This old man, he play one, he play walk like I walk, son. With a six-pack, heart attack, leave me all alone, this old man come rolling home. This old man, he play two, he play listen I know you. With a back-slap, wisecrack, cut me to the bone, this old man drove me from […]
Contributors 78
Richard Hoffman: Gift
My father gave me a small globe, “This is the world,” he said, and showed me where to put the money. “Good boy,” he said. “Good-bye! Good luck!” A lot of good that did me. Or him. I lift and shake it: empty. It doesn’t spin; it never did, and the countries are different.
Donald Dunbar: The Poem that Fell from Grace with the Sea
You have pretty eyes; your face is the rust on the side of a lost freighter and the first mate is jumping overboard. You’ve got your sealegs now, your bedlegs I mean know the roll and splash of waterbeds but regular beds too, even futons like discount Korean yachts. This air always does this to […]
Laura Didyk: At Sea
My lover naps below while I sun on the stern in my sundress and dream myself a woman born for building ships. In the cushion of sleep I build this one as I tarry on our Alaskan island more than a century ago. My lover is taken at sea by a striking pirate who is, […]
Patrick Carrington: Tumbleweeds
I skitter across the heat of lonely towns like a drop on a skillet, stopping only to smooth myself out in bars with strings of women who don’t tie themselves to lives like mine. There was a time when the prophecy of dust clouds rising from a young woman’s broom made me wonder where you […]
Arlene Ang: Further Adventures Into Private Parts
400 pieces of eight for a joint if lost in good company like an evening marrooned with bananas— and all along i thought i was plagiarizing my scent in port royal in the captain’s cabin in his chest of maps—he allowed me to feel around wooden legs allowed me to sleep on that blue stain […]