Has anyone actually died of boredom playing trains with their toddler? Marty pushed Thomas around the track, followed by too many cars. He took a tight turn and the last five cars slipped from the grooves, flopping limply to the side. Being a master engineer, Marty was no stranger to this, and calmly filed the trains back where they belonged. Continue reading
Page 11 of 67
For years, Eoin Colfer captivated a generation with Artemis Fowl, his beloved children’s fantasy series. Now with Highfire, he’s written his very first fantasy novel for adults.
Highfire follows a similar tread to Artemis Fowl. Squib is a 15-year-old boy, just young enough to retain a childlike belief in fairies and mythical creatures so that he doesn’t totally lose it when he meets Vern.
Vern is a character straight out of Colfer’s unique sense of humor. The last dragon on Earth, Vern is a wise-cracking misanthrope who spends his days hiding in the swamps and obsessively researching human pop culture online. Picture a small scaly dragon naked except for a Flash Dance t-shirt. “Vern tolerated the swamp. It wasn’t exactly glorious, but these weren’t exactly the glory days. Once upon a time he had been Wyvern, Lord Highfire, of the Highfire Eyrie, if you could believe that melodramatic bullshit name. Now he was king of jack shit in Mudsville, Louisiana.”
Mound by Sarah Walko
Photo by Brian Michael Barbeito
The wooden dock’s planks groaned beneath the blazing Florida sun. Neal adjusted his sunglasses. He watched as a snowy egret took a step with one of its long twig-thin black legs. It paused, then stretched its swan-like neck and body with the precision of a ballet dancer. Neal tucked a pinch of tobacco between his lower lip and gum. As he folded his sun-freckled arms, the bird took a few quick steps, then lumbered skyward. Continue reading
“Now Is the Hour” by Sarah Walko
1. February 3rd. The first time I was introduced to the sniveling, drooling, troglodyte that is my sister’s boyfriend Rob. Really, Ashley? You couldn’t do better than a middle-aged branch manager who loves ranch dressing and thinks that Justin Timberlake is an underrated artist? I went into the bathroom to reapply my neck blush, and that’s when I saw it. Rob had used the bathroom, and when he was done he hadn’t put the toilet seat down!
2. July 15th. In the spirit of good will, I tried to forget about the incident on February 3rd. I gave Rob the benefit of the doubt and assumed that his behavior had been an unfortunate blip. Boy was I wrong. On July 15th, after my entire family came back from the Michael Jackson Memorial 5K, I was horrified to discover that Rob left the toilet seat up again. It is truly unfortunate to see my sister paired up with such a primitive companion. Continue reading
Wolf Moon
Freezing in the gray light, the wind
at our backs like an anchor,
our boat steadies itself against the moon
and the captain’s hand. We tack across the sound
where the scallops are hidden.
We’ve prepared the nets again, patched
and mended our traps,
coiled the thick, sea—green ropes.
Our tongues are still raw from coffee.
We watch the wolf moon, still red, Continue reading
It’s that time once again – ‘twas the week before Christmas, and all through the house, everyone was all like, “Crap, what last-minute gifts can I get on Amazon Prime?” Have no fear – our annual book review round up collects some of our favorite titles from 2019, as well as other standouts we’ve read this year.
Our lists focus on books that your recipient isn’t likely to already have, either because they’re obscure and lesser-known or because they just came out that recently. You can also check out our 2017 and 2018 book lists.
Lush Life
We’d drink until the stars went out, then scrounge
an hour or two of sleep before our shifts
hopping the subway in from Brooklyn, Queens,
jacked up on NoDoz, Yoohoo, vitamins
eyelids sagging like chintz drapery.
The day kept trying to dawn
and finally gave up, as if to say
today has been cancelled
due to lack of photons.
Nothing but wind and cold all
afternoon in the deepening gray
lashing us poor souls below.
At the hour of not quite twilight
the first flakes come down
slantwise like drunken
debutantes descending
a spiral staircase to
the bargain basement.
They giggle and collapse on
each other, beginning to pile up.
It may be months before we can
scrape away their costume jewelry.
Kurt Luchs has poems published or forthcoming in Into the Void, Antiphon, The American Journal of Poetry and The Sun Magazine. He placed second for the 2019 Fischer Poetry Prize, and won the 2019 Atlanta Review International Poetry Contest. He has written humor for the New Yorker, the Onion and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, as well as writing comedy for television and radio. His books include a humor collection, It’s Funny Until Someone Loses an Eye (Then It’s Really Funny) (2017 Sagging Meniscus Press), and a poetry chapbook, One of These Things Is Not Like the Other (2019 Finishing Line Press). More of his work, both poetry and humor, is at kurtluchs.com.
This poem was first published in Crosswinds Poetry Journal.
Recent Comments