We comb through hundreds of literary magazines to bring you one stellar poem or flash fiction piece every weekday.
I once had a student tell me they couldn’t write poems
because they have no feelings.
I asked
how does it feel to have no feelings?
They said
like trying to eat a bagel, but when you bite down
the only thing in your mouth is the hole.
Read it in Barnstorm Journal
and when we talk of sequestration
The action of taking legal possession
of assets until a debt has been paid off or
other claims of equal worth have been met
funding cuts for government programssilver maples accumulating carbon
400 pounds worth in 25 years
shallow roots, clustered inflorescence
shimmering belly-up before a storm
Read it in Under A Warm Green Linden
we the bolls survived the gin, we the clouds
in our own sky, the birds too. we be dandelion,
be red jasmine, be jazz. we flush
just once, like sweet four o’ clock in June, buds
Read in in Porter House Review
When my mother told me
she had taken the stairs,
stared out from the bedroom window,
thought about throwing,
when one of us as a baby cried
for a whole year –
Read it in Banshee
The body wants to do the dropout boogie,
a way to just slowly spiral out
of reality and not include my self with its accessoriesNothing drastic, just a dance with the dust,
Read it in Porridge Magazine
She sees you wanting her to absolve you.
She sees you making your sunrise resolutions:good morning, restraint and improvement!
She finds you sweet, the way you might
find a vole or a small ceramic cactus sweet.
Read it in EcoTheo Review
The survivors foraged Yola’s mountain, consuming many of the berries and mushrooms she needed. They made noise, hollered, and built measly fires in attempt to draw rescuers. They dug a latrine downcanyon from Yola’s cabin, but close enough for the stench to reach her when the afternoon winds switched direction. Despite taking some of her harvest, it was not enough. They felt hunger.
As winter progressed and they ventured farther to seek food, Yola caught sight of them. They became bony. Their clothing hung. Their faces hollowed.
Yola smiled. If they made it deep enough into the winter, they would eventually turn to consume themselves. Then it would be quiet again. Then she would have her mountain back.
Read it in Flash Monster from The Molotov Cocktail
To explain plot, teachers say, if a gun is
introduced on page two, it has to be fired by the end. Because I
didn’t know my nephew had a gun, I didn’t think, a gun
means he’s three times more likely to die by suicide. I found that
out later in the story. There was no life you could live out to its end,
says a poem he loved. Studies show dowsing is no more
accurate than chance: the person reads the landscape’s
cues, hands moving before the rods do. When people say,
guns don’t kill people, people kill people they mean if people are
introduced on page two.
Read it in Southern Humanities Review
I’m not sure I’d take such careful inventory if my partner hadn’t told me how, months before we met, she bent down at the funeral home to press her lips to the freckle above her son’s mouth
Read it in 100 word story
Make your eyelashes stand on end — not like thorns, nor like spiked concertina wires, not like the scythe, nor like rope you lowered so Madhav could escape while your father banged on your door.
Blink like cattle, not like fairy lights, not like tempests curling within, nor like avalanche you’re getting crushed under, nor like your mother and sisters heaving around you.
Read it in Peatsmoke Journal
A Quiet Root 