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Vol. 5, No. 3 Contents

All Points West  by ADAM GREENFIELD

1 November 2005
fiction, short story

She is already experimenting with the accent as she draws herself up to me. She collects her body like a sharecropper and lays out her insane demands.

The Outcasts of Poker Flat  by FRANCIS BRET HARTE

12 October 2005
fiction, classic

As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker Flat on the morning of the twenty-third of November, 1850, he was conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night.

Darryl's 1890  by TRIPP READE

The antiques on the wall were real, not reproductions like you see in chain joints these days. In fact, even the seating was antique: scarred tables from long-demolished hotels and diners, railcar berths, an old-timey elevator.

Wandering Willie's Tale  by SIR WALTER SCOTT

28 November 2005
fiction, short story, classic

What his wife mentioned of his being a tale-teller as well as a musician now occurred to me; and as, you know, I like tales of superstition, I begged to have a specimen of his talent as we went along.

Crow  by ERICH R. SYSAK

When Alethea came over after school she wanted to know if my grandmother was a witch.

Letter to Thomas Higginson on 15 April 1862  by EMILY DICKINSON

12 September 2005
nonfiction, classic, cover letter

Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?

The Mind is so near itself—it cannot see, distinctly—and I have none to ask—

The Law of Hippocrates  by  HIPPOCRATES

Medicine is of all the arts the most noble…

The Oath of Hippocrates  by  HIPPOCRATES

I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous.

In Toto  by NEIL DE LA FLOR

13 November 2005
poetry

Each new day planned another. It was always a cool evening, bones brittle as toothpicks.

T. Williams Talks to Birds or I'm Talking to Birds  by NEIL DE LA FLOR

15 November 2005
poetry, prose poem

Tennessee Williams once visited Manhattan where he celebrated the Broadway success of A Streetcar Named Desire with a leather purse.

I'll tell you how the Sun rose—  by EMILY DICKINSON

16 September 2005
poetry, classic

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers—

Untouched by Morning—

And untouched by Noon—

Lie the meek members of the Resurrection—

Rafter of Satin—and Roof of Stone!

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers—  by EMILY DICKINSON

13 September 2005
poetry, classic

But how he set—I know not—

There seemed a purple stile

That little Yellow boys and girls

Were climbing all the while—

The nearest Dream recedes—unrealized—  by EMILY DICKINSON

14 September 2005
poetry, classic

The Heaven we chase,

Like the June Bee—before the School Boy,

Invites the Race—

Stoops—to an easy Clover—

We play at Paste—  by EMILY DICKINSON

15 September 2005
poetry, classic

We play at Paste—

Till qualified, for Pearl—

Then, drop the Paste—

And deem ourself a fool—

Photograph  by SANDY FLORIAN

15 October 2005
poetry, prose poem, editors' select

A likeness or delineation. Or. The application of Light to the purpose of Representation. Rather. The smallest reduction of the largest pyramid. And. The largest enlargement of the smallest microbe. An underwater waterlog of the sawfish in swim. For.

Congo  by SCOTT GLASSMAN

27 September 2005
poetry, prose poem

You are no dumb chimp, smacking white on ultramarine, mars black on white, a stroke of crimson somewhere in between to mimic an inferno. You didn't knock over the brushes or try to eat them…

Our Secret  by SCOTT GLASSMAN

24 September 2005
poetry, prose poem

Neverland won't fess up…

[Because it's that time of year again] from Nights and Weekends  by NICHOLAS GRIDER

5 September 2005
poetry

Whatever comes naturally, he says

the sky is always the hardest part

with the guest bedroom locked

and you in it…

[You there with green teeth] from Nights and Weekends  by NICHOLAS GRIDER

8 September 2005
poetry

You there green with teeth

and certificates, summer

another midnight

under a dotted line (a trust fund)…

She Makes Me a Little Sculpture  by JAMES GRINWIS

2 October 2005
poetry

A scrawny hippo, a tar-caked disc

hopping around out back.

A rogue flipped on his back…

The Week in Renovation: Friday  by CAROLYN GUINZIO

28 October 2005
poetry

They tell you

that when you think

you can breathe,

you'll bury

what you draw.

The Week in Renovation: Monday  by CAROLYN GUINZIO

24 October 2005
poetry

I needed to see you,

but you weren't here.

There was no sign.

The gate was bolted.

The Week in Renovation: Saturday  by CAROLYN GUINZIO

22 October 2005
poetry

If I could

be a character with a mind

to find inside my own head

the path from A to B…

The Week in Renovation: Sunday  by CAROLYN GUINZIO

30 October 2005
poetry

At The Future

Home of the New

Church…

The Week in Renovation: Thursday  by CAROLYN GUINZIO

20 October 2005
poetry

You have to wonder

who would leave

a ladder open

in an empty lot.

The Week in Renovation: Tuesday  by CAROLYN GUINZIO

18 October 2005
poetry

First, say:

Today will not end

as if it never began.

Thunderheads are not

gathering.

The Week in Renovation: Wednesday  by CAROLYN GUINZIO

26 October 2005
poetry

Can you make me

a chair that looks

like this chair?

A 60-Second Fairy Tale  by TASIA M. HANE

8 November 2005
poetry

Don't be biased, but it's about

healing, leaping buildings in a single bound. I went

to Utah once, on the Greyhound bus, and stopped in

a yellow café…

Rosa VII: First, Petals  by JNANA HODSON

4 November 2005
poetry

to think a reverse template

could redeem some missing


mirror image as banal as pornography

when I needed a compost pile

He just doesn't like the idea of lawn art  by BROOK HOUGLUM

4 October 2005
poetry, prose poem

You spend the last part of the party in the laundry rubbing salt into wine splotches on your shirt, thinking, even the stone painted like a ladybug, even the slug made of Christmas lights, even rusted bicycle wheels soldered to spikes? This is not party talk about landscape…

Let Us Drink and Be Merry  by THOMAS JORDAN

19 November 2005
poetry, classic, light verse, rhyme

Let us drink and be merry, dance, joke, and rejoice,

With claret and sherry, theorbo and voice!

The Old Familiar Faces  by CHARLES LAMB

20 November 2005
poetry, classic, elegy

I have had playmates, I have had companions

In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days;

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

Monologue of the Betrayed Woman After Reading Anne Carson  by KEITH MONTESANO

6 November 2005
poetry, prose poem

10. Do grapes feel that sweet while crushing them barefoot? Should I have made love like she did—sticky, swelled, then bursting?

poverty  by PETER SCHWARTZ

6 October 2005
poetry

give me my 12 cuckoos worth

of haunted fleurons, nostalgia

to fix my haywire antennae

and be heard…

Notes for a Thirty Volume Letter To You  by DEREK SMITH

21 September 2005
poetry

You say, "I have been tired recently and I've tried to tell you

                About this, about how I'm feeling."

I have looked at you, but you have not seen me looking…

Your Return  by DEREK SMITH

18 September 2005
poetry

Your return brought many surprises.

I hadn't, for example, remembered

your habit of calling me Herman Tinklewip…

Evanston  by LEIGH STEIN

8 October 2005
poetry, elegy

My dad would like to ship my grandmother to Oregon, but first

he calls to ask what I think about heart surgery. She'll die

if they do and she'll die if they don't and there are buckets of hyacinths

on my rooftop, and bathtubs of irises; I don't want to talk about this…

Stutter  by LYNN STRONGIN

17 November 2005
poetry

My tongue freezes on syllables        then starts stammering

the way a hand does, trembling on a doorjamb.

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