Michele McDannold

Author's posts

2 poems by Brian Harman

Americana I grabbed Don Delillo at a used bookstore, not him personally, I am not the president, but grabbed his book, Americana, cover worn to the point of being free, got home, flipped through it like a flipbook, found a bookmark between the pages, no, not a laminated banned booklist or a massage parlor business …

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Unknown Poet by James Babbs

Unknown Poet on a June night at the beginning of summer I started going back through some of the old magazines where I had some of my early poems published and when I read them over again after so many years had come and gone it was like discovering some unknown poet for the very …

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Rising by Gwil James Thomas

Rising.  We kissed by the crumbling church to the early morning birdsongs rising from the cedar tree, before I walked home to Sunday morning beneath the old railway bridge. I woke up later just to happily paint the skies green and fields blue. With a ceasefire apparent from the silence of the polarising voices that …

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Dystopian Selfie by April Ridge

Dystopian Selfie I will climb the highest tree, look down to the ground below and laugh at the dizzying heights. Marilyn Monroe’s blustering air shaft dressskirts ain’t got nothin on my yoga pants and coffee-stained T-shirt that reads Writers Against Trump, showing him being crushed by an overwhelming weight of books, crushing him from his …

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Vulture City by Jon Bennett

Vulture City Ramiro gets a percentage as a finder’s fee “Esta muy alto,” he says, pointing to a slot machine and the whale sits down with his wad of cash Ramiro has a gambling habit playing the top to live on the bottom and guys like that make my life hard knowing just enough to …

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dead and dying poets by Jonathan S Baker

dead and dying poets with regards to Bill Sovern, and also Charlie Newman (who as far as I know ain’t dead yet) everywhere I look        dead and dying poets out on blue highways celebrating another bang up show stalled out along the road but their words are still needed        dead and dying poets cold in …

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THE POLISH HAMMER POETRY CORNER: I May Not Control the Narrative, But Occasionally I Supervise It by Karl Koweski

I May Not Control the Narrative, But Occasionally I Supervise It For four and a half years I supervised the assembly plant at Hydra Hydraulics. It wasn’t what I set out to do with this life, but I settled into it easily enough. I even grew to like it. The job appealed to the lazier …

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2 poems by John Swain

A String of Lights for Brian We read and you left at the end of the night to sleep in the roots of the sky, to climb a string of lights through the ashes of the highest trees. We reveled toward connection on this island of cypress, we threw the blue turrets and glass domes …

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An Other Christmas by Derek Loewen

An Other Christmas Jack O’ Ninetails slipped on a holiday paystub and tumbled underneath the Christmas lanterns lighting the callous alleyway. He sighed, slipped a tab under his tongue, and slid into the old city pub. Taking off his leather jacket, he spotted Harry Two Trades hugging their regular corner booth with his stupid Santa …

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Dan Provost reviews John Sweet’s AND ALL OF US DRINKING THE BLOOD OF OUR ENEMIES

John Sweet knows a brutal end is coming, or at least, he identifies those who sing the bullshit dogma and try to escape through the  palace window. “The Fact that God is neither a question nor an answer,” a line from “Running Dry”—a poem from his new collection And All of Us Drinking the Blood …

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