fall 2017

Visiting an Old Friend

By Ian Thompson

Strung above your mother’s slatetiled
patio, gleaming orbs
wobble with the breath of night—
like pendula. I’m counting
soggy Dorito morsels
that soar as you speak, a few
finding their way to the feet
of this deck chair, upon which
I sit in a defensive
lotus pose.

You want to make
a film, you tell me (about,
like, this lonely ass virgin
who meets a hot girl online,
but she lives in another
galaxy and shit, so he
hijacks a NASA spaceship
to go get laid), and I feign
the woozy grin that adorns
my face in all our old pictures,
and I force the words,
You’re a genius! as I had
a thousand […]

Visiting an Old Friend2018-05-07T21:48:48+00:00

Sundays

By Sophie Dess

This was when I’d lie transfixed by the light that only came on Sundays, with my small body wrapped in a quilt cocoon, my head pressed against the pillow and eyes open and eager. I’d study the pale green of my walls, lit in that tender, rustic way. Lit in a light so delicious that my nails would itch to scrape it off the wall and taste it, to capture its green warmth in a jar and let it glow, perennially, in a darkened room where maybe I’d take a peek at it for […]

Sundays2018-05-07T21:46:24+00:00

A Reflection on Uncle Leonard

By Ian Thompson

If one had asked you why
your career in the arts
never flourished, you would
have shrugged perplexedly.
the stub on your right foot—
what remained of a toe
you’d sheared off to avoid
being drafted—a sign of
the madness that all geniuses must possess.

Today, I read about
a sculptor who achieved fame
for ingesting a lethal combination
of psychedelics and amphetamines,
then stapling his testicles
to a park bench in broad daylight,

and I couldn’t help but think
that maybe you could’ve tried harder.

 

Ian Thompson is currently working to receive his graduate degree in Literature at California State University Long Beach. He has published poetry in the literary journals Cadence […]

A Reflection on Uncle Leonard2018-05-07T21:49:25+00:00
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