Pensive Pondering About Childhood Past

by Derek Alger

Originally published on December 3, 2011

I’ve always had trouble accepting the intricacies of the so-called grown up world, finding the behavior of most adults completely bewildering. This started in childhood with the way I viewed my father. I thought he was strange, whereas he was revered by his peers in the psychiatric world. This made me even more perplexed, and [...]

Impressions of Poetry on the Internet

by Ryan Gleason

Originally published on April 1, 2011

It’s the Internet! Poetry is the scripture in the temple!

Literature, The Northwest, and Me

by Ryan Gleason

Originally published on October 1, 2010

My finger drifts along the books’ spines. I insist on being casual, skimming through hundreds of alphabetized names and titles as though they were one relentless, underwhelming sentence.

Wu Wei

by S.J. Dunning

Originally published on October 1, 2010

My dog leaps from seat to seat, window to window, shaken by
something so much larger than herself, by the wind’s thrust against her jowls.

Certified Organic

by Jeremy O'Brine

Originally published on September 1, 2010

In a world where uncertainty prevails, even the packaging of bread at the grocery store contains strange, foreign words and place names which are whispered and toyed with by

Writer with Lap Dog

by Anna Monardo

Originally published on July 1, 2010

I got a dog last week. My first dog ever, and this never should have happened. For one thing, I dislike dogs.

JOY OF AGE

by Lennox Raphael

Originally published on February 22, 2010

“…Age, I am discovering, is a process of memory rather than actuality, and it is memory that sustains the image of the self and prop up our bones and their cultural positioning, and also takes us thru squalor & innocence down the road of reincarnative fantasies; of course, this is an unfinished piece,…”

Honeymooners Marathon

by Steve Heller

Originally published on October 19, 2009

“Can you hear me, Mom?”

She stares straight back into my eyes, but I can tell her gaze has turned inward now. She might be dreaming once again, as her chest rises with the effort of another shallow breath.

As I wait for her head to nod or simply tilt forward beneath the blue bandana, enclosed in the merciful respite of sleep, words well up inside me…

Consent

by Carol Fletcher

Originally published on February 9, 2009

I go home. I go to see my other kids, because they need me, but really, because I need them. I take them to dentist appointments and birthday parties. On a play date, a mom confides to me that her son won’t stop hitting in nursery school. What should she do, she wonders. I’m stunned by the question. Why ask me? I can hardly keep my kid alive.

Katie Couric is No Friend of Mine

by Paul Casey

Originally published on June 27, 2008

“When I figured out the gloved, masked woman’s task, I remembered my advice to my teenage daughter…Sarah, who had the cat on her lap, suddenly thrust the animal off of her lap and screamed. I spotted the problem right away, a turd clinging to the fur on the cat’s ass…I told her if that happened to me I would kill myself.”