Poetry Fall 2013 fiction all issues
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Chris Joyner
Wrestlemania III
& other poems
Carey Russell
Visiting Hours
& other poems
Marc Pietrzykowski
Cabinet of Wonders
& other poems
Jonathan Travelstead
Prayer of the K-12
& other poems
Jennifer Lowers Warren
Our Daughter's Skin
& other poems
Jeff Burt
The Mapmaker's Legend
& other poems
Patricia Percival
Giving in to What If
& other poems
Toni Hanner
1960—Lanny
& other poems
Christopher Dulaney
Uncle
& other poems
Suzanne Burns
Window Shopping
& other poems
Katherine Smith
Mountain Lion
& other poems
Peter Kent
Surliness in the Green Mountains
& other poems
William Doreski
Gathering Sea Lavender
& other poems
Huso Liszt
Fresco, The Forlorn Virgin...
& other poems
Clifford Hill
How natural you are
& other poems
R. G. Evans
Dungeoness
& other poems
David Kann
Dead Reckoning
& other poems
Ricky Ray
The Music of As Is
& other poems
Tori Jane Quante
Creatio ex Materia
& other poems
G. L. Morrison
Baba Yaga
& other poems
Joe Freeman
In a Wood
& other poems
George Longenecker
Bear Lake
& other poems
Benjamin Dombroski
South of Paris
& other poems
Ryan Kerr
Pulp
& other poems
Josh Flaccavento
Glen Canyon Dam
& other poems
& other poems
Christine Stroud
Grandmother
& other poems
Abraham Moore
Inadvertent Landscape
& other poems
Chris Haug
Cow with Parasol
& other poems
Mariah Blankenship
Fiberglass Madonna
& other poems
Emily Hyland
The Hit
& other poems
Sam Pittman
Growth Memory
& other poems
Alex Linden
The Blues of In-Between
& other poems
Bobby Lynn Taylor
Lift
& other poems
D. Ellis Phelps
Five Poems
Alia Neaton
Cosmogony I
& other poems
Elisa Albo
Each Day More
& other poems
Noah B. Salamon
Sanctuary
& other poems
Prayer of the K-12
Lord, let me start with one pull,
my bar shuddering in your calloused hand
as you ratchet my disc
to the scream that melts cast iron.
I pass through it, a ghost through rebar.
Chattery teeth, set on the floor and released.
On a house of cards, a tidal wave.
So much you have engineered, Lord.
I beg you let loose my chain
so with my carbide teeth
I can chew through the paper of this world.
My god! let me do what you made me to do,
and growl beneath your trigger finger.
Let me tear this place in two.
Prayer of the Maul
Let me sweep aside a factory wall, Lord,
cinder-blocks preventing passage
to an engine room scrolled in flame.
I am the grunt before thought.
My load is greater than your stamina,
and though I am your simplest machine
if you let yourself love too much
what is inside the mountain
I am sure to burst your colossal heart.
Even in my dreams
I am a juggernaut ready to destroy all things.
I pray only that you heft me
from that place between your shoulders.
Let me be the one chosen.
Jonathan Travelstead
received his MFA at Southern Illinois University. He served in the Air Force National Guard for six years as a firefighter and currently works as a full-time firefighter for the city of Murphysboro. When not on duty, he backpacks twice each year in Central America and Europe, and works on an old dirt bike he hopes will get him to Peru in December.