by Jessie Carty
– after a line from the movie adaptation of “Cloud Atlas”
Nobody says anything.
To tell her would be an admission
of how we gave careful
consideration to the spaces
on her body not occupied
by clothing; to her tanned
and then alternatively lined skin;
to the ratchet of her spine. Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
by Rebecca Givens Rolland
Blunt the axe, carve out the weapon: make the war good.
What starts in the mind stays in the mind for good.
A pearl from my necklace, dropped string: you noticed
nothing. War on, you strung up promises, none good.
Middle of the night, packed bags: no man travels simply.
In spooled hours, I breathed you in: weightless, good. Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
by John E. Simonds
We run through a world of recovering people,
proud of their problems
but unclear they’re over.
Their lives, like our jogging, one step at a time,
in parks by the sea
where the same sunset works. Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
By Brett Roth
His dog paced anxiously for relief, but snow was up to Dixie’s stubby tail, and Juice understood her reluctance. He was grateful the electricity stayed on. His wife’s cancer was in remission, but Juice’s worry was unrelenting, and firing up a generator to keep the house warm was extra. On snowy days in Massachusetts, Juice missed the serenity of mountains.
The smell of coffee was an antidote against the wind’s insistent bellowing. The radiators gurgled with heat. Although Juice was quietly sipping coffee, the house was noisy and alive. His wife, Priscilla, slept fitfully in their bedroom, her sister, Pamela, snored in the guestroom, her appearance as expected as the storm. Pamela gambled and won a free weekend at a casino in Connecticut. She frequently visited after her luck ran out. Dixie’s nails clicked softly on the hardwood floor. Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
By John Davis
It was several years before I told you how close I came to death.
It had been months.
I was trying to sew memories
of home into my back pocket.
I looked for moments to
rip them out and make them move like something alive. Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
Hawaii Pacific Review 