by Roy Bentley
To the northwest, the continual racket and candelabra of a refinery,
its stoop-shouldered rigging an exhausted colossus. To the southeast,
a trailer park named for a tributary of the Licking River, Ramp Creek,
a fouled rivulet reduced to toxic run-off no one in his or her right mind
would drink. Each day, the eyes of those who live here open onto this.
Each night, these constellations spin imperceptibly over the real work Continue reading
by Rita Ciresi
After Christmas, I unwrapped his presents. The paper pictured a child in the manger, angels blowing trumpets, and a cornucopia that spilled out in cursive script Blessings Blessings Blessings.
I’m known in our house as the thrifty one. I reuse giftwrap from year to year. Collect soap slivers. Turn lotion and shampoo bottles upside down to coax out the last drop. But that day I ripped the angels off each box. Crumpled the Blessings. Left the child in the manger in shreds. Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
by Robert Karaszi
In this geometry of a dream
I’m back where the sun,
a monstrous orb
pours savage light
through rockweed.
Starlings like gray halos
circle then arrow
into mangroves. Continue reading
by R. Dean Johnson
Tom doesn’t know I’ve been avoiding him. It hasn’t exactly been a conscious thing. There wasn’t an argument or a last straw; I’ve had no epiphany or change of heart. It just sort of happened.
Really, we’ve always been semester friends—hanging out when classes are in session, rarely doing much together on spring, winter, or summer breaks. But now we’ve graduated, both with business degrees from a school that has a great reputation for engineering. There were a couple graduation get-togethers, high fives and handshakes, bottles of beer and the occasional shot, the grin and requisite, “We did it.” Then, nothing. A perpetual break. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
by Susana H. Case
Black and white photographs line the
corridors: here, a roadster, with a glamorous
woman checking her face in the rear view;
another inhales a candelabra of eight cigarettes.
Who are these people?
Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
Hawaii Pacific Review 