New World Writing Quarterly

Quelle Horreur

After years and decades of hor­ror sto­ries, movies, TV shows, graph­ics & adver­tis­ing the actu­al does not, can­not pos­si­bly, pen­e­trate. Not when it comes from the same screens and talk­ing heads. Unreal. All vast­ly unre­al. Especially so to the young –more

I’m in bed today. I can’t get out. I hear peo­ple, heavy foot­steps on the rick­ety porch where we some­times sit at a table and talk at dusk. I hear peo­ple knock­ing on the door, call­ing my name, espe­cial­ly Estelle. She was sup­posed to come help with –more

a son­net sequence

I.
You are lucky you have your masks,
near­ly all your per­son­al protective
equip­ment. And you have your
instruc­tions. The virus protocol
is a com­plete code of life.
Use the Coronavirus –more

It occurred to me today that The Occupant is like a pro­fes­sion­al wrestler. His con­tin­u­ous­ly aggriev­ed per­sona is devoid of any inte­ri­or­i­ty, a boom­ing, buzzing con­fu­sion of self-ref­er­en­tial signs con­tin­u­ous­ly sig­ni­fy­ing. His face is a mask, as in antiq­ui­ty, –more

Journal of the Plague Years: Two

I pick words like fruit, feel­ing for those most preg­nant with meaning
but not already hav­ing meant.
A man is an island. How to guard on so many fronts?
I’ll drop by the poem store today, –more

NORTH KOREA

In Pyongyang City we pause
at the founders’ portraits.
For a moment we are mesmerized
and then move on—some will dance
near the foun­tains at Mansudae
and some will board the train
for the north­ern provinces.

Life’s a spec­ta­cle of ghosts
in –more

1.

One hun­dred and ten meters to the top of Mount Faber on old, cracked steps fringed with cool aro­mat­ic green­ery that hint­ed at the for­mer jun­gle. Long-tailed squir­rels mis­tak­en for rats in the first glimpses; mynahs the only vis­i­ble bird-life and the –more

1.

Hey dude, I know your birth­day is com­ing up and I was think­ing of you. Sorry we lost touch. Just want­ed to say hi.

2.

Hey dude, Your birth­day is com­ing up and some­times I think about you, and about reach­ing out to say hey.

I’ve been back to San –more

we sang as we loaded the cat­a­pults and launched new days. the pay­load was potent and we aimed for the horizon.
          ~ Graffiti at the Municipal Government Center ruins

Franklin Ritter slept beneath a blan­ket of bees. He curved his back until –more

from the novel Mountain Road, Late at Night, from Picador 9/1/20

Nathaniel observed – alter­nat­ing between vary­ing degrees of clar­i­ty and con­fu­sion, doubt that resolved into cer­tain­ty, which in turn mor­phed into ques­tion­ing – his cen­tral role in the numer­ous dis­cus­sions among the fam­i­ly mem­bers about where the –more

We were young Mormon girls incu­ri­ous about good groom­ing, resigned to greasy hair that stuck to our fore­heads and dan­druff from the dry salt air, itchy in our desert skin and mod­est in our dress. We were fas­ci­nat­ed with our flaws—even high­ly con­cerned –more

Inspired by New Frontier by Donald Fagen

My dad he’s crazy, but he’s smart, and he’s built a bunker to keep the plague, the reds, and the ram­pant fires away. We’re gonna have a shindig in here, he says, lug­ging in car­tons of beer, –more

In the Summer of his 42^nd year, D.B Welk was award­ed the Pritzker prize in archi­tec­ture for con­ceiv­ing a futur­is­tic apart­ment build­ing in Denver, Colorado with no park­ing spaces and no units larg­er than 300 square feet. He designed the struc­ture –more

Hey–is that you
On a bal­cony in
Some God-forsaken
Foreign land, on
A bal­cony in the
High mountains
With your feet up
On a plas­tic chair
Writing poetry?

Heartily sick, sick to the back teeth of these blast­ed Superdry sem­a­phores bear­ing down on every street and lane, whichev­er way you turn. A plague of dun­der­heads crawl­ing over the earth dis­play­ing their mem­ber­ship of the asso­ci­a­tion. Market –more

In those strange times, she began a new reli­gion, based entire­ly on the birds she could see from her win­dow. The win­dow was her tight view on the world, although it was no small­er than it had been. The world stretched beyond it, although it was no –more

Walk Like a Woodsman

A woods­man walks with a rolling motion swaying
to the step­ping side—it is chiefly a dif­fer­ence of hip
action loose­ness of joints

up-and-down knee action
springy with rather rigid hips—

car­riage erect
pace long
cen­ter of grav­i­ty secure
–more