By S Cearley
S Cearley is a former AI researcher in computer-derived writing and professor of philosophy, currently living eight inches above a river watching ducks and herons in between salmon runs.
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Issue 8
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Featured Interview
Newest Essay
DROWNED IN ONONDAGA LAKE.
Diana Arterian
A BOAT OVERTURNED AND THE LIVES OF A
YOUNG MAN AND A GIRL LOST.
JUNE 21, 1879
In an instant
the boat overturned
weaken the idea and stay in the tree
By S Cearley
S Cearley is a former AI researcher in computer-derived writing and professor of philosophy, currently living eight inches above a river watching ducks and herons in between salmon runs.
HAIR SEAL SHOT IN ONONDAGA LAKE.
Diana Arterian
APRIL 29, 1882
Kennedy was rowing along
when he noticed an animal
floundering near the shore
He quickly fired at the monster
OPENING INDIAN BURIAL GROUND.
Diana Arterian
JUNE 15, 1884
Laborers were leveling
a mound of earth
on the shores
of Onondaga Lake
SEVERE STORM AT SYRACUSE
Diana Arterian
Several Persons Believed to Have Been
Drowned in Lake Onondaga—Much
Damage to Property
AUG. 28, 1895
And wind and rain
of terrific violence
The Guy Sitting in the Park Alone, Snow Falling
By Ron Riekki
I’m sure he’s never murdered anyone.
He has a book in his pocket and that’s a good sign.
The snow is falling on him, so he’s not a ghost.
He looks cold, so he’s human.
Poet Laureate of Himself
By Chris Carosi
it was made to prove something
to throw away was to have it first
to be a trap kid in there
shouldering forgiveness
Prostrate Ear
By Chris Carosi
a word works through soil, a transit breaching blood
cell, magnetized as message
wait for me to die and you will know death too
shares a brackish voice
Ode to My Bones
By Lauren Camp
As a girl, I fell many times, my uncertain bones bending out, a potential for perfection lost in a clumsy arrangement of body parts linked with diabolical thought. A finger, a finger, an outline, a draft, the fascia, the proximal row of a hand, ligament, nerve, and each carpal bone to my radial-ulna fitting abruptly,
In Scent and Dusk
By Lauren Camp
Winter’s poor faults brought me here:
one quarter mile off Crocus,
where we talk about small birds and the jewels
Everything Must Go!
By Lauren Camp
Trees gaze down through gauze of August.
I drive the thermal air on a narrow road rimmed
with orange barrels. Many dashes disappear beneath the car.
Traci
By Louis E. Bourgeois
My uncle was a union foreman and got me a job as a fire watcher. I’d lost an arm a few months earlier, apparently I wasn’t good for much else but to watch for fires as the welders went about making sparks in the boilers of the ship.
Left Unhung
By Caroline Sutton
In a museum to see four-year-olds touching da Vincis. Couples nearly making out. Black sneakers and rude bodies moving like slow fish between me and the art, distorting, altering the shot pheasant on a table with movement of bodies absorbing the pheasant, momentarily, unless they pause to take a picture of the picture to look at it in their kitchen or not at all, a dead image in a phone, testament to them.
Traveler
By Chen Li
Translated by Ting Wang
On the wall of my study hung a copy of Pierre Bonnard’s lithograph painting The Little Laundry Girl. A teenage girl in dark green is walking aslant a wet, slippery street, supporting herself with an umbrella in her right hand and clutching a basket of dirty laundry in her left arm.
Scene from The Junkyard
John F. Malta was born in East Cleveland, Ohio, and currently lives and works in Kansas City, Missouri. John studied illustration at the School of Visual Arts’ Illustration as Visual Essay MFA program in New York City and is a recipient of the 2012 Xeric grant. His work has been published in The New Yorker, the New York Times, Esquire Russia, MIT Technology Review, the Boston Globe, The Village Voice, and the Washington Post.
Higgins’ Ghost
By Jessica Barksdale
Higgins lived with his mother, but then she died. Higgins now in charge, her house smells like dry things. Paper and wind. Coffee like brittle green leaves, as if he’s making tea.
Fugue
By Rob McClure Smith
In.
You don’t recognize your own reflection in the mirror. Your expression is unfamiliar somehow, pale and hard. The rain has impressed streaks like glistening snail’s tracks on your cheeks, blotching mascara.
Mother of the Monster
By Jean Wyllys
Translated by John Keene
1In the beginning came the pallor and the light pains. In those days, Maria da Conceição began to also have dreams of winged beings who seemed to her to be angels.
The Smallest Man in the World
By Jean Wyllys
Translated by John Keene
Less than two years ago, Ana Clara met a dwarf at that same spot in Avenida Sete de Setembro, near the entrance to Politeama.
Masculinity
By Jorge Cino
Sean
In a personal essay written for Mrs. Bloom’s English class, Sean Burns believed himself to have revealed a little bit about himself and an awful lot about the nature of human relationships.
The Unrequited Life of #127
By Sarah Sorensen
Hello, dear friend. I pray that you can hear these thoughts humming within your mind and that you will trust in your own sanity enough to follow the directions that I am about to issue. I implore you to approach the internet, to use a pocket device if necessary or some larger electronic to retrieve the Etsy website.
The Course of Happiness
By Jean Wyllys
Translated by John Keene
The room in disarray, two used condoms strewn on the floor. The sun, which entered through the wide-open window, made her head hurt even more.
Neither/Nor
By Cristina Vega
He begins to set up his workstation. He brushes his bed with his hands to remove the plaster that sometimes flakes off the ceiling as though it’s shedding.
The Big Broadcast
By Lisa Locascio
I felt as if I had slept for hours, but it was still light outside when I woke. Kristian snored softly under his miniature gray duvet.
On a Flight to Singapore for a Weekend Shopping Trip
By Lana Spendl
The plane was experiencing turbulence because Mary Louise was snoring so hard. Behind her satin sleep mask, she was fighting ninjas. They had stolen into her home in Massachusetts in the night.
The Origin of the Species
By Yuri HerreraTranslated by Lisa Dillman "I won’t be locked up.” “No.” “And I won’t be in the crosshairs.” “That’s right.” “And I’m going to get a new identity.” “Yes.” He turned and eyed the meter and a half of mattress, coils, and nightstand where he’d been rotting...
Lost Item at Sunday’s Ukrainian Day Picnic
By Lana Spendl
Dear Students, Faculty, and Friends,
At the end of the picnic on Sunday, Svitlana’s metal breadbox went missing. It was last seen next to the pitcher of kompot at the end of the table.
Chuckles
By Paul Lisicky
At some point Ginny stopped checking her rearview mirror whenever she backed up. Chuckles knew some other human would interpret this habit as a metaphor: Ginny was afraid of accepting responsibility for her past, for the loss of her job and the end of her relationship with Brett.
Origami Dove: Postcard Contemplations from a Flight to Arizona
By Paula J. Lambert
a pecha kucha for Evelyn
i
All those times Insight broke like a fever and
I called it something Other than what it was.
Oh, Houston! Mission Control! Looking down