P o e t r y

Sit down. Inhale. Exhale. The gun will wait. The lake will wait. The tall gall in the small seductive vial will wait will wait: will wait a week: will wait through April. You do not have to die this certain day. Death will abide, will pamper your postponement. I assure you death will wait. Death has a lot of time. Death can attend to you tomorrow. Or next week. Death is just down the street; is most obliging neighbor; can meet you any moment. You need not die today. Stay here–through pout or pain or peskyness. Stay here. See what the news is going to be tomorrow. Graves grow no green that you can use. Remember, green’s your color. You are Spring.

issue #1 theme

for our first issue, we’d like to invite you to join us in the SWAMP.

tell us what you find in the swamp. tell us what finds you. we’re interested in all sorts of swamps: living and dead; digital and physical; mental and spiritual; its ecosystem and its inhabitants. illustrate all the ways you can get lost in it. bring to us the ugly, the gore, the guts and the glory. 

even though this is a themed issue, we encourage explorations of the subject from a range of perspectives. horror can take you by surprise in the comedic, get tangled into the romantic, ooze out of the dramatic and even comfort you in the tragic. drag us into the muddy depths of it all.

Callista Buchen, “Taking Care”

Pat Schneider, “The Patience of Ordinary Things”

Kim Hye Rim

“Come, let’s stand by the window and look out / at the light on the field. / Let’s watch how / the clouds cover the the sun and almost nothing / stirs in the grass.”

Danusha Laméris, The Moons of August; “Thinking”

Heather Christle, “Then We Are in Agreement”

Holly Warburton

Ross Gay, from The Book of Delights 

Jenny Slate, Little Weirds

Bernadette Mayer, from The Way to Keep Going in Antarctica

Ben McLaughlin, The Train

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

bloody my hands ‘til you hear me || transcription below || [ title source ]