Special FeaturerbdGabe Russo, poetry, special feature

Gabe Russo: Still Crashing

Special FeaturerbdGabe Russo, poetry, special feature
Gabe Russo: Still Crashing

Late March in New Jersey

Wind still crashing leaves on houses.

This oak-cold smell of rooms,

a thin, battered musk of 4 generations

slowly pulling apart the wood.

Exploded veins stain World’s 

organs on a wall—glazed in lamplight—

saying, This, just below her skin. 

Your ‘Morris Town High’ hoodie wedged 

in the desk’s corner under a pocked 

dart board & some premed textbooks left open. 

The wind’s not itself here,

harassed by the shifting spring, 

reluctant to ease under any bud.

So it duets with hammered steps above me; 

each shouting at the other in a ceaseless 

construction,—mortised symphony, 

percussive warning; sounds even night beasts 

know to let alone. Their glowing eyes

turn away from the chain-link.

Their shadows, growing thru it.

The rapping on the screen 

isn’t your knuckle, this isn’t my room.

Winter, still sunken in a pillow.

Gabe Russo is a poet and filmmaker from Florida. His poems have appeared in Crack the Spine, Black Fox, Epigraph, Zoomoozophone, & Wilderness House, among others. 



Special FeaturerbdNoah Burton, special feature, poetry

Noah Burton: Turning Trees into Guns Is Easy

Noah Burton's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Paperbag, The Puritan, Outlook Springs, Cruel Garters, among others. He is a recipient of the 2015 Dick Shea Memorial Prize in Poetry judged by Tanya Larkin. Noah lives in New Hampshire where he works at a burrito shop, adjuncts at local colleges, and plays in the occasional band/perpetual solo project, House of 1000 Sports Cars. www.noahburton.com

Special FeaturerbdNoah Burton, special feature, poetry
Noah Burton: Turning Trees into Guns Is Easy
Special FeaturerbdCatherine Esposito Prescott, special feature, poetry

Catherine Esposito Prescott: To Forgive Us Everything

Catherine Esposito Prescott is the author of the chapbooks Maria Sings (forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press) and The Living Ruin (Finishing Line Press).  Recent poems have appeared in Pleiades, Southern Poetry Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Poetry East, MiPOesias, and elsewhere.  A graduate of NYU’s MFA program in Creative Writing-Poetry, Catherine is cofounder and curator of the SWWIM reading series.  She lives in Miami Beach with her husband, two sons, and daughter.

Special FeaturerbdCatherine Esposito Prescott, special feature, poetry
Catherine Esposito Prescott: To Forgive Us Everything
Special FeaturerbdGary Charles Wilkens, special feature, poetry

Gary Charles Wilkens: Edit the Sad Parts

Gary Charles Wilkens’ first book, The Red Light Was My Mind, won the 2006 Texas Review Breakthrough Poetry Prize. His manuscript Fayetteville was a Finalist in the 2014 Moon City Review Poetry Contest. His poems have appeared more than 70 journals and anthologies, including The Texas Review, Moon City Review, Passages North, the Adirondack Review, James Dickey Review, Melancholy Hyperbole, and Midwest Quarterly. His fiction has appeared in Drunk Monkeys, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, and Pale Ghosts Magazine. His day job is Associate Professor of English at Norfolk State University in Norfolk, Virginia.

Special FeaturerbdGary Charles Wilkens, special feature, poetry
Gary Charles Wilkens: Edit the Sad Parts
Special FeaturerbdBrian Alan Ellis, poetry, special feature

Brian Alan Ellis: Endorse Me on LinkedIn as a Domino’s Pizza Quality Tester

BRIAN ALAN ELLIS runs House of Vlad Productions, and is the author of three novellas, three short-story collections, two books of humorous non-fiction (Sad Laughter is forthcoming from Civil Coping Mechanisms Press), and Something to Do with Self-Hate, a novel. His writing has appeared at Juked, Hobart, Monkeybicycle, Electric Literature, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Funhouse, Heavy Feather Review, Talking Book, and Queen Mob’s Tea House, among other places. He lives in Florida, and tweets sad and clever things at both @brianalanellis and @HouseofVlad.

Special FeaturerbdBrian Alan Ellis, poetry, special feature
Brian Alan Ellis: Endorse Me on LinkedIn as a Domino’s Pizza Quality Tester