Public Republic

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 [...]

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 little mouse
a mouse

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,

Drew Logan

Photo: Vince Alongi
If it rained
they met under the bridge
in secret
If the Sun shone
they met in the park
in public
Everyday they solved
the world’s problems
No one took notes

Peter Kraevski

Снимка: kwanz
Wondrous territory
Alogical and cruel dictatorship
Its limits are the horizon
And utopias are its reality
In the morning you get going
And at noon
undetectably you are
beyond return
Translation: Katerina Stoykova-Klemer

Therése Halscheid

Photo: gromgull
I have just finished sweeping
a place in the glade where
a bed is now made of
star moss and blossoms.
I have ordered a moon
to come softly, its white
through the trees,
birds for the sky, a waterfall
lovely to listen to.
Come,
step out of the dream
of your house
onto the path of warm fog
in the scented opening
of the forest.
Follow the [...]

By Donal Mahoney

Photo: aloshbennett
Two men tall,
one from here
and one from there,

Changming Yuan

Photo: Mira Dimova
Orchid: Deep in the valley
Alone on an obscure spot
You bloom none the less
Lotus: From foul decayed silt
You shoot clean against the sun
[...]

Therése Halscheid

Photo: bortescristian
The moon shows me a place beyond this
darkness below
an area of low ground where you stand
among flowers, you in the natural silence
of your being in the quiet hours
your strong hands own.
You with a hoe working that
same plot of earth
watering the magnolia I never did see
and yet have I felt all the white
blossoms inside [...]

Donal Mahoney

Photo: Rocklin
Autumn’s over.
Wheat cake odors flood
the wood front porch. Andrew Block,
in mackinaw and overalls,
tamps first tobacco of the day
and estimates his morning.
In an open field
beyond McDiver’s Creek
Andrew Block can see his colt,
palamino apricot and snow,
nip grass between great gallops
and the shock of trees.

By Heather Wyatt

Photo: Denise ~*~
I stare upward
after you make
a surprisingly loud
thud in my light fixture.
You and your kind
have invaded my house.
Swarms of thousands,
red, with black dots,
a design to imply innocence
but you fly at my mouth
and eyes.
So, I see you, wandering
along in the burning fixture
heading close to the bulb
and I watch wishing
I had popcorn.