2012 — The Monarch Review — Page 17
The Photographer – Kemper Wray
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 13:03 — 1 Comment
He bends over her body like an awning over a warm sidewalk, shading her as he snaps the photograph. The woman is naked save for a sheer piece of yellow linen that will appear light gray in the picture. It was not chosen for its color, but for the way the soft dark mound of her pubis looks beneath it, like the mossy crook between two smooth stones. The photographer, gray-haired like the film he processes so carefully, loves few things more than the sight of a woman in front of his camera. The photographer’s daughter walks into the studio […]
Schadenfreude – Paul Hostovsky
Monday, January 30, 2012 13:43 — 0 Comments
“Leave it to the Germans,†said Ben.
Homeward Bound From The Policy Review Board – M. A. Schaffner
Thursday, January 26, 2012 13:12 — 0 Comments
Blend feces and tobacco; you’ll smell those
Memories Of San Blas – James Brantingham
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 13:24 — 5 Comments
I first hitchhiked to San Blas, on the west coast of Mexico, in December of 1964. At that time it was a quiet village with no paved streets—though I remember some cobblestones. There were Mexican tourists getting away from the Americans, a few Americans trying to get away from America, and there were a few ex-pats, usually ex-military. I do remember an ex-air force sergeant who was most delighted to see an English speaking human, so beers were on him. That worked well for our poverty struck wallets. We stayed at a little hotel on the beach that had barely […]
Open – Paul Hostovsky
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 13:13 — 0 Comments
I’m open to god but I don’t like capitalizing
Strays – William Falo
Tuesday, January 17, 2012 13:03 — 1 Comment
Blood trickled down my arm when I added another name with a jagged piece of glass. It was the fifth family that gave me back to the system since I entered it when my parents disappeared, but this time I wasn’t going back to foster care. Even going back wouldn’t help since I would be eighteen in a month and put on the streets. Night fell like a curtain dropping on a bad act and I reconsidered going back to my last home, but the foster mother said she was terminally ill and couldn’t care for me anymore. Lies. Nobody […]
Acrostic: Idioglossia – Danny Earl Simmons
Monday, January 16, 2012 13:20 — 1 Comment
I said, Did you hear me?
My Famous Dead Person – Stefani Zellmer
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 12:20 — 4 Comments
Charles Bukowski reaches into his pocket, because the first thing you want to do when you wake from the dead is smoke. Instead of cigarettes, he finds my note and manages to uncrumple it with his calloused hands. He reads 2137 Whitley Avenue, Los Angeles, written in big loopy letters, then the summons—“Come to Dinner?â€â€”that I’d written underneath.
Façade: Paintings by Andrew D. Moeller
Monday, January 9, 2012 20:31 — 1 Comment
Who doesn’t love staring at a brick wall? I do it every day as I’m trying to write. I look out my window at the apartment building across the street, which is laughably similar to a couple of Andrew Moeller’s paintings below. The ubiquity of mid-level, block apartments in my neighborhood in Seattle drew me to these paintings, which at first seem like a stark presentation of conventionality, an updated version of the white picket fence, etc. But then I got to thinking about the characters who populate the bland buildings in my neighborhood: hoarders, students, bros, barflies, creeps, debutantes. […]
PARKING LOT SONNET – Sierra Nelson
Monday, January 9, 2012 11:49 — 1 Comment
(Or: Timothy Tries to Give Me His Number While the Lady He Came with Grows Impatient)
What am I?
Bioluminescent eye
That sees by the shine
Of its own light. Lies
Blind me. I am the seventh human sense
And my stepchild,
Consequence;
Scientists can't find me.
Januswise I make us men;
Glamour
Was my image then—
Remind me:
The awful fall up off all fours
From the forest
To the hours…
Tick, Tock: Divine me.
-- Richard Kenney
