by Jim McKenna
Surging down aisles, haphazardly
filing into their quarters: sardines packed
air tight and pressurized.
One takes her seat next to me, distinctly
and routined, pale overhead lighting
reflecting off of her young scales.
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Filed under Poetry
by Kate Tagai
Here: South Pacific, July 2011
Anna seems to grow from the woven mat spread between her and the dusty ground. Her skirt’s elastic stretched and sagging around her waist from so much wear, like Anna’s own skin. She is eighty, or maybe closer to ninety years old. She doesn’t know, but measures her years in world events and the thirteen children she has raised. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
by Peter Krumbach
The composer has inserted his head and upper torso
into the lacquered case of the grand piano.
Trembling harmonics rise through the symphony hall.
Opera glasses aim at his satin braided pants and black
swallow-tailed coat writhing under the open wing
of the Steinway. He resembles a mechanic
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Filed under Poetry
by Richard Key
June 4. I’m one hundred days from turning sixty. Seems not so long ago I calculated that I had exactly one thousand days remaining in my fifties, which didn’t bother me so much. That’s almost three years. You could get a law degree in that time. People have biked around the world in less time. Sixty is intimidating. You’re supposed to be grown up by then. I mean completely grown up. Fifty is the youth of old age, according to Victor Hugo, and maybe that’s the rub. Now even the youth of old age is fading fast. My “over the hill” T-shirt has holes in it…and they’re getting bigger by the day.
Filed under Nonfiction
by Bryce Berkowitz
after Edward Hirsch
Today we drift through a peach orchard,
scabbed and calloused,
branches bent in black and gold angles,
while the sun sets over the prairie.
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Hawaii Pacific Review 