Look! Look! Seeing does not lighten the burden of changes with which light redefines the musculature of envisioned hills and valleys on this side of the Eastern horizon. A pen scratches away that which is not bone from the remaining two dimensions.
a momentary less of now
Stephen Bailey
Hear that? It is time running out. From lily pad to lily pad it side-skips the reflections on life lived in darkness.
just words blindly sifting silences through an hourglass
Stephen Bailey
When I woke up this morning with a strange woman in my bed, I told her she wasn’t there and had to leave. She quickly poked holes in my logic, but I was adamant. “Let me make some coffee,” she said, “and tell you a story.” She’s still here. She’s worse than an old Japanese film when it comes to ending a story. When she’s not looking, I throw a knife or a pair of scissors out the window, and I’m keeping an eye on how she files her nails.
Bob Lucky
Red shoes. Gold shoes. Spikes. Mile high clogs. A different pair on my feet every time we have sex. Without them he goes limp, this foot fetished boyfriend of mine. He scours shoe stores, the Salvation Army, unlocked museum cases. Why couldn’t he have become fixated on corsets or wigs? He’s my big secret. I don’t discuss him with my best friend, hide my oddly shod feet from the Presbyterians around the corner. We go at it for hours. I’m in a daze. But what to do about the growing bunions, the swollen toes? One day I’ll be forced to give him up, spend my savings on a top podiatrist.
Pris Campbell
A time will come in your life when you too will feel like a prisoner. It may be love keeping you boxed in or hate sucking out the air around you. It may be illness clipping your wings, or simply the weight of years … no matter.
Bach cantatas…
unpicking stitches from
the kneeler
Stella Pierides
the scavenger sucks the vacuum out of a bottle of spring mineral water
one upon one
the puppies warm
her sagging breasts
R. Suresh babu
Shelling a nuclear plant is never a good idea.
Zaporizhzhia—
now you see us
now you don’t
Stella Pierides
The Luitpold Bridge in Munich is closed. Climate activists have glued themselves to the road disrupting traffic. They are not afraid of a jail sentence, they say. Part of me yearns to be there with them. Making statements, taking action. Instead, I follow signs for an alternative route, like so many ahead of me, and so many behind. Our long, slow-moving queue snakes around our principles.
on the radio…
instructions for instant
gratification
Stella Pierides
My twin brother was absorbed into my all female left eyeball in the womb, leaving me with a lazy eye and urges to look up little girl’s skirts, unsuccessfully.
handicapped button
the three blind mice
write their memoirs
Pris Campbell
Martin was sitting in an ante-room waiting to be called for interview for summer work with the rail and road transport system in Ireland. It was easy to get temporary work there.
– Come in, groaned a voice from the interview room.
Martin went in. A lowly official was putting his socks back on, having cut his toe nails.
– So you’re looking for summer work?
– Yes, I’m in my third year in college.
– Third year. How many years have you to do?
– Four.
– Four? And what are you studying?
– English, Philosophy and Psychology.
– I don’t know what kind of a job you’ll get out of that?
Neither did Martin.
tea bags
stuck to the ceiling
like bats
Gerry McDonnell
the other bunny 