My fingertips thrummed with your heartbeat which lapped at me, a tongue in a bowl, a ticking turn signal. I watched your breath grow downy with fear and hoped you could walk out of the room on your own. Bio: Valentina Cano is a student of classical singing who spends whatever free time she has either reading or […]
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ON BEING SAFE His mantra starts out, “Warm, clean, comfortable.” He’s had his share of troubles — health, work, relationships. He’s never been consoled to hear, “Others have it so much worse.” Why would that make him feel better? How many people go hungry, combing dumpsters for food, or sleep in cardboard boxes in freezing weather? Others […]
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Plain Girl Pretty Rose was a plain girl from a small town. She sang in the choir, never missed Bible study, left for the big city after high school. She worked nights in a shanty diner next to a bar where working men gathered. Depending on how much the men had to drink Rose looked appealing but she ignored […]
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LAND OF POETRY (By Joseph Cavera) Today we sit here in this world Of speeches, media, and flags unfurled Some who live see the green and blue While others peer over a grayer hue For those who are felicitous- want a spin? And you who are not, follow me in… We’re traveling to a familiar place, Which can […]
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When I pile up cut tomatoes, red onion, and radishes on top of romaine lettuce, I think of the hands that picked, cleaned, packed, and loaded them on trucks, carried them to cold rooms arranged them on shelves. As I remember stories of my father, a new comer a child-laborer in another era in another country, I say a […]
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Poem By SIMON PERCHIK * So you let the water boil as if you were not yet born and already breathing it can barely make out the bubbles burdened by sunlight the way some ancient sea struggles inside, hangs on to bells –it’s a battered pot, beaten and the dead who still ask why reefs are needed […]
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We moved from filth to slime, It wasn’t swift, it took some time But movement came and we progressed. We moved, from place to place, Stayed a while and then we chased Our dreams to rainbow’s feet. We moved, from grass. To concrete grey, Some roads we took and lost our way, To live again as filth and slime. […]
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The Widow Next Door Every Saturday when the sun is out and it’s hotter than Hades Monica next door raises her garage door early in the morning and leaves it up long past noon as if Herm will walk out at any minute oily and greasy needing to clean up the way he used to every Saturday […]
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SEDUCTION IN SILICON (By Joseph Cavera) Cerulean shines capture my eyes in curvaceous well-fashioned shapes the likes of which my dreams can only dream of, teetering along the lines of slipping into her artificial façade, her smooth hips and luscious lips of lighter tones, silicon strips replace her bones, meld with mine in seductive shattering, surreal captivating symmetry, her […]
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