By Lamont A. Turner My darling Stephanie, you were so young And possessed with a grace unmatched in all The poet’s lore and songs of love once sung By kind Euterpe who would enthrall The lost and lonely in unending nights Of tempestuous, impassioned delights. I belonged to you from the moment you Kissed my … Continue reading For Stephanie
The Button Girl
By Christopher Henckel Part 1 The Button Girl arrived in Buckhannon, West Virginia, in the spring of 1962. No one knew her real name or where she came from. She simply appeared. Standing between the town’s five-and-dime and Jerry’s Auto Repair on Main Street, The Button Girl held a jade button to her eye as … Continue reading The Button Girl
My Little Star Girl
By Lana M. Rochel Originally was written in 2018 and published in Multiply IQ in September 2018. Rochel updated the essay in 2021. More information about the essay will be posted after the essay. I'm looking at a white blank laptop page in front of me. “Hey, mum! Tell the story of your girl!" I … Continue reading My Little Star Girl
The Room
By Joan Hyams Schmitz It’s been a calendar full of days since the boy entered the room, dumping his backpack on the floor as he flopped onto his bed for a power nap. This brief, impromptu trip home served one purpose—a quick trip to the dentist to repair a chipped tooth. Once the incisor was … Continue reading The Room
An Hour in the Life of a Five-Year-Old Pool Player
By Francine Rodriguez The parking lot in front of King Drew Place of Family on Central Avenue, was nearly full that morning in 1994. I didn’t recognize any of the cars filling the lot, stacked one behind the other. Gangster cars, black Suburbans, Escalades, and lowriders, like the ones in my neighborhood, like the 61 … Continue reading An Hour in the Life of a Five-Year-Old Pool Player
Juancito
By George Keyes 1. Atlantic Ocean, the Sea Huge, deep, excommunicated. Sometimes it gives us that fear where all guts of our body appear to squeeze out with that profound tradition of fishermen and the mysteries that created to itself the truth of the unknown. Somewhere in the sea, Juanito, a 12-year-old Cuban boy, who … Continue reading Juancito
Four Poems by G. David Schwartz
Dogs Are Not Stupid Dogs are not stupid Dogs are not ignorant If they could drive automobiles They could become a president. A Dog May Not Be A dog may not be The best friend of a cat I asked my dog and he said What do you think abbot that? … Continue reading Four Poems by G. David Schwartz
Plato-Bible Eclectic Mixed Metaphors
By Gerard Sarnat Half-Israeli grandson Liav and I throw ourselves into post Chanukah truck dumpty dumpties, dreidel mini-footballs then make his yofi* new train station bubble with electric soap suds deep deep inside Coachie’s man cave which at times tends to be awash in unkosher sour squashed Domino pizza boxes among leaning towers’ Joseph Coat-Of-Many-Colors … Continue reading Plato-Bible Eclectic Mixed Metaphors
Poems by Alan Parry
Office Job dying of life – wasted while Americana – tinny/quiet – plays in the background and the walls encroach and the windows shake Children the sister is sitting cross-legged on her bedroom floor in torn jeans – surrounded by shadows/glossy magazines/scissors/tape/scrapbooks making kings and queens – fawning over idols the older brother … Continue reading Poems by Alan Parry
Magic
By Cheryl L. Caesar When I was seven my dolls still talked and moved, even the unfortunate one I’d molded out of clay, who looked like Alice the Goon. Having no armature, she couldn’t stand. She sat splay-legged, as though in an eternal game of jacks. When I was seven, the April issue of Jack … Continue reading Magic
Academy of the Heart And Mind 