Michele McDannold
Author's posts
Jul 13
Oscillating Godhead Catastrophe by Tony Brewer
Oscillating Godhead Catastrophe Now we are obsolete just as the dolphins bid us welcome home Not one or two but infinitely containable If you can hear this portrait of destruction I made the frame thudding like distance crack like sting We don’t have enough water food blood bags waves power clean needles instead the empty …
Jul 12
Polaroid of My Parents, Christmas, 1978 by Jason Irwin
Polaroid of My Parents, Christmas, 1978 Could they ever have been that young— my father 37, my mother 35—posing in that low saturation of pinks & blues, the mist haloing them like a specter? Yet at that moment, as my seven-year-old hands fumbled with my father’s camera, they appeared happy, or so I believed. Though …
Jul 11
In This Place by Karen Cline-Tardiff
In This Place Beer comes in a can and they’ve got Old Crow in the well and everyone knows not to play A17 when Knucklehead Dave’s had more than four beers, The pool table has quarters laid down the rail and no one jumps their turn to slam that 8-ball, unless that 8-ball happens to …
Jul 10
JEHOVAH JUKEBOX by Joan Jobe Smith reviewed by Zack Kopp
JEHOVAH JUKEBOX by Joan Jobe Smith A review by Zack Kopp In these poems, plastic surgeons make a thousand a week per customer as Sinatra gets sent back to heaven and Bukowski chugs cheap beer at the No-No a Go-Go, one night finally telling the author, “’You gotta write about that madness, kid.’ So I …
Jul 09
brute by Max Magenta
brute she stared me directly in the eyes ‘you’re not a man, you’re a brute’ a smile crossed my lips ‘i’m no doorknob either, lady’ still staring at me her lip now curled ‘i’d smack you but i don’t want to get shit on my palm’ even i must admit that was a good one …
Jul 08
THE POLISH HAMMER POETRY CORNER: You Gonna Bark All Day Little Doggie, Or Are You Gonna Mourn The Passing of an American Legend by Karl Koweski
You Gonna Bark All Day Little Doggie, Or Are You Gonna Mourn The Passing of an American Legend I always take off work the week of the fourth of July. I never actually celebrate the holiday. I dislike the government, got too much cool shit to embrace anarchy, so my politics are complicated, but more …
Jul 07
The One in Which Jane Fonda Falls in Love with a Horse by Damon Hubbs
The One in Which Jane Fonda Falls in Love with a Horse Gina’s apartment, 36 Grove. Matter eaten by black holes. O but Lance is here and the poets and provocateurs. I’m juggling a lot en route to beautiful plans. We’re talking beer matches and book clubs river dips in Berlin, why straight guys are …
Jul 06
The Dogs Were Good (Again) & Help by Len Kuntz
The Dogs Were Good (Again) As if they had a choice, chained to the backyard fence, whimpering in the freeze like the weaklings you said they’d be. I threw some dry ham bones and snouted one, remembering to laugh as you’d said to. None of them ever barked, which made me wonder what good they …
Jul 05
Lemon Tree by John Swain
Lemon Tree Sweat of the beach on your neck, the sea perfumes the rain plants, the sky clears, the sky bruises purple with lightning. The fruit of a lemon tree moon shades towering over the dune sand, and then descent, a rush of wind down the branches, down the sand on wooden planks, we run …
Jul 04
Death by Distraction by Kevin Ridgeway
DEATH BY DISTRACTION People fly out of car windshields in collisions because they can’t pull their eyes away from their phones— they forgot how dangerous it was to pursue dopamine boosts, cheap thrills that can kill them like their votes killed this country, people dragged from their homes, people and their rights erased by self-serving …
