Are We Real – By Melissa R. Mendelson The elderly couple sat in their chairs, waiting to be called. As they waited, they drew close, and he said, “What is Reality?” She didn’t answer. “How do we know, if this, we are real?” Still, no answer. “Does that not worry you?” She took a long moment to think, and then […]
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GALILEO’S GHOST With Earth at the Center, Ptolemy ruled. Mathematically sound, for centuries fooled Who then passed as scientists to proclaim, “We know all the Universe; don’t defame!” When Copernicus proved the Sun’s the Hub, Those of Catholic persuasion wouldn’t budge. “Since the Bible’s declared, ’The Earth is It,’ Therefore anything new must therein fit.” When […]
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HOW I KEEP FIT – By John Grey The sidewalks in the city are like exercise equipment. There’s a mix of long strides on the cement treadmill and the shorter, quicker gait of the elliptical workout. A few stand at the street corner, stationary pedaling while waiting for the lights to change. Some hoist brown briefcase dumbbells. Others try the […]
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You are a gap in my room, a missing tooth my roving tongue of a mind keeps returning to. You are a voice missing from the house, the quieted flutter of your presence a flat-line through these rooms. You are missing. From me. Bio: Valentina Cano is a student of classical singing who spends whatever free time she […]
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Freckles They Called Him Walter Branham, a retired teacher, and his wife Victoria went to Applebee’s, the chain restaurant, for lunch one day last week. First time they had gone there. Usually they go to an ethnic restaurant but Victoria wanted a salad. Walt as always was obliging. The restaurant host was a young man who as a […]
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Accidents Will Happen A man walks down the street ears covered with hi-tech headphones playing music from his IPOD, carefully recorded for his listening pleasure, and doesn’t hear the warning sound of a building falling on him. A woman walks down the street eyes intent on her smartphone’s keyboard texting her friend with urgent fingers, describing her latest […]
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Poem By SIMON PERCHIK * She wraps your limp the way the sun marks out its darkness and along the ground pours a small circle –you’ll make it back she says, writes on a pad kept open how seabirds will call each other over and over force their feathers though your shadow too has taken on that phase […]
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WINGS OF PESTILENCE (By Joseph Cavera) Once there was a farm out east Ancient wooden barn With piles of straw And long mahogany fields The land swelled with crops Corn enough for every man Woman, and child Line after line Veggie after fruit Spade over hand And shovel under foot, Those columns grew Each year, waves […]
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UNIVERSAL PALETTE (By Joseph Cavera) Trim your palette of ink they decree Royal Amethyst choirs send thee Responses from reading notes from long ago is key Gazing out, Viridian forests house a lush of trees While behind me dances barrel-fulls of Mahogany monkeys Burnt Sienna dunes seep strong tunes for free And cobalt gears turn here by Warehouse Three […]
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HOW TO BREAK SNOW – By John Grey Something foreign helps, armored vehicles adorned with unfamiliar grim-faced eagles rolling down white slopes, and explosions in the distance, close at hand – loud red, even louder black, instant thaw. No tool more expedient than soldiers pounding on a door, the path more hob-nailed print than even sheen, roof and eaves cascading […]
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