Special Featurerbdlana bella, special feature, poetry

Lana Bella: Dear Suki

Special Featurerbdlana bella, special feature, poetry
Lana Bella: Dear Suki
Andrew Pons

Andrew Pons

DEAR SUKI: NUMBER TWENTY-SEVEN

Dear Suki: Ha Noi, October 5th,
it was a morning of thistle yarns
and little rain, crushed ice in the
glass, fingers fixed to strike up
a match to the slim Lucky Strike.
I crouched like a sorry truth with
a lax noose draping my neck; pale
glory of sunrise lingered near to
say hello. Blinked static and Ha-
Noi wind gave rise to the jarring
of peddlers seething through the
nether boulevard, berserk with
a rich stench of grilled pork and
fertilized duck eggs smothered in
tamarind sauce. All foul skin on
inconsiderable hope, I moved from
floor to cabinet, tracing the dense
walnut creases, possessed with
an intent to stroll past the yellow
walls of picture frames: my eyes
ever so voltaic and defiant under
lucent strings of dust, smiles dark
and puncturing. And how startlingly
real I still lurched at the aches of
what stunning me midway from
anxiety to panic, to sitting wet and
empty in the hours of schizophrenia.

A Pushcart nominee, Lana Bella is an author of two chapbooks, Under My Dark (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2016) and Adagio (Finishing Line Press, forthcoming), has had poetry and fiction featured with over 250 journals, California Quarterly, Chiron Review, Columbia Journal, Poetry Salzburg Review, Plainsongs, San Pedro River Review, The Writing Disorder, Third Wednesday, and elsewhere, among others. 

Lana divides her time between the US and the coastal town of Nha Trang, Vietnam, where she is a mom of two far-too-clever frolicsome imps. 

Special FeaturerbdKailey Tedesco, poetry, special feature

Kailey Tedesco: To Suck Dry

Kailey Tedesco's books She Used to be on a Milk Carton (April Gloaming Publications) and These Ghosts of Mine, Siamese (Dancing Girl Press) are both forthcoming. She is the editor-in-chief of a Rag Queen Periodical and a performing member of the NYC Poetry Brothel. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. You can find her poetry featured or forthcoming in Prelude, Prick of the Spindle, Bellevue Literary Review, Vanilla Sex Magazine, and more. For more information, please visit kaileytedesco.com. 

Special FeaturerbdKailey Tedesco, poetry, special feature
Kailey Tedesco: To Suck Dry
Special FeaturerbdAshley Mares, special feature, poetry

Ashley Mares: Unclean Hands

Ashley Mares is the author of Maddening Creatures (Aldrich Press, forthcoming), The Deer Longs for Streams of Water (Flutter Press) A Dark, Breathing Heart (dancing girl press), and Killer (Ghost City Press, forthcoming). Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Stirring, Whiskey Island, Sugar House Review, Glass Poetry Press, Prelude, PANK, and others. She is currently completing her J.D. in Monterey, Ca, where she lives with her husband. Read more of her poetry at ashleymarespoetry.wordpress.com and follow her @ash_mares2. 

Special FeaturerbdAshley Mares, special feature, poetry
Ashley Mares: Unclean Hands
Special FeaturerbdPhilip Schaefer, special feature, poetry

Philip Schaefer: Everyone Else’s Darkness

Philip Schaefer’s first collection of poems Bad Summon won the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize from the University of Utah Press and will be released Summer 2017. He is the author of three chapbooks, two of which were co-written with friend and poet Jeff Whitney. He won the 2016 Meridian Editor’s Prize in poetry and has work out or due out in Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Thrush Poetry Journal, Guernica, The Cincinnati Review, Salt Hill, Bat City Review, The Adroit Journal, Baltimore Review, and Passages North among others. He tends bar in Missoula, MT.

Special FeaturerbdPhilip Schaefer, special feature, poetry
Philip Schaefer: Everyone Else’s Darkness