Public Republic

Stanislava Stanoeva Photo: jonrawlinson Black crows come flying and form up by age. Outside, the thin road is silent and pale. The noise is inside us and it is so usual that if snowflakes flit, they’re only delusional. Translation from Bulgarian: Svetlana Komogorova – Komata

Bozhana Apostolova Photo: Wolfgang Staudt The mist coughed up the soul of winter. It dawned, and the day set out wrapped in a scarf of white tears. Someone wept inside me, while in my ear a little bug droned. So, life, are you speeding again with puffy and drowsy eyes? Where are you rushing to? […]

Eric Sutherland Photo: Cristóbal Alvarado Minic copperhead sleeps in cool shade as I pluck blackberries from thorny vines and place them between my lips, a dragonfly watches from my shoulder, the sky is a mist of humid July air, it droops heavy toward the ground everywhere my eyes gaze upon the horizon, and though I […]

Heather Wyatt The face of the Creek man looked off in the distance with me tucked safely in his peripheral. You could see why this man was famous.

Claudia Bierschenk Photo: griffithjune49 (Co. Clare, 1997) your chatter carried echoes of an ancient tongue with every cup of tea we sipped away the hours spotting clouds draw in from the hills ready to run out and bring the washing in at any moment you loved to watch sheets flutter like wings on the clothesline

Donal Mahoney Photo: Rocklin Autumn’s over. Wheat cake odors flood the wood front porch. Andrew Block, in mackinaw and overalls, tamps first tobacco of the day and estimates his morning. In an open field beyond McDiver’s Creek Andrew Block can see his colt, palamino apricot and snow, nip grass between great gallops and the shock […]

By Heather Wyatt Photo: Denise ~*~ I stare upward after you make a surprisingly loud thud in my light fixture. You and your kind have invaded my house. Swarms of thousands, red, with black dots, a design to imply innocence but you fly at my mouth and eyes. So, I see you, wandering along in […]

Drew Logan Photo: jtravism r’nd the corner out’a the wind you say t’ me you think th’ll op’n early t’day too cold t’ panhandle no one r’nd no money no juice I say t’ you maybe knowing that y’ll have two more hours out’a the wind r’nd the corner

Roger Craik Photo: Ctd 2005 Afterwards I pulled up one blue sheet Above us both. It made a cave and there we lay. The blue light that we made Was ours alone. I told you then how many caves, More than the number of our days, Were ours to have in London, Venice, Amsterdam, But […]

Tanya Kolyovska Photo: lepiaf.geo We did not have much time. The stooped back wind (we are all of us maimed) showed the road in the woods. The silence made us look like shadows that had ruined their bodies. We wanted to feel our skin and become one whole with it again. … Sincere, we strictly […]

Kristin Dimitrova Photo: striatic It has been years since my disgusting suitor stopped calling. He used to invade my dreams, sometimes holding my hand, pouring his meanness into me.

Roger Craik Photo: michale When your last letter came at last, it came not as you said it would, by hand, in my mailbox — your nerve, I thought, was not equal to that – but in the trusty U.S. Mail.

Simon Perchik Photo: Johan Larsson Even in summer, long johns and fleece-lined jackets just in case — you drive across though the silk scarf already resembles the thinning air this time without its wings

Photo: lmaji Morning comes out of the blue with free freshness and a babble of dying stars. The stairwell smells of coffee. Behind doors people are weightless. At bus stops they nestle against invisible pillows and hope to hear a voice announce False start. Morning is cancelled. Back to bed, all of you. Translated into […]

Yassen Vassilev To Ajabez your voices cross my head sift the holy out of the world possess mountain peaks biblical cities and the three crosses of golgotha echoes from the rocks of kamen briag and somehow I know that I will never ever walk alone

Tanya Kolyovska Photo: Ctd 2005 For Krassi I The rainbow loses all stability if you hurl it belly down. II The street was expressive – with shades in the eyes and the spilt over skies. III A talking olive tree. Translated from Bulgarian by Valentin Krustev

Simon Perchik Photo: ` TheDreamSky Waiting all afternoon the dark is treated the way a parasite dreads shells and emptiness though a blue residue cools the sky spreads out so its light everywhere can run just so fast from the blindness children still count on their hands

Roger Craik Photo: .beth That winter, four years after your marriage broke down in all but name – but name to you was everything – and you were dithering still, unable to divorce or even to discuss divorce but marveling, instead, at each succeeding apercu for months – yes, months – on end for what […]

Roger Craik Photo: Untitled blue Today you leave (I’ve known of this for months and therefore can’t complain) For the beach house by the sea Where he will pass the days and evening with TV, And you with books, Or so you say. You will go for walks, together. You will never be alone. Perhaps […]

Photo: striatic Today the weather will be nice… I’ll take off my shoes. I might cut my toenails… I like to cut my nails and also to scrape my heels. In general, I enjoy the pleasures life offers… I’m not one of those who believe in reincarnation, and when the weather’s nice, I don’t miss […]