Public Republic

Petar Tchouhov Photo: movimente I want you to do a little striptease for me no, I don’t mean you tie up your hair

Vladimir Levchev Photo: suneko The sun is dark yellow. The willow leaves are mirrors ringing above the illuminated waters.

Chungyen Chang Photo: Gaetan Lee I’m exploring the last traces of humanity left in my fingers as they scrape away at the page i’m leaving it all behind

Barbara Sabol Photo: nathalielaure Mothers forget to mind the heavens and miss when daughters smuggle stars into the house under white cotton blouses, mistaking their shine for filigree

David Harrity Photo: txd …you are the bell, and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you… —Billy Collins When my mind wanders in church, I wonder if it’s possible to write a love poem about us using the metaphor of a bell and it not be completely sexual. I’m finding it hard to […]

Ivanka Mogilska Photo: Jsome1 I cannot tell you What her scream will be tomorrow. A seagull with a dead fish in her beak Is the present. The fish eyes swallow All the screams.

Jill Koren Photo: longhorndave It flies up out of the tub drain it is definitely a bat but she has a human face

Robert Walton Photo: XirannisX en Off Insistent claws, Smaller than a rodent’s, Furrowed the corners of your mouth. Hunger’s touch Was never a caress.

Rumiana Raykova Photo: Clearly Ambiguous Creeping thickened down the exquisite palate of March a spring allusion expecting nocturnal violets

Vladimir Levchev Photo: dospaz My name is Lazarus. I came from the grave. 17 years I waited, waited perched on a damp root on the opposite side of life. The sky there is dark and firm.

Matthew Vetter Photo: scottfeldstein Quite suddenly, it is autumn. The leaves of the maple fall like asterisks, mere footnotes to the pages of our days here.

Unknown Author, c. 600BC Photo: I’mClaude a dead doe in the wild shrouded in white reeds there is a girl, spring-longing a gentleman to seduce her

Ivanka Mogilska Photo: XirannisX en Off The rules of the Lord are iron: You shall not lie! You shall not steal! You shall not murder! You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife! And it just does not say what to do If the wife covets you. Translated from Bulgarian by Iordan Kosturkov

Biliana Atanasova Photo: Occhi Rivoluzionari… I’m tired of looking for you, of seeking an unlocked door, of nervously rummaging the drawers, of waiting for an unwritten letter.

David Harrity Photo: shinealight Two-lane farm road— I’m wandering, lost, in the dark of Kentucky. I guide the car to the gravel shoulder, kill the wheezing engine, listen to the dinging heartbeat of the door ajar against the night noise where I step out in the low fog.

Robert Walton Photo: Graylight Snowmelt waterfall Bursting bright, Crystal tresses flung Across ebon cliffs – Impatient girl With all of time To brush your hair But none to spare This morning.

Dean Crawford Photo: VMOS The sky is falling, something yells at me. I stop dead in my tracks so it won’t run into me. Whatever it is looks like a chicken with its head cut off. It’s running around in crazy circles, yelling its fool head off at everyone about the falling sky. Whatever it […]

Russ Kesler Photo: striatic He wondered what he’d been thinking. He’d never liked tacos—just steak, a potato drowning in butter.

Cathy Nickola Photo: ThunderChild tm Evening & the hounds circle The weary crew wearing lamped hardhats unrolls their map like a scroll as their undaunted captain assures We’ll be done by nightfall…

Zoya Marincheva Photo: paper or plastic? On day one of the new year they went shopping for new hides. Angular roofs towered over creamy facades with rococo beams. His epidermis grayed in distress. Hers oozed a passion for style.