Public Republic

Donal Mahoney Photo: mikebaird Although we’ll never again be body to body or mind to mind, you and the place and the years are alive every night in the letters I’ve stored in my room.

Anca Vlasopolos Photo: chefranden on October 9, 5769, Atonement Day, the thrush stood in the middle of Lakeland the street that takes me where I face St. Clair to cast once more my bread upon the waters

Jill Kelly Koren Photo: allygirl520 I killed a man, though I did not see it happen; I knew I had done it because a) I was trying to destroy the evidence: little scraps of yellow paper with damning information and b) the desperation I felt was immense; I knew it was wrong to obstruct Justice, […]

Eunice Blavascunas Photo: darwinbell At the restaurant where I work People march on Great armies cordially deferring Cartoon nurses exposing thunder for legs Speeding off as fast as their granite bodies will take them Whose wounds had they bandaged Whose skin had they sponged Safe again We would have all eaten together

Cristina Trapani-Scott Photo: powi He was tall on Sundays, his white shirt crisp, his hazel eyes shaded by the patio awning. Heat from the grill gave his stillness movement, making him a reflection on water cut

Jerry Ratch Photo: evoo73 They come to the new world, but bring the old world with them. The six-second rule. When their bagel drops face down on the café floor, apparently it’s the old world six-second rule that applies, instead of our own more modern three-second rule.

Anca Vlasopolos Photo: audreyjm529 in dream clouds shouldered their way past me looking like the familiar purplish fade of a longtime bruise

Donal Mahoney Photo: Daylight. Down the patio walk, white stones, through the garden, under the trellis toward me yellow frock, yellow hair rising and falling

Interview with Blaga Dimitrova’s Poetry by Farideh Hassanzadeh-Mostafavi Farideh Hassanzadeh (Mostafavi), an Iranian poet, has translated poems by Blaga Dimitrova into Farsi. She wrote to Dimitrova and asked for an interview. The great poet was in her last days and could only send her books. Farideh decided to arrange an interview with the poetry of […]

I am surprised it is not a common expression of disdain: “That’s as useless as putting a suit on a short man.”

Bozhana Apostolova Photo: tanakawho I love you, and I feel – my ailing blood is raving and troubling again my frantic passions. I am traveling obsessed across the earth, all craving for you, for your love that stirred me into life.

Suzanne Nielsen Photo: tanjila William and Gary waited for the chloroform to take hold while clenching their thumbless fists and day dreaming about how the skyline looked like divinity minus the cherries.

Interview with Marilyn Kallet by Matt Urmy Marilyn Kallet was born in Montgomery, Alabama, and grew up in New York. She is the author of 14 books, including Circe, After Hours, poetry from BkMk Press, and Last Love Poems of Paul Eluard, translations from Black Widow Press. In 2009, Black Widow will publish Packing Light: […]

Marilyn Kallet Photo: Choufi/// Today the Garonne flows greener than the poplars, more limber, sky is smoke pierced with light, gulls make dazzling punctuation marks like childhood on Jones Beach.

Virginia Zaharieva Photo: [[^Fénix^]]                               To Sylvia Ch. You can’t even imagine how close I am to your house to your couch even – a soft spring moaning under your weight the weight of all those years spent together at the ends of the phone line.

Chris Mattingly Photo: thebusybrain By14, I had exceeded the accolades Of Satchel Paige, Nolan Ryan & Dizzy Dean combined. I had a pitch Like a ball dropping Off a table into a hole In the bat. & I threw so hard Folks heard the catcher’s mitt pop 100 miles away.

Donna Ison Photo: ripdownthetapestries With the warm shawl of time-won wisdom pulled tight around my shoulders, I reluctantly recline into the lap of acceptance and begin the wait. Almost at once–Body convulses. Skin crawls. Blood curdles.

Daniela Gakeva-Slavcheva Photo: Môsieur J. * * * Събудих се. Още един ден. Жалко. I woke up. Another day. Too bad.

Petja Heinrich Photo: DarkCtyle’s The fresh apple core contains enough live molecules to assemble a human being with all his charms and flaws pink skin and rot under the nail soft flesh bone of the seed hair of the stem

Vladimir Levchev Photo: ssdctw This is a cardboard box. It is labeled 5: 47 p.m. Inside, there is a sunset above a forest: an Easter egg in green paper. There is also wind.