Author: Lion and Lilac
Four Poems|Paul Tanner
pesky logic I serve her. then I use the hand sanitizer. she watches me rubbing my hands together. I’m clean, you know! she says. I have to do it after every customer, I tell her. oh, charming! well what about YOU, eh? she points at me from across the counter. […]
Three Poems|Peniel Gifted
COUNTRY BY THE RIVERSIDE Here lies a country- By the riverside of dolor Tapping nutriment from Runnels of Hades. Her cubs sip from bass In gushing songs- lunching Beebread, tanks wailing. Her husband- floater like a Widowman, nesting at Bermuda’s Bank, angel expecting- one day My kindred soul will be back. DARKEN […]
Istanbul Mon Amour |Metin Vardar |Fiction
Darryl adored and hated Istanbul equally, but wasn’t that the whole point with love and life? The city had changed; the mass influx of refugees from Syria had transformed it into an ad hoc refugee camp which stood in stark contrast to the row of Bentleys, Mercedes, Audis, Porsches parked at Istinye Park. But the […]
Three Poems|Sofiat Omowumi
LIFE OF A VIRGIN Sometimes, I see my waist Clad in your arm’s shawl. I feel your succulent lips on mine Like a well-cooked cow-hide as we take in each other’s breath. Then, I see myself underneath you, You unlock the door beneath my navel With the key between your thighs and we feed […]
Four Poems|Katie Berger
Factory Night Shifts My dad slept all day. I played the piano so quietly and slowly I heard the hammers hesitate before each note. And with my brother I fought for limbless GI Joe torsos in spitty whispers. Who controlled the remote controlled little: mute Ninja Turtles, mute Clarissa, mute coyote off a cliff, […]
Room| Maed Rill Monte|Poetry
The entire length of flesh is room for growth a warpaint called race could paint peace if the colors found a new canvas a fresh method to scrutinize the untravelled stretches A region of escape we could settle in if we directed the lights to each other’s body the beating of the […]
Seymour Slap, Menudo, and the Oxford Comma|Wayne Rapp|Fiction
Seymour Slap was drunk. Not Bridgeport, Connecticut drunk where he knew every watering hole in his neighborhood and could navigate home no matter his condition. He was Tucson, Arizona drunk, standing outside a place whose name he couldn’t even pronounce, waiting for his ride, and feeling like he was going to throw up. He […]
Four Poems|Tim Kahl
The Crows for Martha Kight The crows were here before us. Let’s make them fly to far off fields. Rid the city of their horde. They infest the grid with their shit. Oh my gosh! Did they crap on your fancy car? Go hose it off, buttercup. The Leafblowers Silence calms […]
Four Poems|Patricia Nelson
Giant He walks upon the world as if it were a line, a black one without width or nuance. Along the axis of the town, he steps among the hot and small who do not love his tall, black eye. They think the giant watches them, rakes them with his rank […]
Two Poems|Michael Ceraolo
Joseph Steele/Edward Brown et al We have slipped from history, mostly because we were known only to a few at the time We were the front men or the agents of dummy corporations who kept the price down when buying up the land necessary for Shibe, Ebbets, etc. to build […]