Public Republic

Milena Valkanova Photo: alicepopkorn Killing black crows Never makes for Lost albino hopes

Changming Yuan Photo: inajeep Leaves hip-hopping to the music of early summer One long branch flirting with every passer-by Trunk shaking with laughter from last spring But behind the fence, your roots remain firm Never budging a single inch, between day and night

Kenneth Pobo Photo: angelandspot It’s not safe playing gigs in rotgut bars in small towns. I’m told “Be careful, Dindi.” I’m careful, though I gladly invite black cats to walk across my path. A metal infant, the gun sleeps in my purse. I’d never be a good mother. Too much of my own mother in […]

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

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

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 […]

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.

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?” […]

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. […]

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?

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

Charlotte Pence Photo: _boby + boby Babe, next time Don’t schlep a heifer Up to the stars To hide her.

By Changming Yuan Photo: kevindooley we chinamen, half and quarter chinamen children of eight or sixteenth chinamen constantly pounded with a peculiar pride over our ancestry’s four great inventions: the first was paper to transcribe ancient ballads but later often used to give ultimata to your emperors also the printing technique to transmit sages’ teachings […]

By Changming Yuan Photo: Richard0 if the little mouse became as boundless as the sky as it wishes the sky would become as free as a cloud the cloud as powerful as a wind and if the wind became as unshakable as a wall the wall would become as penetrating as a mouse and the […]

By Changming Yuan Photo: Muffet Arhats squatting around in a fast fading field all flushed with protests against frost coming simply too soon Buddha means you to guard an entire season but we mean you to guard our houses the last of an orange-streaked landscape the last to ripen

By Changming Yuan Photo: Jeremy 白杰瑞 You do not speak that language Neither have you been to their country But within the territory of our English vocabulary You can easily find who they are: They enjoy playing mahjong in a casino They are afraid of typhoon They kowtow to show their respect

Therése Halscheid Photo: Kamen Ferdinandov Yesterday my father greeted me from another time ─ I was his sister, and the day before that I was his wife, tomorrow I might be his mother or Aunt Mamie

Kenneth Pobo Photo: Per Ola Wiberg (Powi) Boson, you transmit your force onto/ into me while the sky, seduced by green land formations and big-bellied mountains, tries to float away but can’t–I often crave your force,

By Changming Yuan Photo: tanakawho so, we have refastened the sword above your head with a digitalized net instead of a horse hair fear, the one you have been plagued by will never ruin your macdonald’s or dim sum, hanging like a candle good day, Democracy

Kenneth Pobo Photo: Flowery *L*u*z*a* The sun sneaks through Matt’s back yard, appears in his dining room window. Naked and reading the paper, he sips his morning coffee,