Public Republic

Monika Vakarelova Translated by: Yana Radilova Photo: winzor2007 To S.P 1 greasy circles are gazing going around the surface rootless mirrors miasmas hundreds of diluted pupils deep streams spreading dissipating black ropes raised anchors dissolving fingers clinching the earth softening soil no more apples 2 the light bulb in the hall sinks low hanging down […]

Sheri L. Wright Photo: “Ladder” by Sheri L. Wright In 1942, NAZI propaganda spun from a reel of film shot in the Warsaw Ghetto, using the least emaciated prisoners as props to divert rumors of The Final Solution. They pose us together, I in my linens and plump cheeks with her, whoever she is – […]

Donal Mahoney Photo: Poppy Photography “On the sill today the sun’s pure white. Usually it’s gold,” says Nell, propped in a smock, all frills, sipping tea turning cold as she braids white ram horns of hair high and tight to the sides of her skull.

Changming Yuan Photo: FelixHuth On the local screens, one beside another It shows low clouds drifting like fog That can be seen on the walls of highrises Here the rain downpours as if all the tabs In the heavens have been turned on Curtains of beads, giving us more privacy More freedom, more serenity

As a poet, novelist, playwright, journalist and musician, Bulgarian writer Toma Markov needs no introduction. If you haven’t read his latest book – the romance novel “Luizza Hut” – make sure to do it, and if you have – don’t miss his next collection of poems – “ANTI-KURT-COBAINIAN DEEDS” . Photo: Sofia Pavlova Can a […]

Allen Yuan Photo: takot Red, Yellow, Green Drive Turn Hastily, aggressive people swerve from Lane-to-lane, searching For any & all shortcuts to one place Others are spread out like runners on a track Accelerating straight ahead, avoiding or jumping over obstacles To their destinations Whether it may be escalation or annihilation But I wait, behind […]

Jasmina Tacheva Photo: cliff1066™ Never has a Bulgarian citizen brought into bondage another Bulgarian, but we sure know what slavery and oppression are. What the capitalist world carelessly describes as a ‘Socialist Republic’ we call forty-five-year-long isolation spiced with prohibition of free speech, religion, Western culture and private enterprise. So, I am sure we can […]

Kenneth Pobo Photo: angelandspot I spread it thick on toast, pour coffee, almost ready to face crabby tourists, grabby fishermen, snowmobilers who blurt “Wanna take a ride?” Later, for dinner, probably alone, a Yooper pasty, venison’s better than beef, though mom says the chicken’s best. And

Photo: Calliope Diavolo I am the only stage director and I need to: gather all my unconscious perceptions and form them in words; my whole life – I need to hang it out like washing to dry in the sun of my mind. With my imagination I stage a “Tosca”. My sole audience – sensory […]

An interview with Sigitas Parulskis by Klara Barcic (Vilnius, August 25, 2011) Photo by Klara Sigitas Parulskis, a Lithuanian contemporary poet, playwright, essayist, novelist and translator, who has translated into Lithuanian works of A. Chekhov, D. Charms, L. Andreyev, J. Brodskij, O. Mandelshtam, V. Yerofeyev, D. Gorchov, A. Turgenev and S. Shepard among others, was […]

Changming Yuan Photo: Auntie K When I heard that bold yawing Knocking at my double-glazed window A sound in the mind echoed From an unknown voice

Donal Mahoney Photo: zigazou76 The indications used to come like movie fighter planes in break formation, one by one, the perfect plummet, down and out. This time they’re slower. But after supper, when I hear her in the kitchen hum again, hum higher, higher, till my ears are numb, I remember how it was the […]

Simon Perchik Photo: visualpanic This grass left for dead, the mower idling into its slow descent the way pilots are still trained to roll and up-side-down in the reflection you can recognize the bridge being bathed in a river older than those songs that help you forget

Kenneth Pobo Photo: oedipusphinx — — — — theJWDban Remember how you cooked up a warm plate of forever, served it with candlelight, and on the porch we listened to locusts warning us Stop! Stop! Stop! But we ate heartily and when you moved in you were already hinting about moving out.

Simon Perchik Photo: yourbartender You shave so the rain can’t stop –twice every day as if the sky were twins half shoreless, half too heavy and these rotary blades reaching take-off speed –you climb the way this mirror

Simon Perchik Photo: exezippdf Half jack, half when the ace finds its way back and the vague stomp each time you deal a spade –you teach the kids dead ends and random turns half cards, half burial grass –you say take the risk bet! and suddenly the black jack will fall to your knees and […]

Kenneth Pobo Photo: fotupia Dindi slips on a greasy floor while picking up her order of steak, Caesar salad, and spaghetti for Mrs. McFrunt’s table. No one helps her up. On hands and knees, she hobbles over to the room where servers eat. Reid bursts in, “Hey Dindi, your table is screamin’ where’s our food?” […]

Simon Perchik Photo: visualpanic What more proof do you need! jagged left behind –a beautiful stone torn to pieces and near its heart a tiny rock half drift, half moonlight that blossomed to become the opposite shore –all these years in the open though every wave still smells from stone

Kenneth Pobo Photo: angelandspot a barred owl from her open bedroom window— who cooks for you, who cooks for you, she seems to ask. No one. I barely cook for myself, preferring a Banquet TV dinner, or, if tips mount up, Marie Callender. A great cook, it saddens mom that I never want her recipes. […]

Simon Perchik Photo: b3nscott As if they once had teeth, your hands nibble on apples half mud, half worms –you eat only what falls to the ground rotted, serene, made dark by the welcoming slope into evening –you pick the way every stone points where to rest, has this urge to be useful, calms your […]