• Jianqing Zheng ~ Five Poems

    Looking Twice

    —Tracy Sweeney’s Rain in Moonlight (oil on wood)

    The rain strings a gloomy tune
    for the line dance of trees,
    the sky beats its heart drum
    to silence the croak­ing frogs,
    the moon veils her face
    behind fleet­ing clouds.

    This is a shad­ows­cape
    –more

  • Andy Plattner ~ Two Stories

    Ristorante

    A nine-year-old boy, I want­ed a sir­loin steak at a neigh­bor­hood restau­rant, an Italian place on 4th Avenue in Dayton, Kentucky. The week before, I’d heard some guy at the next table ask for that, a leisure-suit man with –more

  • Steve Gergley ~ Mannequin

    After work, I find a head­less man­nequin lying face down in my dri­ve­way. The man­nequin is dressed in a gold tuxe­do and pol­ished, black leather oxfords. A crust of red crys­tal clings to the crag­gy stump of the mannequin’s –more

  • Laurie Blauner ~ Five Poems

    Rumors to the Contrary

    Tired, I was fight­ing with myself, a duel between my good and bad inten­tions. I should have known but I could­n’t pre­dict what my oppo­nent would do next. I found myself in every direc­tion in my kitchen. Where could I run? I had an ordi­nary face, thin –more

  • William Doreski ~ Three Poems

    The Scitico Water Tower

    Looming black beside the railroad,
    the Scitico water tower
    shad­ed and shield­ed my childhood
    from too much sun and puberty.
    Dreaming of a rail­road life,
    obso­lete before I was born,

    kept me pleas­ant­ly infantile.
    The water –more

  • Wilson Koewing ~ In A Flash

    On a per­fect sum­mer day in Annecy, France, Valerie rides a bicy­cle down a wind­ing path toward Lake Annecy’s azure waters.

    She reach­es a patch of grass by the beach and pulls a baguette from her pack.

    A boat pass­es pulling –more

  • Wally Swist ~ Six Poems

    The Sewing Table

    It creaks at either end
    if you don’t hold on
    to it from underneath
    when you move it

    and we move it often
    around the small kitchen.
    Pine plank with engraved
    six-inch rulers burned into to it

    on both of the long sides
    so that the –more

  • Nicola de Vera ~ Outlaw

    Manuel was up and about before dawn. He’d always start the morn­ing with a cold show­er, a rit­u­al that relieved mus­cle sore­ness from the day pri­or and jolt­ed his motor sens­es for the day ahead. To Manuel, a cold show­er was also a dai­ly test of pain –more

  • NWWQ ~ JULY 2023

    NWWQ sub­mis­sions are closed. We will accept sub­mis­sions again October 1–14, 2023. You will find below almost two dozen intrigu­ing works –more

  • Jeff Chon ~ Recess

    Mr. Kim takes atten­dance as the kids work on their warm-up: list­ing items for their sur­vival back­packs. The all-fac­ul­ty email had sug­gest­ed col­or­ing sheets as a calm­ing mea­sure, but Mr. Kim had want­ed it to feel like a nor­mal –more

  • Gordon Kippola ~ Five Poems

    Empty Bucket List

    I heard a voice I nev­er saw.
    “You’ve only got six months to go, so live.”
    While walk­ing on a trash-strewn beach,
    regret­ting those squan­dered years,
    I built an urgent men­tal spreadsheet.

    I liq­ui­dat­ed all my wealth, applied
    for twen­ty-sev­en –more

  • John Holman ~ Flocked

    They’d been going out for six months but this was their first trip out of town as a cou­ple, using a week­end of win­ter break to browse Greenville, two hours and change from where they taught col­lege in Atlanta.   Back in –more

  • Wally Swist ~ Blue Evening & Five Other Poems

    Saturday Afternoon, Ansonia

    Sixty years ago this winter
    I am still eight years old, grieving
    the death of my mother.

    The mêlée of children
    teem­ing around me could be
    a tableau from a paint­ing by Brueghel.

    We are await­ing our turns
    on a tobog­gan –more

  • Julie Benesh ~ Neologistics

    There must be a word
    for it: wak­ing up in the
    night iden­ti­fy­ing a bounded,
    dis­crete, yet repeated
    phe­nom­e­non, so profound
    and obvi­ous you don’t need
    to write it down, but yell
    it loud in your head
    so –more

  • Margo Rife ~ The Other Killer

    A bell jin­gled as the door of Snackville Junction opened. The café sign with a fat chef hold­ing a spoon blinked on. A man came in and sat at the counter.

    Little late for lunch, Mister,” said the waitress.

    A pass­ing freight train with pig­gy­back –more

  • Pam Avoledo ~ The Missing Violins

    The vio­lins were miss­ing some­where with­in the mir­ror. The strings curl around the elas­tic of  my partner’s shoes as he lifts me up. It braids through the soft pink rib­bons and snaps as it approach­es my ankle. Still I count one, two, three, four, –more

  • Jim Ross ~ The Monastery

    Summer 1971, I lived with six women from Trinity College, DC.  The only male house­mate, I sort of slipped in and stayed. Previously, this Harvard Street res­i­dence had been the tran­sient house of the Radical Lesbians four doors up. Once, while I was –more

  • Pavle Radonic ~ These I Commend To Thee

    The First

    The drunk­en old street-wreck had been tread­ing on exceed­ing­ly thin ice late­ly. (Not such a stretch on this por­tion of the equa­tor in fact, where there were numer­ous rinks and sculp­tur­al fan­tasias of var­i­ous kinds.) Emboldened recent­ly, the –more

  • Tom Williams ~ Third Verse, Different from the First

    The music I love is by dead peo­ple,” my father says.

    We’re head­ed to Mom’s in his truck, but he’s on a dif­fer­ent trip.

    Dee Dee, Joey, Johnny, Tommy. All gone.” He turns up the vol­ume over the blast of the heater, and I eye the screen –more

  • Kathleen Hellen ~ 3 Poems

    bananas

    I liked them almost green, she pre­ferred them soft.
    You might be think­ing that I’m speak­ing of
    the way we slurred our men, but when
    I fucked up, when she thought I might become
    three scoops of haz­ard drenched with nuts,
    –more