Public Republic

Tanya Kolyovska Photo: normanack Carmen looks like a little old wife now used to what comes in her life. But her turkey mate stomps, he’ll split the earth because that’s the way he makes love.

Kristin Dimitrova Photo: tonythemisfit I Every night I look for a door to your dream. I will open it and eavesdrop. Although I have opened many doors behind each one I saw a mirror. II Do you remember how once we posed naked and smiling before the mirror? You and he swapped wives and each […]

She could feel the need for fame in her fingertips
as if each print were a map of divine destiny

Kristin Dimitrova Photo: lepiaf.qeo Stefcho from Slatina District believes in Batman. He also believes in Baba Yaga, Santa Claus, the fairies, the Martians, Dracula, the seven dwarfs and Snow White.

Photo: vorty Once upon a time there was a fabulously beautiful bird. She lived in the dreams of the artists, poets and hunters. The artists tried to draw her their whole lives, but never succeeded in capturing her image. And the people said to them: -If you can’t draw her it means there is no […]

George Fillingham Photo: Sister72             “ . . . y en un abrir los ojos nos morimos.”*             Octavio Paz I have raised robins, many thought abandoned. Many were. I have raised them from what looked to be A bundle of pin feathers and quills with bright wide beaks, Or some naked but for hinted wings, bulged […]

Tanya Kolyovska Photo: Joe Shlabotnik Across a well of autumn rays The street sets out For the sky. The trees stream down molten. Homeless dogs Warm the sidewalk. The shadows vanish.

Aksinia Mihailova Photo: dawnzy58 On Friday evening, on my way home where someone is waiting for me my wings grow out and I become a swallow. Perhaps birds have their hidden compass: they know exactly when to return, where their nests are.

Drew Logan Photo: erix! She wrapped her drunken fist around the neck of the almost drunk bottle of pale yellow gin

Simon Perchik Photo: trialsanderrors What you hear is one winter to another, heads or tails one side staggering the other moving closer though it will rain soon –midair the way you clip some dazzling jewel and your dress blossom while you are still inside covered with snow, the sun half struggling, half underwater toward the […]

Donal Mahoney Photo: lepiaf.geo Stunned by July in a hammock he remembers the apricot wife no longer here one curler more and the flutter of leaves in the orchard the sound of trees

Barry George Photo: kennymatic This morning he stretches out, yawning and wagging his tail for no reason; for every reason— for the One reason. If I could put it into words I’d be a cat.

Mariana Velichkova Photo: ricardo.martins Do not let our lives pass like a river flowing calmly… We should be drawn to the water that in its rush has hidden in itself innumerable broken drops and…strength.

Aksinia Mihailova Photo: jenny downing He left his dreams in the neon city inhabited by gilded statues with sick light in the eyes. He closed his suitcase, locked the door and went. At the bottom of it he has thoroughly folded the melody he bought from a street musician on the pier;

Yassen Vassilev Photo: orvalrochefort in a city under glass lid chafed knees will rub the rails will print the map of the net she-wolf romulus and remus synchronicity and constant the neon eyes will blink rails and tunnel through time metro tomorrow yesterday today

Roger Craik Photo: Jaci Berkopec On the day that all the world had died, Standing on my front door step With coffee in the dark blue mug I’d bought In Hartford, at some wordy conference, I idly pressed my bell

Donal Mahoney Photo: giuvax In my hand, I squeeze this trinity of walnuts tighter till louder than the tot who’s rapped her elbow off the radiator, I can hear clearer than the sirens I’ve heard all these years real fear as walnuts whimper

Rosemary Royston Photo: jenny downing Could it have been a three-day headache — the kind with the relentless throb and slam of the sledgehammer, the sick roll of the eyes, the ache in the base of the neck, that drove someone into the woods shrieking in two parts pain, one part delirium just mad enough […]

Bozhana Apostolova Photo: Westsun There’s nothing the matter with me, everything’s nice… I hear my voice from the depth of a precipice. And my soul, oh, God, like a small lump of ice In the drink of the darkness melts down… And vanishes. Translated from Bulgarian by Valentin Krustev and Donna Martell

Eunice Blavascunas Ph.D. Photo: rossinabossio The seat of my dress stuck to the chair I pretended I was ready to go Even went on about the car running outside One leg crossed over the other in quick succession grew hot and bothered