by Loren Moreno
It can last from a few seconds to a minute or two and is often associated with hypnogogic hallucinations, things you see when you’re trying to wake up.
—Dr. Priyanka Yadav
The doorway, rectangle cut in the peeling white wall,
opens to blackness, where the mind superimposes
shapes and figures emerging from nothing. Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
by Shannon L. Bowring
He searches for her along roads that look like scars winding their way through barren landscapes. He shows her picture to dozens of tired waitresses, indifferent tourists, cynical cops who all see the hopeless face of a long-lost memory in the faded Polaroid the man waves at them. “See that mark there, under her right eye? That’s from where she fell off her bike when she was seven. Are you sure you haven’t seen her around here?”
His story is too familiar. He is searching for another lost soul. In a roadside café in Texas, an old man with thick black hair and wind-roughened skin advises him to ease up on the search. “Ain’t gonna find her, son. We’ve all lost girls like that, some time or another. Best just let her go, boy. Get to movin’ on.” Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
by Joe Balaz
Kamuela Kim’s
great-grandparents
wuz immigrant workers
in da sugarcane fields
but dat wuz da extent
of her humility.
She wuz da owner
of wun ritzy Honolulu restaurant
and her Cadillac
wuz painted bright ruby red. Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
By Ndaba Sibanda
Ever since his appointment to the lofty position of defense minister, he seemed to be gripped by some phobia. Some residents claimed the irrational fear stemmed from the possibility that he did not know what he was expected to do. Others thought that he was a lucky coward who found himself having to oversee a strategic security portfolio which he did not deserve or understand. Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
by Bénédicte Kusendila
The sheets hung out to sweet perfection,
the bed covered by a quilt of hearts.
It is okay to be girly again,
to foreshow what I want.
The drunken dance of welcoming tourists;
they’re already my friends. The psalm of
the classy suit shouting, “I don’t know! I don’t know!”
in the street, in his mobile phone. Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
Hawaii Pacific Review 