Category: Poetry

What Plagues by Carson Pytell

Antonius Block is back, vexed,
wishing only for more war,
more murder. It makes more sense.
One cannot gut the wind
much as one might want to.

To Forget & Not Forget in a Bathtub by Danae Younge

It has been seventy-three years 
& she must swallow night, now, like her caplets,
when daylight is a dearth inside her peeling stomach. 
The days are nameless & dirtied, those

that secrete from her skin come nightfall — 
that she feels dust her creases mauve 
& defuse through turbid water — 
her throat takes them back through steam 
pasting moon crescents to the tiles. 

Certain Stories by John C. Krieg

Certain stories are supposed to have certain endings.  The die is cast.  The storyline is set in stone.  To not follow the plotline could almost be viewed as a sin, and to go off script oftentimes invites disaster.  Sometimes you just have to go with the flow, and sometimes the flow can cause you to drown.

The day after Luke died, there was a puppy roaming in the driveway, maybe eight weeks old, but probably closer to six and just on the edge of being appropriately weaned.  She was cute, as all puppies are, but there was a sadness about her.  She had obviously been dumped upon us by someone who just didn’t want to be bothered anymore.  Judging by how skinny she was, they most likely didn’t spend any money on dog food.  I could envision her masters ripping apart the litter, separating the young and innocent from their mother as soon as possible, and putting their concerns behind them as they dumped their problems on to someone else.