Public Republic

Chris McCurry Photo: ~Beekeeper~ Sleeping Child In soft light while reading, see the woman she will be, all she’ll do in life, the cities she’ll build, the men and women she will love. Highways You cannot focus on speed. With your brights on, as you drive under the overpass, read the graffitied walls.

Simon Perchik Photo: rivieragalleryartist 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

Simon Perchik Photo: svintus2010 When this clock holds back its scent has meaning –even dogs are trained for lies or no lies –truth has a calm to it, by instinct soothes this kitchen wall flows underneath as bone and sleeplessness –you wait for night to reset the hands

Claudia Serea Photo: James Jordan I was the first to press the hot wax that sealed someone else’s fate. I pointed my finger: You, the cursed one.

Katerina Stoykova Klemer Many times people have asked me what it is like to write poetry in a second language and what the difference is between writing in English and writing in Bulgarian. First, I want to say that I find joy in writing poems, and the joy of writing in English is identical to […]

Claudia Serea Photo: Akash k I thought I saw this man giving food to a shadow. I didn’t see a face, only the bread and cheese.

Claudia Serea Photo: me and the sysop Some see toads jump from the tip of my tongue. I see money and back doors open for my family’s escape.

Katherine Van Hook Photo: Ferran Nogués He digging deep in untraceable patterns. and rose above the other trees, the lesser gods of a playing field. He was delighted, enjoying both bloom and leaves, of so many ornaments, that helped him appear.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kirstyandjames/237094195/sizes/z/in/photostream/ Photo: KristyM You can’t say there were murders or torture. I don’t believe anyone died in prison. Beside, people die all the time.

Claudia Serea Photo: Elsie esq. The skin doesn’t talk. Muscles don’t talk. The back doesn’t talk. Eyes don’t talk. Hair doesn’t. Only the bones. The bones talk.

Claudia Serea Photo: Rhys Asplundh I follow orders to hit/ push/ shove/ those who couldn’t possibly be my mother/ brother/ father. I pluck and gather men and women at gunpoint, tulips of tears. I squeeze the trigger gently, gently but their bodies aren’t worth my bullets.

Photo: Mikko Luntiala Longing is the core of mystery Longing itself brings the cure. The only rule is, suffer the pain. Your desire must be disciplined, And what you want to happen In time, sacrificed. * Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. * Photo: Steve A Johnson Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. […]

Allen Qing Yuan Photo: trioptikmal He surges beyond the clouds Breaking the puffs of dreams He detects the mocking laughters of clowns But furiously, pushes the jesters away

Donal Mahoney Photo: Logan Brumm Photography and Design I have spent an hour lying in the sun on Joe Brickle’s farm waiting for Pedro and Pablo to fetch Little José with his sickle and scythe to cut down the high grass so Pedro and Pablo can gun their mowers over the cowlicks.

Donal Mahoney Photo: ruresolitude In 1948 Booger McNulty’s coal yard stirred constant gossip among the citizens who lived in little bungalows on narrow blocks in my far corner of Chicago. That was more than 60 years ago, a time when families took Sunday walks and went back home in time to hear Jack Benny on […]

Simeon Gasparov Photo: Loop_oh The scrawny sun in the crisp tenderness of telegraph wires has tripped while chasing its newborn inspiration. And remained there, hanging as a shining ball, until the end of Indian summer. After the first rain of October quietly Rolled back on our last, dusty, southern, lost highway… …One homeless dream barked […]

Roman Kissiov Photo: (cc) Chadica “…You must have surely understood by then what Ithacas mean” C. Cavafy I am Odysseus, too, but unknown. No one ever heard of me, nobody knew about my shrewdness… Because I never left Ithaca. Never in my life did I meet Cyclopes, Laistrygones and Sirens. I did not build a […]

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 […]

Sheri L. Wright Photo: Sheri L. Wright I follow the moon through Spanish moss and cypress, the song of nocturnals rippling across heat that stews summer long past its season. The eyes of shades – those of the lost and discarded – peer from underneath centuries and secrets stained black with death, trail after me […]

Donal Mahoney Photo: pancakeplan Forty years older than I, Charles, in his tweed cap, stands starched in gray chino and blue chambray. For more than a year his broad tie has let the same iridescent duck fly against a vermillion sky. Like a Vatican Guard he oversees the parking lot I cut through each morning […]