|
by Mir-Yashar Seyedbagheri
Beautiful day. Must check inbox before going walking. Swimming. I’m a writer. Inbox, read 1. Hold acceptance. Possibility. Just read 1. Convey possibility. Let me obsess over that number. Try to discern story’s fate from first line. No emails. Refresh. Refresh. Morning fades, afternoon, walks and swimming fleeting. Keep checking. Just once. I’ll step away. Waiting is a reward. I must learn patience. But emails follow me. I’m a writer. Just one rejection? Pine trees blow in late afternoon breeze. I can watch Office Space. Dusk, still checking. Pink and purple shadows fall. Avoid email tomorrow. Can’t wait to check. AUTHOR Mir-Yashar is a graduate of Colorado State's MFA program in fiction. His work has been published or is forthcoming in journals such as Terror House Magazine, Unstamatic, Scarlet Leaf Review, and Ariel Chart. He lives in Garden Valley, Idaho.
0 Comments
by James W. Gaynor
Outside on the playground Eisenhower was president and the seven-year-olds compared sins getting ready for our first confession although transgressions tended towards the venal. Outside on the playground I decided on a different approach and in the dark booth confessed to having committed adultery knowing only that it sounded grown-up and happened at cocktail parties. Outside on the playground I was a hero having received serious penance for lying in my First Confession and spent considerable time in theory praying but in truth looking forward to adultery. AUTHOR James W. Gaynor been writing poetry since I was 12 — somehow, still here, post- Stonewall, the Vietnam war and the AIDS epidemic, and still writing. And still examining what it means to observe, to record his experience of the world from his evolving, now 70-year-old, queer perspective. He's the author of Everything Becomes a Poem and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in 61 Haiku. by Robert Marshall
I would like to say my depression is because of the Amazon. But it’s not because of the Amazon, or maybe it’s in part because of the Amazon. It is, in part, because you don’t call me back. But perhaps you don’t call me back because of the Amazon, because you are depressed because of the Amazon. Or perhaps it’s because you’re depressed for other reasons, perhaps there is someone who hasn’t called you back, someone who is, to you, more important than me, and this has sapped your strength. But of course it’s possible that this person, whose existence I may just be imagining, doesn’t call you because they’re depressed because of the Amazon. I do not, in truth, understand what is happening in the Amazon; I could not, if pressed, explain why or how the forest does—or does not—breathe. Causality is always a story; I believe the one the scientists tell, I have to hold onto something, though really I know nothing about science, nor about the Amazon, nor do I know why you don’t call; I do not understand the zone that’s named your heart. I can make out nothing clearly, there’s just the haze, or maybe it’s smoke. AUTHOR Robert Marshall is a writer and artist. His novel, A Separate Reality, was released in 2006 by Carroll & Graf and nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. His work appeared in Salon, The Michigan Quarterly Review, Kenyon Review Online, among others. by Gale Acuff
There's no one I love more than Jesus but Satan maybe, I confess that I like to sin and I bet that everyone else does, too, and it can be good clean fun or damn-near and surely God in His infi -nite mercy won't send me to Hell be -cause didn't He give His only begot -ten Son to die in my place, die for my sins so when I actually do, die that is, I actually won't, I'll live --not only live but dwell--in Heaven for -ever? Sometimes I think that if Jesus is Who they say he is then He won't mind a little transgressing, that's a fancy word for sin that Miss Hooker used in Sun -day School but last week and I'm only 10 but I kind of cornered her after class, that's a figure of speech, cornered her, not class I mean but then I've got more to learn be -fore I die and go to Heaven or Hell and I'm getting way ahead of myself but like I say, after class I told her that everybody sins and she told me that yes she knows and that's in the Bible that everyone sins, not that Miss Hooker knows, and didn't she point that passage out a couple of weeks ago, All have sinned and come short of the glory of God and I said Yes ma'am, I remember, which I don't and so I guess I lied and lying's a sin as sure as you're born but if God sent everyone to Hell for only one sin then there would be Standing Room Only down there and I even told Miss Hooker that but she didn't crack a smile, she takes her religion seriously but any -way I told her that even Jesus must have come pretty close to it, sinning that is, grazed it at least, because didn't He worry Mary and Joseph by hanging out at the temple and confabbing with the older folks there and astonishing them with what He knew about the Torah or whatever it's called, may God forgive me, and astonishing, now there's a word and I think it means turn to stone but anyway didn't Jesus come right close to sinning by worrying His folks is what I asked her although it wasn't really a question but a statement, for -get I couldn't make a question mark with anything but my voice on the page of the air, speaking of figures of speech a -gain and you could've knocked me over with a cherub's wing, do cherubs have wings, when Miss Hooker exploded and I don't mean merely burst into tears so I had to help her into her chair, her face was flood -ed with tears and she couldn't see to see so I lent her my only handkerchief and she messed it up pretty good or is that well or is that bad or is that bad -ly but when she passed it back to me I took it and wrapped it in a paper towel which I'd gotten out of the machine, it's a dispenser is what it is and stuck it in my left coat-pocket and I guess I'd better fish it out of there before I go back to Sunday School, I wonder if I've sinned again but anyway then Miss Hooker smiled but I could tell that she was embarrassed so I told her One day we're going to be married, goodbye, see you next week and I left without taking any more care of her, what could I do but come back on another Sunday and try to help her atone, I don't know if it's in the Bible somewhere but maybe a Sunday School teacher losing it in front of a repeat-third-grade student is a sin, maybe even one that cuts both ways, I'm in on it, too, praise the Lord and like that. By the honeymoon I'll know. AUTHOR Gale Acuff has had hundreds of poems published in several countries and is the author of three books of poetry. He has taught university English in the US, China, and Palestine. by Miranda Holt
They say it’s better to love and lose Than to never love at all Even though the love she felt Was within a heart so small It will always be unconditional Forever pure and true Never be tainted, never be scorned Never be angry at you She will never be scarred, never be hurt Never be broke by the world She may now be one of God’s angels But forever, she’s your baby girl. AUTHOR Miranda Holt is A ChristianA yogi A nursery teacher An unpublished, aspiring writer A wife and “mother” to a bunny and puppy A cheese addict by Paige Foster
yesterday i cried when my lover left on a sunny thursday i replayed scenes of former loves repeating yes yes of course i still love you the tape always cuts out just in time to leave room for that thing with feathers, and your city and all its exports are forevermore yours watching old lovers with new lives and new homes talking and crying from the comfort of my bed i came across that familiar tightening of the heart, that mark of kinship with anna karenina or marianne dashwood-- that specific and universal thing-- the yes of course i still love you murmured over a tequila shot or train tracks or more likely never spoken after all, it is not my business to speak it AUTHOR Paige is a Californian writer and photographer based in Paris, France. She holds an MA in sociolinguistics from the Sorbonne Nouvelle and has previously been published by One Sentence Poems. When not writing, she enjoys cooking with too much garlic and taking photos of everything she finds beautiful or interesting. |
