Writing is an act of resistance
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The No-Knock State
By Jemshed Khan Upon hearing that Barrett Brown was jailed (again) SWAT teams rumble streets. Men in black smash down doors. No one bothered to knock 65,000 times last year: Hinges ripped from the jamb with a battering ram or breach grenade. My friend…
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Letter to Santa
By Anne Anthony Dear Santa, You disappointed me. I was (mostly) good last year. Maybe I cursed, but I was frustrated and baffled. Somehow my family (?), my friends (?), my neighbors (?) voted in a president who—and I’ve got to be honest here—terrifies me. Did you even read my letter?? I quoted Pope…
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Across the Hard-Packed Sand
By Holly Schofield Kelly, the dispatcher, sent the call my way, but Nick caught it too, so my squad car arrived at the beach parking lot a few seconds after his. We hadn’t worked together much, but I’d sussed him out long ago. He wasn’t one of the good ones—those were rare—but at least…
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Abecedarian diatribe: abolish him!
By Gabriel Mianulli All the problems in the picture are flooding the world Before we have a chance to construct boats for rescue Can’t we have more time to sniff out bullshit politics? Damage has been done, the hurricanes are screaming. Elsewhere, we build bombs that taste like backward progress. Forgotten events didn’t sound…
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Untitled
By Tara Williams Artist’s note: My concept for this painting is the feeling of being disconnected from America, like a neighbor you catch glimpses of, but still don’t know. I wanted it to reflect the moment one finally realizes the appalling things that occur in this nation on a daily basis. While creating…
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Obamaclipse
By Rony Nair 1. Overview Lopsided dreams coalesce into hazy sunsets, pretending to droll out Nintendo games played by our new trumped up incantation. The new war boy. Elected of course. by a war room of nominees with shotguns in their bed. Hawkish foreign policy bytes, words of war, beating up the beaten, hoarse…
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Just Like Picking Flowers
By Leslie McGrath The almond wears a thin corduroy vest that cannot protect the nut. The skin of a ripe peach peels like a second degree burn. The oyster clenches even as we break its nacreous wings at the hinge to get at the meat. When the mushroom man appeared with baskets braceleted up…
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The Culling Agent
By John Robilotta I sit on my lanai three flights above the water’s edge. Shore life comes and goes. Black and white ibis, with their elongated beaks, feed on the shoreline. A great blue heron suns on the far banks. Anhingas and cormorants dry their wings atop stone outcroppings. There is much life about…
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Wreak
By Rae Hoffman Jager To David Wallace-Wells While we slept, awoke, and made oatmeal, went to work, walked the dog, and so on, A crack in the ice shelf grew 11 mile— raced the ocean where it dropped with a titanic splash no one heard. As we make messes, more icebergs calve far off—…