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...
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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...
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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...
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ENGINE
by Stacy Skolnik
what is the de
claration of in
dependence...
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SPECIAL PROVIDENCE
by Stacy Skolnik
Fuck the girl in the rodeo hat
And the fishnets on the Q...
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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...
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Hands
by Alexandrine Vo
She came that way
plastic disfigured...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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Jamaican Honeymoon
by D.G. Geis
Tomorrow your footprints will be raked clean,
today you are floating in the pool...
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In the wild
Rachael Mead
To Lake Windermere, Overland Track, Tasmania – Day 2
The light falls wildly over everything...
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These clouds that cap the world
Rachael Mead
Overland Track, Tasmania – Day 1
We set out, climbing towards the tight lid of clouds...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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echo
by Marco Maisto
aftermath comes to
light that way...
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On Being Wakened by a Porcupine In Maine
by Jeff Ewing
The feeling that I’m not special
overtakes me more and more...
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Special
by Helen Tzagoloff
The feeling that I’m not special
overtakes me more and more...
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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...
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Egret
by Allison LaSorda
Such an ugly word,
for a delicate bird;...
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IN SPRING
by George Trakl
Translated by Jay Hopler
Quietly, the snow disappears from the dark steps.
In the shadows of trees,
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Ode to Mathematics
by Jake Young
Quietly, the snow disappears from the dark steps.
In the shadows of trees...
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The Balloonist
by Anthony Madrid
There was a balloonist from Madison,
Who refused, when we told him to jettison...
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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...
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Pleasure
by Micaela Mascialino
The children took sloppy spoonfuls of lemon lush
they called lemon slush behind her back...
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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...
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Yarrow
by David McGimpsey
There's the country somewhere outside the car.
The country where the maple fucks the elm...
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My Bonnie
Jonathan Greenhause
Whereas, my Bonnie lies over the ocean, & whereas,
my Bonnie lies over the sea...
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My Bonnie
by Jonathan Greenhause
Whereas, my Bonnie lies over the ocean, & whereas,
my Bonnie lies over the sea...
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Belly
by Orson Scott Card
Old man's belly,
voluptuous bag...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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Grammar as Glue
by Phillip Fried
First, assemble the Manifest Destiny engine,
Securing it with bolts that allow for expansion...
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ANCIENT HUNGARIAN
by Jessica Jewell
I had already been in the air for fourteen hours
the day we met. Fourteen hours and six meals...
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Hard to Fathom
by J. J. Steinfeld
The investigation into my existence,
I heard, was completed recently...
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Submission: Guidelines (or, How to submit to :aNalepsis)
by Bruce Robinson
:aNalepsis is currently considering unprovoked
publication; submissions will be vicarious only...
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Stepping Into traffic
by Richard Margolis
eton blue chiffon blurs with hair as headlights
fills in each drape of hijab. the woman who ran...
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The Top News
by Tim Suermondt
I peel a tangerine
and stare at a plane overhead...
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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...
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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...
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LOOKING IN THE MIRROR
by Ronald Wardall
Even a fly has a kind
of stature buzzing down the mouth of...
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No room, no room
by Kamal Ayyildiz
I
Ask and he will come...
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Northerly
by Rachel Adams
Tell me the sound of one hand moving
into another, the sound of the long gray Taconic...
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The Recipe
after Yehuda Amichai
by Alan King
A woman will prepare an ideal man
out of all she desires: the hair...
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Plotting Temporality
by Suzanne Roberts
Remembrance = memory + longing.
The eye's corridor through the skull...
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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.