Man, in my neck of the woods, color still rules; White, you all right, Brown, stick around, Black, get back. And sometimes we be so black we be blue. And the rules flip on you. Sometimes they do a back flip when you blue-black.
Continue reading “Blue-Black by Frederick K Foote”
For Extremely Intelligent Children at Any Age
“Everything is poetic that confesses.” – Jorge Luis Borges
“Delia, oh Delia / I can’t believe / you wanted all them
rounders / never had time for me. / All the friends
I ever had / are gone.” – Dylan, “Delia,” World Gone Wrong
“Let us go then, you and I…” – T.S. Eliot
An old Zen saying rightly opines, “Do not seek comfort from others. Light the lantern within yourself.”
Continue reading “Sunday Whatever – Seven Dogs or A Dog is My Walden – An essay by Dale Williams Barrigar”
The feeling had been growing inside of Henrik Hammersmith for quite a while now.
Damn construction noise.
Start again.
Continue reading “I do this by Adam Kluger”
Ian preferred to drink alone, whether it was booze or coffee he was craving. That’s when he did his best thinking. So when local rents and a low-paying service job (the bitter reward for following his passion in college) obliged him to take in roommates, he often found himself at one of the neighborhood’s less trendy cafés. The kind where the patrons kept mostly to themselves. His current favorite was The Purple Cow.
Continue reading “Killing Time by Matthew Snyderman”
The month before my thirteenth birthday, my parents’ marriage stumbled. Its arms pinwheeled for balance, and it might have recovered if not for the present I got. It was that seemingly insignificant little thing that pushed their marriage from behind, sending it over the edge of no return to land chest first onto the steel rebar of divorce below.
Continue reading “And the Winner by Knockout Is . . .by Héctor Hernández”
Thor shall put to death the Midgard Serpent, and shall stride away
nine paces from that spot; then shall he fall dead to the earth, because of the venom which the Snake has blown at him.
Völuspá, Stanza 55
The Æsir gods sat around the great table in Valhalla’s dining hall, waiting. Some took desultory sips of the mead in their drinking horns, yet there was no wisdom to be gained from the magical mead, for all that remained to be learned was the outcome of Odin’s ride to consult with the embalmed head of Mimir about the meaning of recent portents. Had Ragnarøkkr, the day of the world’s final battle, arrived? Would evil god Loki and his children overcome the Æsir? What could the gods do to prevail against Loki and his cohorts?
Continue reading “The End of All Things by Matias Travieso-Diaz”
It’s been said that Britain is a country overburdened by history. I’m not very sure what ‘overburdened’ means in that context. But my guess is that, for my generation born seventy-odd years ago, it refers to the enduring damage wreaked by The First World War.
Continue reading “Sunday Whatever: The Poisonous Fog of War by Michael Bloor”
Every morning, the Archivist arrived just before the sun burned off the smog. He rode the elevator to the fourth floor of the Memory Tower…the east wing…Department of Significance. The lift doors opened and he unlocked his office with a key labeled VANITY in scuffed gold.
Continue reading “Ecclesiastes by Zark Fekete”
HOW WE MET
You have to understand that my first glimpse of her was mostly obscured. The bar was dim and crowded, and I’d already had more than my share of scotch. And wasn’t feeling picky, having struck out three times already — so, after that first glimpse, I sidled right up and said the first slick thing I could think of, which ended up being something about how her dress caught the light. Only then did she turn to face me head-on, showing me what she was and exactly what I’d just done.
Continue reading “My Relationship With Frances Marie Sauvegeot, 1973 – 2001 By Martin Reid Sanchez”
1.
The human head remains conscious for up to ten seconds after decapitation. I read this in a medical journal I found in a dentist’s waiting room when I was eleven. I couldn’t stop picturing it—the severed head blinking, eyes scanning the floor for its missing body. I imagined it was my own head, watching the soles of the nurse’s white sneakers as she walked away, the antiseptic taste still heavy on my tongue. The article didn’t mention what happens in the ninth second—whether the eyes soften, surrender, or still search for a miracle.
Continue reading “Things I Know to Be True: by Kate Humbles”
literally stories 