Author Archives: voicemailpoems

Dana Whtvr Sam Rush Kirwyn Sutherland Zach Blackwood Joseph S. Pete Elysia Lucinda Smith Wimpy AF Emily S. Cooper Melissa Eleftherion Aleida M Cathleen Allyn Conway Allison Hummel Mariel Fechik E.G. Cunningham Robyn Campbell

by Andy Powell Sons blushed and became soft peaches in the hot backseats of cars, never even wanted the front seat. Or, I was the son, but it’s nice to be plural and grand and count the dandelions in right field as friends, which I picked in the ancient way of boys who’s fathers triedContinue reading “An Embarrassment of Dandelions”

by James Barrett Rodehaver When you’re out in the sticks – the woods are a fortress – sunlight stabs down at you in bright daggers – I bet no one told you how a canopy is like armor. I had a place in the woods where rules couldn’t touch me – little warrior boy with sticksContinue reading “The Sticks”

by John Quinonez I feel as if I should tell youThat I have never yet, seen –A Beaver in the Wild/but have, for sure seen plenty things:-Too many a shrub and quail, -Elk drunk at the Waterfall, -Horses arrogant in the sun-So many a video of Fruit Bats gnawing on…Fruits.-So many dams Made by clawed hands, orContinue reading “BEAVERS”

by Dagmawe Berhanu 1. Trigger happy target 2. Archangel of the burnt and bruised 3. Newport ash on a papi store floor4. Pants way passed where his mama taught 5. It’s my car sir6. Ocean front scalp 7. Jesus in hiding 8. Unintentional vaudeville show 9. Fireflies in his palms 10. A friend’s blood 11. Tomorrow’s bedside prayer 12. Tonight’s prime time special 13. It’sContinue reading “Different Ways to Say the Word ‘Thug’”

by Alison Kronstadt Sometimes I wish I could stop you from talking when I hear the silly things you sayAlison, I know this world is killing youOh Alison, my aim is true– Elvis Costello, “Alison” I was named for a catcall strung out into three verses and a chorus Balladdrowning in mystery fansites say she’s aContinue reading “I Sang It in a Love Song, So It Must Be True”

by Kelly Jones A few years ago a machine peaked into my head and found a section dead. Most likely from a lack of oxygen in utero, but really, that’s speculation – what’s done is doneand there’s no undoing it. Like when I was eighteen andsomeone pilfered the contents of my lingerie drawer. They took it all:Continue reading “The Dark Spots”

by Katherine Indermaur For Owen Steinmann (2016-2017) Sugars trickle from maples’ taut trunks, sappingsummer energy, the crystallized light of wanting to stay alive. But what melody the drops make a manfrom a pulpit always says as they leap out the spout, percuss the bucket’s galvanized bottom. Yes, such sweetvasculature and saccharine, this living always toward death. He callsContinue reading “Replication of a Miracle”

by Olatunde Osinaike I finally want to talk about ithas taken me a decade more than most and all my wisdom teeth have fallen victim by now there is a draft buried beneath this you will never know of a pleasure of released dioxide and simile I don’t write because the block asks I do this out of an empathyContinue reading “Some Synonym of Practice I Am”

by Romaine Washington …july.wilted cereal in a bowl / wedrown in brown boiling milk. the haze of sparklers and fire- works add to the deafening heat that drips into august.caged in by smog,air smells of cigarettes and melted tar. surely this place is meant to ignite. september,when he arrives,he thinks this is a flat plain, where desert dirt covers everything likeContinue reading “at the end of the devil’s breath”