Editor’s Note: Please see Simran’s review of Chimezie’s – “Mr. Ben’s” – collected works in the Reviews section. Be Inspired When you’re down, you tend to be close to your feet and consequently, close to defeat. But for the sake of success, please rise to your feet. That’s the feat! Succeeding The Race Success is the race, So, you should to move at your pace After all, it’s your lane So don’t let your strength wane It’s about completing your journey Don’t let anyone take you funny There are no competitions Because you know your onions Reaching the finish line is its own accomplishment Then you will appreciate the beauty of your commitment Talking Thoughts Talking can be cheap But its consequence might be difficult to keep Its seeds can be weak…
Reimagining Kristen Roupenian’s Short Story, “Cat Person”
Editor’s Note: From time to time, fiction and real life converge like a solar eclipse. The “ME TOO” movement and a short story by Kristen Roupenian entitled “Cat Person,” published recently in The New Yorker, have crossed paths and set the world on its ear. It’s a timely story, to be sure, but it’s also something of a literary fete: the author’s first short story, controversial as hell, accepted by the country’s most prestigious magazine (and one of the few still publishing fiction), which immediately landed Roupenian a book contract with Scout Press, reports the New York Times. Like Roupenian, Rachael Allen is a college student who found herself able to relate to the short story and draw some shared experiences into a complex skein of perception, emotion and experience that reaches out beyond the…
“Once Pink Youth” – Poetry by Hope Bolinger
Drip Castles Teardrops of North Carolina sand bite into Pure pink skin, The color of raw sunsets—of a conch’s innards—of a teething child’s gums. A sunburnt fist Plunges into a wan Bucket full Of sludgy sand. The Atlantic water on top of the Sunken soil sloshes like Stomach acid. Fistfuls of sopping slush Form spires of mire, tilt(yards) of silt, ditches of grit—graves of gravel. Alas, pure pink castles of Muddied fancies Disappear In a wave Of briny ocean breakers Dissolving into a stump of once-pink youth. Snow Questions Spring Yellowed school books say Spring makes all fair beings grow, do ashen teachers see sun’s rays—sickles, shred Snow? Sharp grass blades impale, sting? No frail child, browning slush, murky backwash from tires muddied your thoughts. Infant soft moss Spring…
“Etiquette,” A Short Story by William Masters
I RIDE ELEVATORS. To reach my office in downtown San Francisco I take the escalator from the ground floor to the mezzanine. From the mezzanine I ride an elevator from elevator bank A to the 21st floor. From the 21st floor I switch to elevator bank B and ride to the 33rd floor on which my office is located. If I arrive in the building between 8:30 and 9:00AM, multiple stops at various floors extend my ride by six to ten minutes. I rely on gearless traction electrical thrust to deliver me to work. In order to arrive on time I must also add elevator travel time to my bus commute. Eighteen minutes plus twelve minutes equal thirty minutes. Of course, I still add an additional six to ten minute wait for the bus which,…
Five Micropoems by Akshat Shukla
Fusion A light Sinks into lethargy, Dying for A fusion with darkness. Sunlight The sunlight Bathing in a river; Bubbles of frolic Dancing on the shifting surface. Commotion The strings of commotion Stretched Beyond time and space Binding the universe In a bundle Of knotted ciphers. Thoughts Thoughts Scamper across The mind, Colliding, Falling over each other — Stampede. A Bumblebee Drunk on nectar, A bumblebee Whirrs around, Soaking in The sunshine, Zigzagging Along the hedge, Amazed at the beauty Of the morn. *** Akshat Shukla is a research scholar at CSJM University, Kanpur, India. He is working on Ecocriticism for his research thesis. Apart from research writing, he writes poetry and fiction, in which he became interested when he was introduced to romantic poetry. His poems and stories have…