by Melanie DuBose World’s Rarest Whale Washes Up on New Zealand Beach, Scientists Say: Only six specimens of the spade-toothed whale have ever been identified. This carcass could be the first that scientists are able to dissect. —The New York Times, July 17, 2024 swimming by he notices  on the ocean floor  something long  sleek  dead they hang the body by its tail on the beach some things never change very small fins long beak an endless loop on repeat in my brain my brain with its depths I can not reach but perhaps could synthesize and become a pop st ..read more

by Jennifer M Phillips Time to step back from your long labors, Joe, and let the eager young ones try their hands. You've kept the long watch safe all night, we know, and spared the ship of state from bergs and sands. Heed the prophet's words, predicting, at his finish, "another will increase, and I must diminish."   Your whole career you've served the working jack, walked the union picket-line, yanked foreign jobs home, foreseen future industries, retooled the work, and understood such tasks are never done. How it pains the industrious will to step away before well-laid plans arriv ..read more

by Shawn Avaningo-Sanders The latest weather dome has uncovered us from its blanket of unrelenting heat. At last, I can walk the trails near my house and not need the inhaler in my pocket. I let the laundry pile up in order to save the grid for more important things—lamplight, fans, the refrigerator’s hum. I’m wearing a T-shirt I haven’t worn in almost ten years with its rainbowed Love is Love on soft heather gray and Legalize Gay on the back. I still remember crying that day the courts ruled in favor of my daughters’ future weddin ..read more

by Thomas J. Erickson “Towering Pine” by Alan Li There are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks where decades happen.                                                     —Lenin Out near the trout stream, there is “the Pine Tree” a towering white pine that somehow escaped the blade of the lumberjack. It was a signpost and a beacon and we could see it from an ..read more

by Daniel Romo Abdullah the Butcher The politician wasn’t struck in the assassination attempt and only his ear was grazed, but the trickle of his blood caused           half the country to cry, Hero!           and the other half to yell, Staged! though no one can deny  octogenarians are more brittle bones  than bulletproof, and  all’s fair in love and reward.   There are those who claim we never landed on the Moon  and those who maintain the Earth is flat ..read more

by David Chorlton There’s a picture postcard sunrise back of the apartments at 48th and Warner and a fire truck in the parking lot. Smoke on the second storey, three bodies, no clues, this neighborhood is zoned for stillness in the afternoon. Water for the sparrows, suet for the doves, a whole sky for the hawk who flew through the yard this morning. A hummingbird drinks light, the sun drinks desert and the desert drinks a hundred years of silence in a single gulp.   * Dustbathing quail in a hollow; eight half-grown and one adult, each with a tremble in its throat. Two flickers o ..read more

by Sarah Al-Hajj Researchers have assessed the likely toll of Israel’s military campaign, including vast indirect casualties. Illustration: Mona Chalabi/The Guardian, July 12, 2024 The pool is three metres long and three metres wide The pool is seventeen metres deep 40,400 gallons  183,662 litres It is the 10th of July 15,000 children dead 23,000 adults dead 38,000 people slaughtered 278 days In place of numbers being whispered The pool of blood screams as loud as the orphans left behind Sarah Al-Hajj is currently 19 and studying English Literature and Psychology ..read more

by Gifford Savage My stepfather sexually abused me when I was a child. My mother, Alice Munro, chose to stay with him. In the shadow of my mother, a literary icon, my family and I have hidden a secret for decades. It’s time to tell my story. —Andrea Robin Skinner, Toronto Star, updated July 15, 2024. Photo by Steve Russell. We mourned her passing, those of us eclipsed by her shadow, who place words on pages in vain attempt to come close  to her masterful levels of wit, humour and care. Amongst the greats of short-story fiction, she was honoured and celebrated, commemor ..read more

by Steven Kent The gunman missed his head and ample chassis, So Trump, of course, was bound to keep it classy: He swapped the bloody shirt for bloody sneakers, A killer deal—three bills—for MAGA seekers! Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer and musician Kent Burnside. His work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, Light, Lighten Up Online, The New Verse News, Philosophy Now, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, and Snakeskin. His collection I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) was publishe ..read more

by Felicia Nimue Ackerman The country trumps your wishes, Joe. Admit it's time for you to go. Unless you heed this urgent call, The future's apt to Trump us all. Felicia Nimue Ackerman is a professor of philosophy at Brown University and has had over 300 poems in places including American Atheist, The American Scholar, Better Than Starbucks, The Boston Globe, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Down in the Dirt, The Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin, Free Inquiry, The Galway Review, Light Poetry Magazine, Lighten Up Online, The Los Angeles Times, The New York ..read more