by Robert Coles
When you enter your heart beats;
you hesitate but feel the need.
Through a black velvet drape
you stumble, make sure
you don’t trip over someone’s feet.
The screen flickers down the aisle Continue reading
X Rated Movie
Filed under Poetry
Seeking Sanctuary
by Jose Luis Gutierrez
Once again our lives are being
translated into fog which,
have you seen this morning,
is a refugee crossing Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
Punishment: Me Land
by Kevin Griffith
A man is strapped down,
down next to ankle-high hilltops,
trees made with toothpicks and moss.
Between his spread legs lies a parking lot, Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
The Darling Queen
by Ira Sukrungruang
The Brightest Room in the World
Nitaya wonders what her life would be like without her younger brother Martin. What if she was not an orphan, not a refugee, but the natural born child of Roger and Irene Williamson of Glen Ellyn, Illinois? Nitaya imagines herself with pale white skin and freckles. She imagines herself with red hair that undulates down her back, like her mother, instead of her short stray strands that limps over her shoulders. She imagines she can speak rapid fire English and read thick books like her father, who calls her his darling queen. Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
Volcano with Child
by Mary Kovaleski Byrnes
I climbed in there once, the sleeping mountain
warm from within and exhaling
through invisible fissures under my sandals.
And then the once-buried now-excavated city, Continue reading
Hawaii Pacific Review 