...]
