Author Archives: AR_Editor

The future is coming Planets like Mars, A place to be exploring, The Rover found signs      Of life on Mars It found something     Resembling an ancient Greek statue It found a bear on Mars In years … Continue reading →

It was back in 1969, Fifty long years ago, I was only nine years old, Glued to the TV, Watching the simulation Of the landing on the Moon, Back then you couldn’t see The live footage, You saw the images … Continue reading →

A yellow moon crowns over the dark path. Twisted branches reflect its light. Darkness sways on the sides and begs for you to step aside. Clawed fingers and pearly teeth, furry tails and pointy ears await and call you in … Continue reading →

Is there a story Stacked In the Tangled fiery Vines That creep onto the Diamond shelves of this Circling mass of dreams? We landed In our finely woven Fiber Gowns, Broke down What it breathed out To make air for … Continue reading →

Is darkness filled with Hungry little Teeth? I am floating In the darkest space. The Signals have all Shifted red to Obscurity. How I craved to touch The infinite! Is that what I’m scared Of now? The endless well that … Continue reading →

Something Breathes in The shadows where The spectacular Stars Drown. You and I stare Silently at that Ill-defined Terrain with folded holes. Redundancies that Make this world Appear smooth Dissolve, and We wait — Still here, holding Hands, counting all … Continue reading →

I. Konzo a paralytic scream of protein-deprived flesh. Undocumented graves Cradle the frail bodies of children, singing a lonely lullaby for the starved, broken. Bodies. There’s no funeral for the one Born in the night, without health care, or light. … Continue reading →

Out There… in the Core of the Wood there are other parts of me— We have not been introduced! I sense them…just out of sight, turn to look cautiously back but never stop for fear they might catch up… while … Continue reading →

It passed with time and life from generation to generation, from women to women, from men to men, from mother to daughter, from father to son. It passed without fail, with all odds, with all might, with all colour, in … Continue reading →

History is uncoiling its loop and Looming the accounts of destruction The plunder asunder that thundered its glory The pride, stride, name, fame Died as they eyed All power, tower, shower etc, etc Same drama etc, etc Trauma. Yes. Prowar … Continue reading →

In the Museum of Empathy, Year 2172 I. A cigarette butt flickers like a distant neutron star, a memory collapsed to ash. Fingers trace the dying heat, and lungs tighten, remembering someone’s last quiet breath, drifting through cosmic silence, searching … Continue reading →

Star Travelers… in deep freeze. Cosmic-leap frogs in cryogenic slumber: Hermetically sealed envelopes addressed to a star that seems a universe removed. Going under, giving way as the lay of the land to omnivorous fog. Drifting off on crystalline ice … Continue reading →

In ancient times The story goes, That a painting was done, The painter drew a picture Of ancient people as they lived, But it showed a spaceship In the skies, Aliens side by side, So even back in those ancient … Continue reading →

Since 1957 or so, Our Astronauts Journeyed into outer space A journey beyond To leave the Earth, And to discover what the Universe holds, Far out in a dark place, Where planets, stars, Comets and asteroids meet, Traveling to outer … Continue reading →

the family car a Rocket 88 Olds has reentry burns car’s glove compartment’s filled with speeding tickets from Jupiter and Mars weird bumper stickers up front Se habla Klingon rear Eat my Stardust those exotic pets sometimes seen in their … Continue reading →

The highway ahead is as flat as the horizon looms high, crosses the kind of desert landscape that can only end in mountain ranges, a circumstance of geography and geology and hand, eye, foot coordination. But the day is drawing … Continue reading →

when we gathered around the kitchen table, holding hands as my mother said grace, the clatter of plates rang like beating drums while the dumplings cracked like fireworks on the frying pan. our voices were keys of a piano. every … Continue reading →

a symphony of hues danced upon the pond’s surface, rippling like blurred, blotted paint strokes. the azure, lapping water reflects vast, stretching skies, while the sun spills gleaming gold through cracks between the clouds. lilies float, soft pastel tints seeping … Continue reading →

I laid down in the field and the flowers held me between their petals. Their bodies open, soft with a fragrant scent. The clover pressed its cheek against my palm, the dandelion tickled me with its dust, and the lily … Continue reading →

Tarnished from Epsilon’s third sun, a circle formed of broken limbs and split flesh congregating around a ravaged silver escape pod. Matted hair, ruptured sores and puss-filled boils. Relentless rays of heat and radiation – evaporating water into serpentine steam … Continue reading →

I’m painted, made up, simultaneously lightly sketched and stretched thin. Afraid of smudging, of being mered like bits of rubber, brushed off paper onto the floor. And barely bouncing upon landing to sit unnoticed, I’m relieved to no longer be … Continue reading →

Farmers wake, farm their fields. Their wives tend hearth and home, chickens, pull milk from cows, slop the pigs. Fishermen struggle against fleets of slowly departing commercial ships, haul in smaller catches of ever-smaller fish. But entangled seals barbed in … Continue reading →

Her husband’s appetite ground her down. Refusing to eat, she perished. Death’s embrace enhanced her looks, Empowered her vengeance. The Dearg Due’s Beauty lured men. She consumed One thing: Blood.   About the Author Native New Yorker. Poet. Writer. Dramatist. … Continue reading →

“Perhaps like the dodo or the dinormis, the werewolf may have become extinct in our age, yet he has left his stamp on classic antiquity…. He belonged to a bad breed, and we are quite content to be freed from … Continue reading →

Decrees forbade a written language. Insects sipped black milk from lanterns. Unburied breaths were reused For recharging robots – Obedient serfs. Humans were now Auctioned off, Sold as Slaves.   About the Author Native New Yorker. Poet. Writer. Dramatist. In … Continue reading →

They were like a spattering Of raindrops, more felt than seen Except for their footsteps in puddles That they attempted to diminish. They were childlike in the way they seemed To sneak around, seeing invisibility as being Undetectable. They couldn’t … Continue reading →

Enter. beat It’s red. beat Cyber, purple, dark. beat And the room moves one way beat And the crowd obeys.     another          beat To the mirrored ceilings down, beat To flickering screen of the ground, … Continue reading →

It starts with Bert, talking about his lumbago. He says how he doesn’t like the top floor at work, on account of his Vertigo. It moves around, and Dave, because there is always a Dave tells you about his inflamed … Continue reading →

Hello, valued customer, we see you haven’t opened your last three emails. Is there something wrong? We value your custom, we really do, Is there something wrong? We would like your feedback. Your custom means so much to us. We … Continue reading →

There’s a stiff north wind, blowing down Candlemaker row tonight, and the grass-market still shows traces of last night’s fun. The comedians that we see on panel shows, all six of them, are laughing at the same jokes we think … Continue reading →

Downstream, the seared ruins of space speak horizontal to a sunray perpendicular. Rare metals bubble with brook trout. Helmets harbor small gray crabs. Cracked skulls litter rapids. Tanagers sip at the rites of water and blue-lit instruments. They can fly, … Continue reading →

There are moments in each day, when a lengthy silence tempered by organic mood relaxer Is just the balm for a poor, empathetic character (like yrs trly) poised on the brink of disaster. With myself No one else Day is … Continue reading →

“I don’t understand you.” She, with pandled lips and gaze forlorn, While I, becrimbled, sought to straff my meaning, bonsting ever stronger. “My dear”, I kettered, “listen to my heart speak, and my eyes gerlanger “Therein to frist with claggan … Continue reading →

While driving home a backroads way, my gaze to something eerie fell A topiary tapestry o’erwhelmed a landscape I knew well Where once were wizened trees and stumps, and sagging sheds lost to neglect Appeared an emerald shroud, concealing all … Continue reading →

I walk into the studio, and she’s already there crouching over a worktable full of metal forms and globs of plasticene clay. The Auteur talks so quickly and so imperiously that I almost don’t dare divert my attention, but the … Continue reading →

The Auteur is vision. Is director, producer, writer. Is camera operator, editor, gaffer. Is everywhere at once. When animator and I arrive early in the morning, wisps of smoke rise from the studio floor and evaporate around us as we … Continue reading →

There was a time when he was all Mohican, and trousers with more holes than cheddar. There was a time when he was all piercings and a face with more holes than the ones he was born with. There was … Continue reading →

These days, we only ever meet at funerals. It is a hundred small hellos, to one long goodbye. I spend the day being told I have my Grandfather’s eyes, The night before I shaved my Father’s beard. The day is … Continue reading →

He wears his scars with pride, pulls at the wounds until they bleed. A face is like a map of experience. He has the face he wanted but not the one he needs. The tattoos are not permanent marks of … Continue reading →

I felt it sweeping past. The corridor Mysteriously darkened, poised between A sighting and uncertainty, a ghost Seeking attention while avoiding it. Black quietude of death – – flirtatious, sly, Uncanny, threaded through the night – – then gone.   … Continue reading →

Nonet: The Wolf Woman’s Candor “What would I do without the moral compass of a teenage werewolf?” — Magic Burns” by Ilona Andrews [Ace, 2008] Old feature films directed by men Tie werewolfery to a bite From creatures cursed to … Continue reading →

The weight of emptiness is what he seeks. His spectral figure transports souls within Death’s silhouette, aware they’ll want release — Though making these decisions can evince Odd preferences cloaked by Mister Grim. Detecting movement clouding the blank stare Of … Continue reading →

Rainy day walk, black umbrella dripping, my every step a cautionary one, path littered with leaves. The lawn gnomes at my periphery stare at me with dead plaster eyes, keeping their distance for now. Weathered angel eyes follow me with … Continue reading →

There’s a harpsichord deep in the dark wood, its eerie music floating amid the trees, an atonal waltz composed in Purgatory, composer stuck in the limbo of purification. Shadows dance among the ancient trunks, ethereal bodies pressing close together, tissue … Continue reading →

The man in the Moon looks down upon all mankind, his pot marked face accentuated by distant sunlight, while on the dark side, his alter ego coldly gazes out into the depths of space, sinister designs in mind, the machinery … Continue reading →

It was Midnight The Grandfather clock chimed twelve times 1…2….3….4…5….6…..7…..8…..9……10……11…..12 Lily was fast asleep, Her husband Charles snored away Her teenage son Lester was on his iPad, researching ghosts and goblins Her little girl Nina was fast asleep, Her little … Continue reading →

NASA is getting ready, For our journey to Mars, All the exploration With the Rover, All the many satellites Collecting scientific data On the Red Planet, Buzz Aldrin is leading the way For our space program to go to Mars … Continue reading →

Someone is on the Moon, You can hear him croon, He’s singing that memorable tune, The one Andy Williams crooned Yes, “Moon River” That’s the tune, We will be returning to the Moon, That moment is coming soon, Till then … Continue reading →

It’s the year 2040, You and I Are space buddies, We travel to other planets, We seek out scientific discoveries, And new things to study, We fight off dangerous aliens, We make friends with the good aliens, We learn their … Continue reading →

In a state of ignorance profound, I attempt to follow An unnamed hand while the depths of my soul remain hollow. Each time I see prints of the hand on surface of desert sand, I fail to keep track of … Continue reading →

From out of the depths of nowhere, a sound is heard By a guardian who is not aware of what occurred In a time of darkness when justice has been laid out For a mind ignorant of what vengeance is … Continue reading →

From out of the mouth of a bag, the hand appears To mirrors staring at its features from both sides As the emerging path in front of it slowly clears To make way for a throne where power abides. The … Continue reading →

“The kill of the wolf is the meat of the wolf:/ he may do what he will.”           — “Wolf Centos” by Simone Muench [Sarabande Books] The morning after, he’s aware of red, Five knuckles glazed … Continue reading →

My father was more talented than I, Ingenious, in demand. When I transformed – In Universal’s make-up chair – into The Wolf Man, my body-clock stopped and this Unnatural specimen reigned, something That fascinated and horrified. This Role, played five … Continue reading →

“He went on two legs, wore clothes and was a human being, but nevertheless he was in reality a wolf of the Steppes.” — Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf Tableaus of boyhood — usually sun- Filled moments — don’t include betrayals yet. … Continue reading →

tokamak this silent rage seething under my magnetic skin double daylily the convolutions and reduplications of time crystals night-scented stock nameless stars sharpening the knife’s edge   About the Author Joshua St. Claire is an accountant from a small town … Continue reading →

When I’m on my highest horse, I say, No, I don’t enter competitions. There are too many others who can use the low prize money more than I can. But secretly I think it might be nice to be able … Continue reading →

Woe! Woe to the old God! Woe to Him! For He knew not who He was! And He knew not what He did! The ancient, lost tomes speak of him most clearly; His skin, the color of bronze For wasn’t … Continue reading →

The little hand on the clock ticks and the big hand mimes the escape into the stars. The pod doors open to ghosts and newts. This artificial light pours in random details—the rest of our lives. We have so little … Continue reading →

How small we are when compared with the sun, the narrator booms. Earth’s a tiny hole in the magical ceiling. Earth’s a green booger in the corner of God’s eye that he flicks away. He’s lefthanded, lonely, and ridding himself … Continue reading →

Others examine the sky’s eternal blue to find answers. The moon’s nefarious schemes to dominate her father’s zone never fail to entertain the psychic lounging on a bean bag, dreaming of cash, clowns, and posh journeys to Mars.   About … Continue reading →

He’s in the Air Force He flies the F-15 at night, when it’s so serene in the nighttime skies UFO’s arrive The Air-Force pilot sees these odd-shaped planes, or spaceships, He sees them on his radar, They have come from … Continue reading →

There’s a Bear on Mars! It was on the Evening News! A Bear on Mars! That means there’s life there? The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showed us this face of a Bear it’s a hill on Mars with this peculiar shape … Continue reading →

He stuck out like a dinosaur, No, I mean he sure wasn’t no dinosaur, Oh, no, he was a Martian, Yes, that’s what he was, He was green, Yes, indeed, Green face, green body, Yellow eyes, Robotic ears, Robotic hands, … Continue reading →

Time Lord Thief —terza rima haiku sonnets 1. I’ve had an interest in rayguns since I was five, when I saw my first. Father shot a live bird dead, right between the eyes. A needle hole gave the lone hint … Continue reading →

In the candle of my night I see you blinking your eyes, pink with a magnanimous a vocabulary of mythology, a Nordic star, shy, shining in blondness, resorting, shuffling back and forth like a loaded deck of cards, lead-weighted- your … Continue reading →

I walk in a pillow of cinder. Flames apart from this night still ignite. I am still determining where I live in a yellow mist, muddled in early morning white fog. I lost my compass in a manhole, dumped, dazed … Continue reading →

The distances you traversed in space put you up there with the immortals but then you remember standing alone on a bare rocky planet encased in a suit, and you felt like the tiniest, most fragile, of creatures, so far … Continue reading →

In the aroma of Sunday-made curries, The lemon sprinkled cakes, Memorable moments find life again And drift on the breeze. Beyond and below my eyes I see the layout of a table, A kitchen taking the shape of a heart … Continue reading →

the sea, the sky, the earth, the wind, somewhere within my soul it sings— and mourns and grieves for you – my monument, my rock, my sea, my tree, my roots, I grasp for the ancestry you’ve passed down with … Continue reading →

the cliff we climb, the rocks we grasp the dew and doubt, that makes us slide, and slide and dive, into mog and mire. with urgency we vainly grasp the rocks we hold that steady our climb— we grasp the … Continue reading →

You know that game, Where you think of it, You lose? You’re welcome, By the way. And Welcome, To my life. Only, it’s not one thing, It’s a huge list, I’m The only one playing. It’s not a game, And … Continue reading →

While the first yellow leaves stare from their unforgetting, and summer starts to become nothing more than a hallucination, I myself start to unforget. Familiar strangers start to recur on the walls, and it’s funny— because I’ve been making new … Continue reading →

He spent more than half his youth, just pursuing, building walls, living a life of luxury, every moment a cinematic fantasy, building up what he considered to be independent, keeping his capelet billowing in the strongest steadiest of winds over … Continue reading →

The orchid is purple. My life is gray, it bleeds out in monotone – a duly noted contrast. Clouded mornings fill my cup. I burn my lips on pride. I carry today in a paper bag – a rusty lunch … Continue reading →

Each star is a wish / a dream to unwrap /       waiting to be revealed. Time evades existence & plucks       feathers from its wings. Softly floating downward from the sky. I write my life … Continue reading →

the devil’s horn blares in a broken wood its trumpet’s singular blast obliterates the rumble of thunder, the crack of lightning’s script written in a jagged hand across an unfruitful landscape rain cleanses the root and stubble of last year’s … Continue reading →

IF YOU DANCED FROM MIDNIGHT after a first line by Anne Sexton until Thursday next week, four days straight, you’d make front page news on some small town newspaper in the Midwest. If you decided on Holy Week to forgive … Continue reading →

Tiny Mary swims from a pipe and breathes   from a hose obscured  by plastic seaweed.    I can leave now that I’ve seen her blow   kisses to the seahorse.  The rich build houses   on stilts and consider … Continue reading →

My little town mocks me:  You’re a regular Roman    numeral, boy. A regular Roman Polanski.   You Blue Monday types really crack me up.   I used to like being fooled,  being screwed with,    being banished from a … Continue reading →

If the woman is covered in white powder,  her chair will end up powdery as well.  If she speaks constantly of Hell, she may be a priest, a poet, or bartender. How aware of her condition is she? Has she … Continue reading →

Wrapped in ashen clouds pale shrouds of sadness. Retracing each dimension of my heart yet finding no refuge.   My head bent recounting all the days of my life. Lost in this blur, this landscape. Where am I? Where can … Continue reading →

Longing for blackness searching tunnels tasting empty wells. How many times?   Ten times ten times ten. Ten thieves have stolen our souls.   Lost in ignorance with plastic eyes cosmetic sneers, they find illusion in their own reflections.   … Continue reading →

of seriousness the universe is a labyrinth of my ear ear ear   I am deaf from it there is no sure melody in these crazy strains   deaf deaf deaf dumb blinded loosening mind for just 1 moment to … Continue reading →

With avocado toast and Americano dark roast Hot chicken mushroom soup with a cottage tulip vase Made by your mother  who now has the vote Soft background music and art therapy All done by your sisters  who now have the … Continue reading →

A child waiting for her dog that left its mortal coil The rain pours but she doesn’t recoil It doesn’t stop, and she starts coughing And the sun seems stuck on the horizon, never rising Picking dandelion petals, my dog … Continue reading →

In her green dress flowing around  her If I’m dead to you, why are you at the wake? Cursing my name, wishing I stayed I wish I wasn’t dead to you, because you’re still at my wake I can’t curse … Continue reading →