G-O-D Backward by Holly Fortune Ratcliff
I ask her, “Wouldn’t it be too cruel
for a god to make us and nothing
after?” If she were my parrot,
I could point
to a silver bowl, saying: “What’s that?
What’s that, again?”
Cars by Claudia Wysocky
When it begins to sink—
When it pains me to believe
that something won't change even though you try,
And all your words mean nothing
all these words are tossed aside
1985 by Claudia Wysocky
I do not know what he wishes me to write, but I do not know what he sees
when he looks at me
for he stares quite differently.
Little Rose by Claudia Wysocky
Are you lonely, Little Rose?
Call me. I shall listen to you.
Somewhere in the distance,
the birds chirp through heavy rain.
Say It by Dee Allen
My name was Daniel.
Son of a former slave-turned-inventor.
An artist by trade. Skilled with a wet paint brush.
Joy by Allhies Melton
I inhale everything through the holes of myself
because I grew where my mother kept her salty tears
and it's lived in my DNA ever since.
Saint George’s Night by Dee Allen
Past the very stroke of midnight
It commences—their moment of mirth
Transylvanian legend named Saint George's Night
When undead things crawl on this earth.
Blackmoor by Dee Allen
Far cry from the modern,
Grand, cosmopolitan
City of London,
The forested land of Blackmoor
Is always densely foggy at night
Canadian Gothic: A Halloween Handful of Social Horror à la Alan Moore’s Saga of the Swamp Thing by Emie H
Before CW’s Supernatural, even The X-Files on Fox, Alan Moore was cranking out Monster of the Week’s like nobody’s business. I wouldn’t dare credit him with the trope, but his work, especially the “American Gothic” arc on his Swamp Thing reinvention, to date, remains my standout exemplar.
The Extra Bedroom by Zaira Bardos
In re imagined beginnings / I/She runs barefoot, / Asphalt burning her soles / Towards the mountain, / Out of breath hoping to melt / The ice chips tucked within her ribs.
