by Kevin Grauke
A slightly famous actor, once loved
by our younger selves, has died, I see
on my morning feed. I tell you immediately,
just as you would tell me. The two of us
are eating eggs and toast, drinking coffee,
and scrolling through our phones, looking
to see what happened while we slept,
which, as always, was both nothing and
much too much of everything. Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
by Robert Garner McBrearty
My teenage son says that money doesn’t matter, and on one level I get it, but if you’ve ever been short of it, you know it does.
I point out that we stay in nicer hotels now when we travel, and he admits that’s sort of pleasant, though he says, and I know it’s true, that he’d be fine staying in a hostel. In fact, he might prefer it.
We eat at better restaurants now, I tell him, and he says that is enjoyable, but he’d be fine really with just about any grub, beans from a can, maybe some tuna, and again, I know it’s true for him.
But you wouldn’t want to sleep out on the streets, right? Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
by Gene Twaronite
I stare at the photograph
of a bare-chested 18-year-old
trying to look brutish,
crouching as if
ready to pounce,
projecting his masculinity
lest the image fade. Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
by Angela Townsend
The trees read each other with a generous eye.
The maple was the real author, as anyone could see. Strong and seasoned, her storm memoirs made the best-seller list. She turned cayenne in October, a refined lady blushing graciously at all the acclaim. I made fairy gardens at her trunk and whispered secrets into the little holes where small creatures delivered her Times. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
by Tara A. Elliott
It would be all almonds, the sweet, cocooned belly
of the melon, berries rupturing black against my tongue. Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
Hawaii Pacific Review 