Public Republic

Simon Perchik Photo: Jeremy Jenum And the sun by a single stroke broken into rain and forgetfulness –you lift a child’s bat that still has heat to it, a ball overgrown and against this mangy glove stumbles headlong as further on –this attic needs more room the bases are full though you try to remember […]

Leigh Anne Hornfeldt Photo: MinimalistPhotography101.com – for N. – Before you fled into whatever firmament burgeoned beyond my door, the weight of quiet kitchen not yet pressed in your palm, that twilight infused disappointment not yet felt

Vladimir Levchev Photo: Andesine My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun – . . . . . . . For I have but the power to kill, Without–the power to die— Emily Dickinson Like Medusa I petrify with my fiery eyes lovers, minutes, streets, houses and trees. Like Medusa I turn the mortal into […]

Michael Lee Johnson Photo: Bruce Guenter Leaves, a few stragglers in December, just before Christmas, some nailed down crabby to ground frost, some crackled by the bite of nasty wind tones. Some saved from the matchstick that failed to light. Some saved from the rake by a forgetful gardener. For these few freedom dancers left […]

Peter Cowlam Photo: PinkMoose I drove, in leaden convoy, On highways built Through the thinning ambers of autumn, In a falling of leaves fake in its evocation. Then stumbled, on rented properties Masquerading as exotica, and flamed By the varnishes of Eden.

Peter Kraevski Photo: audreyjm529 Your heart is like a forest with shadows shaped like women and fireflies that hover along the grassy path.

Sabina Karleva Photo: fdecomite The portable sunrise That’s opening a bitter eye over the most lonesome sea I transferred to the edge of the possible I’m putting my finger deep inside the flower That’s blooming with big and heavy F l e s h y leaves In the reddest desert…

Michael Lee Johnson Photo: fazen Soft nursing 5 solid minutes of purr paws paddling like a kayak competitor against ripples of my 60 year old river rib cage- I feel like a nursing mother but I’m male and I have no nipples. Sometimes I feel afloat. Nikki is a little black skunk, kitten, suckles me […]

Maya Lyubenova Photo: kretyen hither and thither a beetle’s flight in the kitten’s eyes насам натам полет на бръмбар в очите на котето * * * summer cleaning … I’m sorry little spider лятно почистване … съжалявам паяче * * * high tide stronger than the rumble a nighingale’s song

Peter Kraevski Photo: hamed So happiness is this – a fatty fish, I caught it while I was squatting at the meanders of desolation. I offered it a spoon bite and it bit – it caught itself in the snare of illusions and it is giving it a try to creep to the safety island […]

Maya Lyubenova Photo: gnas quiet morning – for you dead tomtit тихо утро – за теб мъртво синигерче * * * thunder strike a sparrow fidgets beneath the eaves

Shae Davidson A quote from Stanley Kunitz tucked away in Stick Tight Man expresses the roots of Jim Lally’s approach to writing: “gratitude for the gift of life.” Lally’s depiction of rural life in the twenty-first century celebrates lived experience by embracing the cycles of change and growth—and the attendant patterns of gain and loss. […]

Georgia Jones-Davis Sus-toss, explains poet Katerina Stoykova-Klemer in her remarkable and engaging chapbook, “The Most,” is Hopi for the “disease that cause different parts of you to live in different places.” Ms, Klemer would know. She is a young woman who has emigrated from Bulgaria to the United States, straddling multiple worlds at once. “Sus-toss […]

Bozhana Apostolova Photo: apesara Everywhere turds, turds, turds… It takes time to become manure. Translated from Bulgarian by Valentin Krustev and Donna Martell

Kristin Dimitrova Photo: Pink Sherbet Photography Everywhere nets of people support each other and allow no leaks. The impulse runs in closed figures and looks good, but it isn’t.

Maria Lipiskova Translation by Ludmila Yordanova Photo: woodleywonderworks To bring bombs to certain places. Slowly. Descending into deep crevices. Slowly. Filling them up with your hands. And exitting. Slowly. Placing words. At certain places. While shielding yours eyes. And walking away. Slowly. To hear the explosions?

Julie Barbour Photo: kcdstm I heard someone sing: To love is to bury and at the time misunderstood,

Peter Kraevski Photo: yogendra174 Oh, fruit of light! Swell with love! Ripen with sadness! Sweeten juices – dreams! And let your fragrant thoughts be honeyed dew upon your tender skin!

Donal Mahoney Photo: bsabarnowl Rogers Park, Chicago This brilliant winter morning finds waves of snow on every lawn and red graffiti dripping from the walls of Temple Mizpah once again as down the street stroll ancient men who every morning shuffle here for prayer.

Michael Lee Johnson Photo: Robert Marin Rebecca fantasized that life was a lottery ticket or a pull of a lever, that one of the bunch in her pocket was a winner or the slots were a redeemer; but life itself was not real that was strictly for the mentally insane at the Elgin Mental Institution. […]