Public Republic

Colleen Harris Photo: the bbp He wrote about dull mountainside detail, said they wanted books on anything but war. Ecstatic the way only a librarian can be, she mailed ten boxes and promised more.

Mariana Velichkova Photo: Niffty.. We are honest and decent reasonable, chaste again frigidly faithful almost sterile burdened by rules and pain

Martha Gehringer Photo: flikr On the subject of bad weather the red rough Burren cows are sage: if only to say that in wind like this      that drives the rain     like a whipping you must pull together,                haunch to haunch,                     and bow your heads                          and be.                That simple. Bow your tufted heads                        and                     be.

Julie Barbour Photo: aturkus Each morning I woke to an ocean of snow and its gray sunless sky. I walked down the black staircase and fed myself in the kitchen, handed the dogs my scraps, cleaned my own plate, then walked up the dark stairs to the room where the winter wind snarled.

Dimana Ivanova Translated from Bulgarian to English by Katerina Stoykova-Klemer Photo: wili I want to weave you in my hair, pack you in my skin, slip you on my finger, like a wound from a wedding ring.

Michael Lee Johnson Photo: weglet Gingerbread lady, no sugar or cinnamon spice; years ago arthritis and senility took their toll. Crippled mind moves in then out, like an old sexual adventure blurred in an imagination of fingertip thoughts. Who remembers the characters? There was George, her lover, near the bridge at the Chicago River: she […]

Kristin Dimitrova Photo: mikebaird No, he wasn’t fat or skinny, tall or short, he wasn’t good or evil, but only neutral, like a geometric point – no mass, but how it pierces the sheet.

Simon Perchik Photo: claire1066 No one gets hurt, you pump into a parachute, cup one hand to float down, the other as if water could rub off the way the sky still gushes from the once blue Earth and your sleeve tearing apart

Martha Gehringer Photo: Tony the Misfit (Isaiah 58:5) The trees               scrub the winter sky—               scour away the grey—                             and I, I bow my head                        like               a reed.

Julie Barbour Photo: ciadefoto I long for you, the sad heat of your skin, the flakes of skin in your hair, your shallow breath when you sleep, your sour breath haunting the room. I long for your voice, grouchy, uncertain,

David Chorlton Photo: Matt From London Before we know it, the subject changes. Nobody intended to bring this up, but suicide slips into the room as an uninvited visitor so we let it happen, make a place, and sit back as it dominates the conversation. We all have a story. There was the performance artist […]

Charlotte Pence Photo: Clearly Ambiguous Nothing lasts, we know, so why do I lift The box turtle from the middle of the road To the side where crab grass pocks asphalt crumbs? Picking it up, I feel the tight-fisted weight Of some creature shrunken inside, desperate To be set down. I hold it away from […]

Donal Mahoney Photo: Lady-bug My wife has a problem with any poem I give her to read for a second opinion especially when the poem has no message and my goal is simply to hear what I’m saying and not care if I understand it.

Simon Perchik Photo: JennyHuang And you, licking this reef the way herds are nourished with salt –even your tongue has a trace, bitter, brackish stings though salt is what keeps stone stone

Michael Lee Johnson Photo: pareeerica Edith, in this nursing home blinded with macular degeneration, I come to you with your blurry eyes, crystal sharp mind, your countenance of grace- as yesterday’s winds I have chosen to consume you and take you away.

Aksinia Mihailova Photo: bslmmrs When you leave pieces of yourself in the bodies of other women and try desperately to find yourself complete in the words, I see our home like a ghost boat floating against the current of the river; but the boatman is not there and the night is falling I recollect only […]

David Chorlton Photo: alancleaver_2000 A scene plays out between an apartment house balcony and the sidewalk where a young man walks first away, then turns back weeping toward the woman three screaming storeys high on a spring day with the oleander making nectar of the air.

Charlotte Pence Photo: Sam Ilić Twelve, sneaking out, we went to the pool on a dare and stripped in silence. When the moonlight pinkened my nipples, I stared, and allowed them to stare. In the curls of Michael’s pubic hair, light glistened

Kristin Dimitrova Photo: crsan During the concert, between Iron Men and Bark at the Moon the music kicked out at faces of screaming kids, rock veterans with thinning muscles bashed their gray ponytails, teenage girls

Julie Barbour Photo: 11259551@N02 I chased the sun into the horizon until it fell away then chased the moon, howling in my loneliness. The doctor said to give it two weeks but who has time to wait