An excerpt from the poem, “The Salt,” by Peter Schireson (poetry, ’17), published at Construction Literary Magazine:
“The Salt”
I set out to attain nothing more
than myself, and before long,
had no money
and only one tooth,
the price I paid
to locate this exotic kingdom,
where mud-caked holy men
wander barefoot from place
to arduous place,
where the people need salt, (…continue reading here)
An excerpt from the poem, “Hood,” by Justin Bigos (poetry, ’08), available at Gold Wake Live:
after a line by Carl Phillips
He’d have drowned, without me.
The eyes underwater green,
gray, shut. Without a word I
struck him, then, the second time
and the rest said what, probably,
he expected: bum, psycho, scum. […continue reading here]
An excerpt from the poem, “Doubling Back,” by J.C. Todd (poetry, ’90), available at The Ekphrastic Review:
Doubling Back
Where is the sitter, the mirror? Outside the frame.
Unseen. So whose portrait does he paint, his father’s
or his own? Perhaps he glimpses the darkened edge
of what’s to come or the backlight of lineage
in this doubling, a portrait of a man painting a portrait
of the man who taught him to paint. He has finished
his own figure as reflection has shown him, form
and light confirmed by his sidelong look. A last touch,
the fine-haired brush feathers the beard of the father,
who peers sideways too, perhaps eyeing the mirrored
face of the one he created recreating him. Or is it
the artist who emerges from the canvas he has painted
on canvas, adding years with each stroke?
Does he glance over his shoulder to ask, Who is this,
coming up on me, aged? Not my future but
a foreshadow my father teaches me to see. […continue reading here]
An excerpt from the short story, “You Could Only Know Us” by Boyce Upholt (fiction, ’16), available in The Sewanee Review:
Every evening, without fail, Fennimore Peterson took his seat in the tavern, ordered a whiskey, and read aloud the news of the world: a notice about a railway, the first one built in New Zealand; dispatches from Memphis, where troops were beginning to siege the city. Even in the months after the visitors left town, he never found word of what they thought we were, or what it meant. Constable Dolliver would stand in the corner, leaning on a beam, chewing his lower lip. His eyes stayed cold and steady. He was young, then, still impatient, and he often took his leave while old Fennimore had pages left to go.
Time churned on. Fennimore and his generation passed, and the constable retired. Our town grew: the empty blocks were filled, the roads tarred, the first snuffling cars appeared. And when they buried the constable—survived by his wife, and a shame, everyone thought, that the couple had no children—no one spoke of the wings. They just said that he was one in whom we ought to take some pride: our former sheriff and longtime clerk, a man whose steady work and quiet valor had been essential to our town’s survival in its early, tenuous days. […continue reading here]
An excerpt from the short story “Sun and Shade” by by Katie Runde (fiction, ’12), available in Storyscape Literary Journal:
“Sun and Shade”
Liz heaved the last umbrella into the box at Sun and Shade Umbrella Rentals and snapped the combination lock shut. The beach was littered with the signs of a busy weekend day: peach pits, popsicle sticks, indentations in the shapes of bodies in the sand. Dave appeared just as she was zipping her backpack to leave, as he had every evening this week on his way home from the Sun and Shade Rentals two blocks north. He set down a greasy pizza box on a towel and passed a thermos to Liz. She took a long pull and tasted the familiar sourness of lemonade with the surprise bitterness of gin.
“Cheers, boss,” he said, already folding one slice and filling his mouth, dripping grease onto the towel and sand. “Oh and can I have next week off?” Carl had just promoted her to assistant manager this week, which meant an extra dollar an hour and that she gave the breaks on Wednesdays. […continue reading here]
An excerpt from “God” by Mary Jo Thompson (poetry, ’09), available in The American Journal of Poetry:
I picture myself a bubble and you
the plastic wand, and I cry at the sting
of iodine, and roll down steep hills.
I drink all summer
from the backyard hose. I want
to pour ink down my brother’s back.
We walk like drunks. I can’t stand
the smell of old people. […continue reading here]
An excerpt from “The Rubáiyát of My Old Man” by Edison Jennings (poetry, ’99), available in The American Journal of Poetry:
No jug of wine, a G&T,
No loaf of bread, a BLT,
Lunching at the country club,
Content among the bourgeoisie,
Possessing most of my desire:
Enough money to retire,
A cozy condo on the coast,
A divorcée to light my fire.
And though all that is doubtless nice,
It somehow doesn’t quite suffice;
My comfy middleclass excess
Doesn’t make for paradise. […continue reading here]
An excerpt from “Staffordshire Hoard” by Idris Anderson (poetry, ’06) available in The American Journal of Poetry:
When the earth was flat and the edge of lands-end
a foul mud-fen of reedy muck,
in the kingdom of Mercia the king commanded
the killing of marauders, man-slaughterers
gold-greedy for garnets of goldsmiths,
famed fashioners of fine-wrought fastenings,
knots and loops on lovely surfaces
of cheek plates and chin pieces, chain links
on sword hilts and helmets, hand-hammered
bands and buckles, braces and breast plates,
jewel-set treasures untouched for ages,
gems dug from darkness, sun-dazzled purples
fresh from furrows of a farmer’s field. […continue reading here]
An excerpt from “Einstein in the Afterlife” by David Prather (poetry, ’99) available in the American Journal of Poetry:
● The Apparent Incompatibility of the Law of Propagation of Light
with the Principle of Relativity
Marilyn Monroe stares at him all day, her white dress billowing up as in a movie poster,
a gang of electromagnetic entities gathered around the hem, all of them charged
with the task of blowing up a wind to keep this all too human
cloth from touching her bare skin.
Or, at least, that’s the theory. Einstein’s brilliance troubles him,
every so-called angel buzzing around his shocking white hair, every dead thinker
plaguing him with stupid questions about space and time. He tells them
it’s all relative, which seems to satisfy them for a while. But not Marilyn. […continue reading here]
Beverley Bie Brahic (poetry, ’06) has four poems in the current issue of The Manchester Review. Below, an excerpt from “Future Perfect”:
“Future Perfect”
Yesterday he thought the future
was a tense they taught you in school
where if you make a mistake
it isn’t the end of the world.
Well he learned his lesson
God now give him
his book bag back
let him be on his way home again
no voyous at the construction site
taking his back pack
his brand new anorak.
And no telling Dad […continue reading here]
Subscribe to the Friends of Writers Forum and receive notifications of new posts by email.