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Monthly Verse

April 20, 2020

Black Breakfast
by Issam Zineh

In certain restaurants, you can order black breakfast.
The waitress will bring coffee and a cigarette.

Our language in this world: pleonasms as
“I saw it with my own eyes.” Well, of course
you did. What else? In this way, a little excessive.

You don’t sleep in. You’re not hungry.
Not so much appetite, you try to explain, as
much as transgression between what is and is... read more >

 

Security Force
by Ezekiel Black

training

a
roach

to

train....

read more >

 

Hoi Polloi
by Craig Kite

Who bolt like thieves dispersed by florescence,
who fold under the weight of a leaf,
who retract their hands from germinations
who in headlights freeze... read more >

 

FROM A TELESCOPE FROM THE WARD
by Zack Stein

The Summer morning rose through the earth
like hallucination, my mother the shade of strawberry-milk
and skull, humming new names for God
as I enter the world—all that gale force—I had... read more >

 

ENGINE
by Stacy Skolnik

what is the de
claration of in
dependence... read more >

 

SPECIAL PROVIDENCE
by Stacy Skolnik

Fuck the girl in the rodeo hat
And the fishnets on the Q... read more >

 

A Sunken Home
by Tom Prime

into a sunken home made of seaweed and
rotten meat—the place where all the people I’ve been... read more >

 

Hands
by Alexandrine Vo

She came that way
plastic disfigured... read more >

 

The flaw in the pattern
by Rachel Mead

12 thoughts on wilderness, Overland Track, Tasmania – Day 5
1. The deep blue bowl of sky, the microbial cities in the folds of my skin... read more >

 

Simple riches
by Rachel Mead

eating dehydrated food on the Overland Track, Tasmania – Day 4
Some things are so true we struggle to find their words... read more >

 

What happens in the dark
by Rachel Mead

New Pelion campsite, Overland Track, Tasmania - Day 3
The night is a bedlam of black market activity... read more >

 

Jamaican Honeymoon
by D.G. Geis

Tomorrow your footprints will be raked clean,
today you are floating in the pool... read more >

 

In the wild
Rachael Mead

To Lake Windermere, Overland Track, Tasmania – Day 2
The light falls wildly over everything... read more >

 

These clouds that cap the world
Rachael Mead

Overland Track, Tasmania – Day 1
We set out, climbing towards the tight lid of clouds... read more >

 

Each Thing That Has Been Taken
Frank Paino

The dead do not care if their clothes catch & shred
on the wooden ribs of cypress hedge that guard... read more >

 

Early Fragment
by Yew San Cheah

my leg is touching yours... read more >

 

Anonymous
by Christian Anton Gerard

      Because the sun sits on the horizon
I imagine a piano. I hate myself... read more >

 

For The Years
by Benjamin Mitrofan-Norris

Springs

Here returns a sky of broken clay pots, clamouring... read more >

 

NEWS FROM THE WAR, THE TREES CATCH FIRE
by Michael Salcman

The annual fireworks display’s gone wrong.
Rockets launched in seeming safety from a barge... read more >

 

After Mike Wallace’s Interview with Salvador Dali, 1958
by Austin Sanchez-Moran

“At the base of all my thoughts are cauliflowers and rhinoceros horns.”

The logarithmic spiral is a type of perfection as is chastity... read more >

 

The End of Science
by Ryo Yamaguchi

After the burr of your eye, soft as undergrowth
                                                                        but lit through... read more >

 

echo
by Marco Maisto

                aftermath comes to
                light that way... read more >

 

Iliac Furrow
by Robert A. Kaufman

roethke knew a woman

anagnorisis between lines... read more >

 

On Being Wakened by a Porcupine In Maine
by Jeff Ewing

The feeling that I’m not special
overtakes me more and more... read more >

 

Special
by Helen Tzagoloff

The feeling that I’m not special
overtakes me more and more... read more >

 

Apocalypse With Victrola
by Brian Clifton

Someday we will both be honest

but for now the Victrola in your cellar... read more >

 

Vasoconstriction
by Jenny Morse

Tighten your beltway. Each notch a sphere without escape–
over a bridge and dropped back into the concentric circles... read more >

 

Egret
by Allison LaSorda

Such an ugly word,
for a delicate bird;... read more >

 

IN SPRING
by George Trakl

Translated by Jay Hopler

Quietly, the snow disappears from the dark steps.
In the shadows of trees, read more >

 

Ode to Mathematics
by Jake Young

Quietly, the snow disappears from the dark steps.
In the shadows of trees... read more >

 

The Balloonist
by Anthony Madrid

There was a balloonist from Madison,
Who refused, when we told him to jettison... read more >

 

You Be the Skipper, I’ll Be the Sea
by Cassidy McFadzean

There was a balloonist from Madison,
Who refused, when we told him to jettison... read more >

 

Pleasure
by Micaela Mascialino

The children took sloppy spoonfuls of lemon lush
they called lemon slush behind her back... read more >

 

Itinerary (New Colossus)
by Danniel Schoonebeek

One dream I have is the voice of the statue is gunfire.
Mother calls, the landlord calls—the line is silent... read more >

 

Yarrow
by David McGimpsey

There's the country somewhere outside the car.
The country where the maple fucks the elm... read more >

 

My Bonnie
Jonathan Greenhause

Whereas,   my Bonnie lies over the ocean,   & whereas,
                                       my Bonnie lies over the sea... read more >

 

My Bonnie
by Jonathan Greenhause

Whereas,   my Bonnie lies over the ocean,   & whereas,
                                       my Bonnie lies over the sea... read more >

 

Belly
by Orson Scott Card

Old man's belly,
voluptuous bag... read more >

 

Frog
by Randi Ward

Even this wise frog... read more >

 

First time
by Kristina Blaine

A buffet of young flesh,
fresh off of the plane... read more >

 

A Song of Exile
by Stephen Komarnyckyj

A thread of water clinging
To sandstones and clay... read more >

 

Bone Calligraphy
by Donelle Dreese

I am an admirer of bones
elemental, uncomplicated... read more >

 

Lot #274 The Taxidermist's Son Runs, "Ole' Crockett"
by Dani DiCenzo

He imagines they are more at home in the alley– behind Cavitt's diner–where they hold meetings... read more >

 

For the Ravens
by Drusilla NicGowan

Don't you know I would give anything
to be one of you... read more >

 

Grammar as Glue
by Phillip Fried

First, assemble the Manifest Destiny engine,
Securing it with bolts that allow for expansion... read more >

 

ANCIENT HUNGARIAN
by Jessica Jewell

I had already been in the air for fourteen hours
the day we met. Fourteen hours and six meals... read more >

 

Hard to Fathom
by J. J. Steinfeld

The investigation into my existence,
I heard, was completed recently... read more >

 

Submission: Guidelines (or, How to submit to :aNalepsis)
by Bruce Robinson

:aNalepsis is currently considering unprovoked
publication; submissions will be vicarious only... read more >

 

Stepping Into traffic
by Richard Margolis

eton blue chiffon blurs with hair as headlights
fills in each drape of hijab. the woman who ran... read more >

 

The Top News
by Tim Suermondt

I peel a tangerine
and stare at a plane overhead... read more >

 

Standing on the Porch with Charlotte, Watching Her First Storm
by Jeff Tigchelaar

I don't know how she'll respond -
the sudden sound of thunder... read more >

 

Independence Day
by Justin Runge

July spills on the steps like the groceries of a man opening the door, too ambitious.

Fireworks bloom, as if the roofs have ideas. Cigarettes flick into the grass like crickets... read more >

 

Summer
by Frederick Smock

The sunlight
that the tree soaked up... read more >

 

LOOKING IN THE MIRROR
by Ronald Wardall

         Even a fly has a kind
of stature buzzing down the mouth of... read more >

 

 

Tidal
by Tara Lynne Groth

My mouth was open

long enough for my tongue to dry... read more >

 

Northerly
by Rachel Adams

Tell me the sound of one hand moving
into another, the sound of the long gray Taconic... read more >

 

The Recipe
after Yehuda Amichai
by Alan King

A woman will prepare an ideal man
out of all she desires: the hair... read more >

 

Plotting Temporality
by Suzanne Roberts

Remembrance = memory + longing.
The eye's corridor through the skull... read more >

 

Work for Monthly Verse is selected through our editorial process. New poems are selected from authors that submitted work for the last issue. Read more authors by subscribing to Fjords.