Poetry

Wasted Blues Villanelle

by Tim Seibles

All that you see is a matter of taste The First World trolls with a fist full of ones Maybe the mind’s not a bad thing to waste In fact, it’d be better to spit out the bait Run away … Continue reading

Bizzy Blues Villanelle

by Tim Seibles

I chase my life but my life gets away My mental hinge is sitting pretty loose Heavy Monday runs down the day I warn my beard, but it still turns gray Kiss the Coppertop tryin to steal some juice I … Continue reading

The Flautist

by Tara Bray

Her shoulders round over the line of light while she betters the wren’s dangerous song, fingers ticking to channel air. The flute gleams, trills, organizes flight, the crowd struck as she doubles over birdcall. The scene is small, the making … Continue reading

New Year, White County, Arkansas

by Philip Belcher

  Air vent streamers wag like tongues from the wall of the Ozark cave. Cold stiffens the stream splitting the floor, and the cracking ice pops. Beneath the glaze, blind fish swim, pale sloops defying the current’s mute push. Outside, … Continue reading

A Roadside in Kansas

by Tom Reiter

  In every direction, the American Dream with center-pivot irrigation. But not on this land-boom Wichita & Western’s remnant right of way. The rails went for ordnance after Pearl Harbor, the ties for firewood. Loam of glacial till, minerals locked … Continue reading

Collectibles

by Tom Reiter

  Goofy was piloting a paddle-wheeler in your favorite cartoon when I awoke. Your arm at the same time as his pulled the steam whistle, a jaw hinged open to fill our living room with its cry at every landing. … Continue reading

Conversation with Two-Time Mid-American Conference Relief Pitcher Douglas Dean Stackhouse on Winning, Losing and Learning to Fiddle

by Jane Fuller

                                A Complaint                                 by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH                                 There is a change—and I am poor;                                  Your love hath been, nor long ago,                                  A fountain at my fond heart’s door,                                  Whose only business was to flow;                                  And flow it did; … Continue reading

Social History

by Bobby Rogers

My hands were on the wheel but no one would have called it driving that morning Rube Lacey took                  me for a ride on his tractor. “The boy won’t forget this,” I heard my father say as he boosted me … Continue reading

Lost Highway

by Bobby Rogers

you’ll curse the day…  —Hank Williams Years after the fact, he would say it was just the right time to make a move when he was            invited to come into the bank, but he could see his path blocked by … Continue reading

Who and How

by George Ella Lyon

  Emily was a body when she wrote “I’m nobody.” Now she is no body everybody knows * The way the flower takes the bee and the bee the flower * Her life was simple at the beginning. She died … Continue reading