Poetry by Misty Wycoff “Game Time” was the second-place winner in fiction in the 2024 Golden Quill Writing Contest. I often wake with the first line of a poem floating around me, calling, asking if I will come out to play. Just like the neighbor kid who sat on the stoop waiting, no words beyond … Read More
An Old Friend Calls to Tell Me About the Death of Another Old Friend
Poetry by L.I. Henley “… last December when we spoke a year ago & has it really been so long? About Chelsea, I’m sorry & there’s no easy way to tell you but she passed she in a fire, an electrical fire in the apartment above her mother’s tea shop She was sleeping & I’d … Read More
Memory of an Unnamed Color
Poetry by L.I. Henley 1. I think the answer has just left me, that I had it but spilled the cream, wanting too much at once, something about the always absent word I reach for in a divine moment or how there are nothing but divine moments, beads of cream on the waxy-green tablecloth, or … Read More
Anatomy of a Train
Poetry by L.I. Henley “Anatomy of a Train” was the first-place winner in poetry in the 2024 Golden Quill Writing Contest. Borrow this train, he said, my father himself a freight car hulking mind aimed headlong, eye fixed on the rails. Was he talking to me? Sometimes I couldn’t tell— he was always on the … Read More
“One Last Secret to Tell” by Morgan Chalfant
I had one last secret to tell words I think you knew but now I’m not sure you do with the state you left that molten chain in a summer rain that bound us warmly and never burned us I had one last secret to tell under the eaves, me falling like the leaves for … Read More
“Ethereal Garden” by Cathy Joyce Lee
Walking naked in petaled pastels The veil between sunrise and sunset Envelops my body in brush-stroked colors Wrapping, spinning from dawn to dusk Such a youthful figure in the shadows of noon I feel my skin so soft and supple The breeze spins and eddies And teases my hair with puerile joy But I look … Read More
“Grandmaster” by Jen Schneider
he learned to read before the age of two. he completed his first NY Times Crossword alone on his tenth birthday. he’d celebrate the birthdays of all U.S. presidents with a sixty-second serenade. he learned to ignore DO NOT WALK ON THE GRASS signs years after he walked out the door of his childhood home. … Read More
“We Were Guests” by Kevin Carver
After the algae bloomed Our local sea lions were slowly driven mad Their minds infected by some unseen toxin. Hands on hips, I stood staring. Just yesterday. Those sea lions stranded on the sand. Nothing you can do really. A polite park ranger told me: Stand back, give them room to die. I didn’t see … Read More
“Liberty Lake” by Sarah Samarbaf
I stare at the moonlight of the river, Even it inflicts the suffering, I shiver. A broken image, devoid of all human desire, As if a vampire drained him and even wants higher. Condemned to be powerless for rest of his life, Every rescue path leads him to rope, gun or even knife. I’m terrified … Read More
“Mastiff” by Blayne Waterloo
Today’s peace is retaliation for Those decades of unease – but At a price. My spirit racks the Chain fence of this physical form, Simple as breathing. Always has been. Having cut my teeth on trespassers and Larcenists makes me cower from a timid Hand, though I crave it and employ my own. On my … Read More