Poetry

Rob Omura

i.

     There is a Zen parable about a warrior who slew his master, and to atone for his crime, he dedicated his life to building a tunnel so people could cross a dangerous stretch of mountain. Many years later, the master’s son, seeking revenge, found the warrior at work deep in the tunnel. The warrior promised the son that he would gladly die at his hands, but first let him finish the tunnel; the son agreed. After several months the son grew impatient, […]

Jen If

About the Author

Jen If (she/her) writes poetry and prose from life experience about torture and sexual violence. She has a BA in English and an MA in Creative Writing.

Valerie Sopher

in the Botanical Garden, it’s safe
     from people, if you choose the right path
there is an illegal amount of beauty here
    hills fold into the canyon, disappearing
         into a distant gauze-wrapped city
in the Garden of Old Roses, a dormant flower misses
     its second bloom, rivulets run into Strawberry Creek
on the ridge top, buzz cut trees trimmed by the wind
   amid this enchantment
  […]

James Bradley

About the Author

James Bradley is an artist and writer living in Portland, Oregon. His paintings have been exhibited at the Berkeley Art Museum, Verum Ultimum Gallery, P.Bibeau and elsewhere. He received an MFA in painting from the California College of the Arts in 2009.

Susan Schulz

                                   —a golden shovel after Diane Seuss’ frank: sonnets pg 37

Let me first say I never knew if
you left me or I left you.
My therapist wants me to consider what it is that I want
and I tell her I think it’s a toasted pumpernickel bagel with butter but I can’t because of the 

Susan Schulz

So many things are happening. So many things keep happening you wouldn’t believe it. Or maybe you would. The snow was bad in the Southtowns last night. Do you know about those kinds of things? I’ve just finished Ammons’ Garbage and I’ve folded down the corner on the page where he says life is not first for being remembered but for being lived!  But here I am lost in the remembering again, pressing two fingers deep […]

David P. Miller

I carried rubber gloves as prophylactics
against alien doorknobs. We scrubbed
our groceries, panicked that our plague
might be as much attached to fomites
as to aerosols.  I couldn’t quite believe
that still-warm laundry would corrupt
after resting on an unsterilized tabletop.
I also didn’t disbelieve it.

May I allow myself a modest smile for
the physical dread we handed, one to one?
In place of homo sapiens’ religion of
raw dominance over […]

Michael Berton

when the tequila runs out
poets in Mexico will write
elegies to honor
los borrachos
who will become atheists
refusing to acknowledge
patron saints’ days
for only the cowardly
can consent to live
a dishonored life

About the Author

Michael Berton is an educator, world traveler, percussionist and tequila aficionado. He has had poems appear in Cold Noon, Sin […]

Fred Pollack

A small clean flat in a mixed low-crime
arrondissement. White wife from
a once-Communist family.
No kids. Familiar on the metro (which
he has always disliked but accepts); in 
their local place, a two-star restaurant.
Adds numbers for a firm in La Défense.
Works well, but won’t be made department head.
Some of those numbers, elsewhere, create scenes
like those he remembers – everything possible
done to his village, […]