Public Republic

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

Aksinia Mihailova Photo: scotthudson Many nights in a row he has been coming back to the terrace of my dreams, mounting its crumbling steps – a silent shade like an abandoned house, he seeks his face in the empty eyes of weathered window sills, a bandana of fading colors with a bundle of parched cornflowers […]

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

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 […]

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 […]

Photo: beamillion Sanity is a cozy lie. Today everything exists to end in a photograph. Photo: mark217 I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list. The likelihood that your acts of resistance cannot stop the injustice does not exempt you from acting in what you sincerely and reflectively hold to be the best interests […]

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…

Interview by Violeta Petkova with Maya Lyubenova Maya Lyubenova: “I wouldn’t say there’s much difference between a photo and a haiku.“ How do you understand haiku – is it a kind of art, a way of life or necessity of the spirit? Haiku is poetry, and poetry is art, but I always say it isn’t […]

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 […]

Kristin Dimitrova Photo: calliope Theodor Bogdanov was powdering his face. “Sometimes I think he is following me. No, I’m sure he follows me. Hiding in the doorway of the house across the street, waiting for me to come out. Then, as I’m trying to figure out whether the drizzle is worth an umbrella, and I’m […]

Kristin Dimitrova Photo: arcticpuppy It was love at first sight. Stooping, he entered the shop and threw a quick glance around, just in case. His coat collar was turned up and his hat was pulled over his eyes. As it closed, the door hit the little bell above and he flinched. For a moment I […]

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.

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

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