this heart of mine feels dull and lonely aching for your love, only are you thinking of me where you are? are you looking at the same stars ? did the moon tell you i’ve been telling her stories about you? and how every shade and every hue is more vibrant next to you ? carolina skies are nothing compared to your eyes and my my my… i sure do miss my guy the one who dons himself in paint my patron saint in t e c h n i c o l o r my dream of a lover personified just in time to save my soul was that your goal? because now it’s yours careful to treat it well, toujours she’s a delicate little thing, this heart but i’d sacrifice it all and call it art
My fiancé does not like the smell of fast food, greasy paper bags or unrefined sugars. I like the scent, at times, more than the contents. Limp potato matchsticks with bits of potato skin left on make it seem more real. He scolds me when I come home with a Big Gulp in hand. He likes the gym and time management.
“Managing time.” He stresses, finger pointy, seeking to transfer his passion for precision from his nail bed to my wrinkled forehead.
Anyway, I knew this simply would not do. I did not like to manage my time. I enjoy getting soil between my fingers and recycling plastic spinach bins. He gifted me a pink plastic brush to scrub my filthy nails. He is averse to natural things, even the blood spot in my underwear one week out of the month.…
Group Portrait: Poems on a Photograph by Herman Landshoff (Parisian Phoenix Publishing)
Fresh from Parisian Phoenix Publishing as of July 2025, Mark Luebbers and Benjamin Goluboff’s latest poetry collection Group Portrait: Poems on a Photograph by Hermann Landshoff takes on the ambitious task of tasteful extrapolation; in their examination of Hermann Landshoff’s 1942 photograph “Artists in Exile,” Luebbers and Goluboff aim to highlight the human condition itself as a collaborative narrative composition, not unlike the carefully-ordered lineup of the artists in the picture.
Each of the collection’s fifteen poems balances research and speculation to transport the reader into the mind of a different artist arranged for the camera. Amidst the backdrop of World War II, the various thinkers’ day-to-day social conflicts reflect and foretell cultural concerns that extend far beyond the walls of Peggy Guggenheim’s New York City home, the setting of the portrait.…
The night before Christmas Eve. Bert watched the taillights of the Amtrak ‘Banker’ fade up the tracks toward Springfield. No one had gotten off in Hartford except him. It was clear and still and cold.
Union Station was deserted. He was disappointed Trudy hadn’t surprised him and walked eight blocks to meet the train. In a way he was glad, too – still to be alone, still moving toward her.
He carried his suitcase down Railroad Street to Asylum. A liquor store was open and he bought a pint of Jack Daniels. Tomorrow they would drive to Troy for Christmas. He was looking forward to seeing Mom and Pop Steiner.
After a block he opened the whiskey and took a drink.
Bert watched Trudy through the plate glass door descend the long flight of wooden stairs.…
If only there could always be hamentaschen for breakfast: little cookie triangles crumbling into coffee. If only there was always coffee. If only the coffee would grind itself—silently. If only I craved tea in the morning and not coffee. If only there was always optimal-temperature tea and time to read during a rainstorm, soft light, a blanket. If only in the rainstorm a cat named Edith found her way to me. Or an Eddie. I would also take a male cat named Eddie in a rainstorm, bedraggled, slightly grumpy. If only Eddie would be willing to contemplate a name change to something that better fits his personality. Or if not, if only he’d let me tell everyone that Eddie is short for Editorializer, Edification, One-half-of-a-set-of-identical-twins. If only Eddie could gain the power of speech to tell me that last one seems like a stretch.…
The sand squelches between my squirmy toes, as I clutch my red bucket of curious creatures— captured by my bubbling interest.
I venture closer to the ocean’s edge, a shell suddenly slicing into my foot. My blood mingles with sand and gravel, like strawberry syrup and graham cracker crumbles.
The sea eagerly laps at my wounded skin, salt sizzling against the rawness within. My bucket topples, releasing its captives, and I watch them scurry back to their homes.
I received a warning, a debt to settle for my youthful curiosity. A price in lifeblood, transaction now complete.
Well, she had acquired an Irish name—Miss Horan. A lovely lilt leavened her language. And her eyes were the startling grey-blue sometimes seen in that race.
Trouble was, she putting it all on. Miss Horan was actually Romanian, or some such. Old Doc, who was relating the story to me whilst barbering my hair, was not certain from whence the woman actually came. Since we both knew the truth of it, it went unsaid that on our island, people hail from everywhere and mix like mad. So it’s simple enough to up sticks and move yourself to a new spot where you can pretend to be someone else if you feel the need of it. For a time, then, it suited the woman who called herself Miss Horan to be Irish.…
