Exangel

by Bruce E. R. Thompson.

I saw a Texas buzzard once—a squalid bird;
wings dipped in entrails; its gaze alert for thievings;
salvaging what it could of the desert’s leavings;
picking through the discarded and the disinterred;
wearing winter plumage out of season. Absurd
to watch it stagger, legs to short and neck too long;
a disheveled, wretched bag-lady of a bird.

But then it leaped and rose, as gracefully as song,
above the sand and thistle in a thermal plume,
until it turned away, wafting through the Texas air.

Now I see Mrs. Alice Johnson sitting there,
her bags beside her in this public reading room.
In her mind, as she reads poems of Old Madrid,
I ‘spect she soars as sweetly as that buzzard did.

by Brian Griffith. In 1895, Bibi Khanoom Astarabadi, a tutor for the children of Iran’s shah, published the nation’s first ideologically feminist book, The Vices of Men. It was innovative partly because of how it dealt with gender bias. The bigger novelty was that a book launched a public debate spanning the nation. Astarabadi wrote […]

by Nick Engelfried. And when it was all too much, Marvin would go up into the hills that surround the town of Missoula like the walls of a great, sloping bowl. And for a while he felt like he could breathe again, because in the hills were no computer screens or flashing lights or things […]

by Mir-Yashar Sevebagheri. Leaves dance, flame and golden symphony in the chilling October skies, dancing with the grace of a ballerina, which she once was. She wanders the hills and curves alone, a lone lady in lavender, strolling rugged paths, streams drying up, meandering toward their dry death. Tree branches lean like skeletons, the rain […]

by Tamra Lucid. I watched a hummingbird die like a toy with a run down battery the bird slowed down until it perched all day on the feeder stoic and reflective just outside the kitchen window. The other hummingbirds all left him alone but who could know if they acted from pity, fear or respect? […]

by David D. Horowitz. Daphne Anne Caruana Galizia of Malta. Ahmed Hussein-Suale of Ghana. Rob Hiassen of the United States. Dimitry Popkov of Russia. Jamal Khashoggi of Saudi Arabia. Until recently, all five were investigative journalists—then they were murdered. Each helped expose corruption or criminality or opposed an armed conflict, and each died for the […]

by Darren Payne.                   Jem caught a movement in the corner of her eye. She looked up towards the open door to the hallway, cocked her head to one side and smiled. She said, “Hello, Abigail,” and then returned her gaze to the luminescent screen of the cell-phone that she cupped in her left hand. […]

by Charles Fischman. Wherever brewed coffee is sold to the American public is the “to-go” cup with its plastic lid. If the likeness has not already made an impression, let it be noted that the coffee “to-go“ cup and lid, with its upturned spout and narrow hole designed to fit grown human lips, looks very […]

by Chris Farago. Let the good Earth watch us, With its multitude of eyes; Let its tears, and ours, Be kept to a minimum; If tears come, Let them be dried by a gentle wind; If no tears come, let us rejoice; If tears come, let us also rejoice, For it means good times will […]