¿A Dónde Vas?
She asked watching me
float farther away through
the Great Lakes as I crossed
rivers in Mississippi… Rios
Grande, passing through oceans
Atlantic, in France it was all
about the Seine even the Salton
could see… I would drift further
inside every time with every wave
hoping with each low and high
tide, I could finally find the current
flow of my own rio. Although
I would sail alone, I felt her stirring
aviso’s as I rowed, I always paddled
deeper rippling to create surges
of poems skin pruned, frio waves
her treasured reminders always
carry me sailing towards
home. Continue reading “Three poems by Adrian Ernesto Cepeda”
Last of the Barbary Lions
ii.
There’s no Hippocratic Oath for vets;
in this world a man is what morals make him. I’m indentured to a thug
with a pocket full of mobile phones,
two weeks into a handshake pact of pills and powders.
I’ve been paid to wait, collude
in the plaza haze, my feet
kicking alleys of August wind.
Perched on a stool in Calle Melo’s limestone glower,
watching ocean and sea blur in the Strait.
I’m doling tablets to door knocks,
cutting chorizo with a necktie knife; listing
on a nightly lullaby of horse tranquillisers.
I breathe in the dry air, breath out
a stem of opioid desire
and settle at the bar,
petals in my mouth.
This is my last night swallowing broken Spanish,
feet on the solstice line
a half step ahead of winter shade.
The ferries from Morocco
are on endless loop, red hulls
split sky and sea.
Continue reading “Last of the Barbary Lions and other poems; a haibun sequence by Rico Craig”
ROAD #46 – FOLLIS AVE. TIME: 10:45 PM. WEATHER: DRIZZLING. PAVEMENT STATE: SOLID / NO CRACKS OR BREAKS / CLEAN OF DEBRIS.
[ Darkness uncovers certain predictions in the trees. The grey breath of the stars and moon show me the surrounding area, heavily forested; thick green hovers above the ground, the leaves healthy, hearty for summer. Coyotes can be heard faintly behind the treeline. A quick walk works up a sweat. Temperature outside recorded at 81 degrees Fahrenheit. Small mice skitter just out of reach in the ditch. No homes can be found, though lights in the distance betray somebody or something. Maybe a porch. Smell a campfire nearby. Smell no voices. Continue reading “Schedule of Somnambulist Roads #46 – #49 by Alec Ivan Fugate”
“I seek a place that can never be destroyed, one that is pure, and that fadeth not away, and is laid up in heaven, and safe there, to be given, at the time appointed, to them that seek it with all their heart.”
– John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress
Our pilgrimage almost came to an end under the wheels of a 10-ton truck on the D650 from Istanbul to Eskişehir, on a summer night made darker by no highway illumination and no towns for miles around. The four-lane highway was flanked on one side by dry, empty country and on the other by two-hundred-feet-tall black crags, out of which the silhouettes of pine trees leered, high up. Continue reading “Phrygians In The Rigging by Caroline Stockford”
Jo Tinsley is the founder and editor of Ernest Journal – “an independent magazine for the curious and adventurous”. She is also the co-author of two books, The Odditorium: The tricksters, eccentrics, deviants and inventors whose obsessions changed the world and The Mysterium: Unexplained and extraordinary stories for a post-Nessie generation, and editor of Waterfront, a magazine celebrating a connection with water for the Canal & River Trust. Somehow, she also finds time to work as a freelance writer and curator. Continue reading “Jo Tinsley: In Conversation with C.C. O’Hanlon”
For months before going to Alaska, I thought about how six hours of daylight would feel. In California, I’d lay in bed and imagine the darkness as a hand closing around my throat. Continue reading “A Believing Place by Nina Foushee”
In Casablanca you will expect buildings to be white, based solely on the city’s name, which translates to ‘white house’. But there will hardly be a truly white building in sight. How odd is it to call a city a house? Once you spend a little time in Casablanca, it will make perfect sense. Continue reading “In Casablanca by Ganzeer”
When he died, they covered his tracks and made him hard to trace. Eighty years on, he’s the talk of a frontier town. Philosopher, critic, storyteller, Jew. A father who never knew his granddaughters, born later to an exiled son in London. Continue reading “This Is Not A Memorial, And Other Stories Of Remembrance by Alan Nance”
“A frontier region… the resort of brigands and bandits”
– Sir Clifford Darby, from The Medieval Fenland
Two summers ago I walked coast to coast across England and Wales, from Great Yarmouth in Norfolk to Aberystwyth on the Welsh coast. The idea was to etch a furrow in the map along a route that traced familiar haunts and places of personal significance. My aim was to rekindle the memory of places I once knew in East Anglia and the Midlands; join up the dots, to connect all the places along the way with a line made by walking – a pagan pilgrimage, if you like, a personal songline. Continue reading “The Tyranny of the Horizon by Laurence Mitchell”
Tom Jeffreys is an English author, critic, and editor. He is also, in his own words, “a reluctant traveller”.
In 2013, he was made redundant just as he and his wife – artist and writer Crystal Bennes – had to leave their flat in east London. They travelled for six months in South America, then lived for two years in Helsinki, where Crystal completed a masters’ degree in fine art. There was a year in Paris after that. Now they’re in Edinburgh. Continue reading “Tom Jeffreys: In Conversation with C.C. O’Hanlon”
Marrakesh, Old Town
Everyone seemed to have rotten, black, and missing front teeth. They were friendly and kept smiling and that’s how I saw they mostly had rotten, black and missing front teeth.
I couldn’t see a lot of the women’s teeth, only their eyes, and often not even. There were many women dressed from head to ankle, in long black fabrics, with layer upon layer covering skin, hands, hair, and some that covered the eyes, and with only a marginally thinner veil, so that everything was hidden, nothing to determine soul, being, nor Continue reading “Nothing Dries Sooner Than A Tear* by Joanna Pickering”
BURNING HOUSE PRESS 
The Colossus of Estacada by Matthew Spencer
The name misleads, slightly, and was coined for marketing purposes. In fact, the bronze figure measures thirteen feet tall—outsized, monumental perhaps, but not colossal. It stands contrapposto with one hand outstretched, palm inward, as if beckoning the visitor to approach. A thin but charitable smile creases the face, although patina has rendered the expression somewhat difficult to read, as have the iron security bars installed to ward off scrap hunters. Continue reading “The Colossus of Estacada by Matthew Spencer” →
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