Autumn 2025

The willow spreads its leafless branches
against empty sky,
like the framework of a transparent fan.
If I’d never become your wife, perhaps
things would have been better.

The pale mists of the Cargo series, in their elegiac quality, hit the same plaintive notes as Emily Dickinson’s great meditation on the Summer’s end: the ephemeral sweet sadness implied in every twilight— 

                                                       Wherein eight gartenzwerge go on the lam down Strawberry Creek after Ruddy’s overzealous jellyspreckling of the crocks cracked their (the gartenzwerge’s) kilning bond and incited a hasty flight of…

 I heard about the Grotto from a dead girl. Or, I should say, she was dead by the time I made my way into the saint-haunted depths.  Her name was…

“Billy,” said Joshua McIntyre. “Why don’t you get yerself a girlfriend steada watchin’ all that DVD porn?” Billy Babbitt and Joshua McIntyre, friends since their college days, were sitting in…

This house is heaven. That’s what my mum always told me, growing up: “Treat this house with the respect she deserves, love. This is our sanctuary, our little slice of…

Howdy there new neighbor! I’m Li’l Disappointment. Leastways that’s the name they gave me when I moved in. You’ll get a new one too! I’m Coordinator of Resident Onboarding and…

Barb and Debbie Contemplate Particle Physics Liberty (and Pals) Leading the Alligators Down on the Ranch Abby’s Dream Destination Birthday They Look Done to Me Say That Again Did I…

The first thing I saw was blue. The second thing I saw was Pops. The first thing I feared was God. That’s how I learned to order the universe. My…

From It Came from Amherst, Mildred Faintly’s just published annotated and selected poetry of Emily Dickinson. A careful reading of Dickinson makes it clear that she, far more than Poe,…

The first thing we noticed was the smell. Animals had died in the garage before. Mice made a sour, stinging odor for a week unless their corpses were sought out…

Jack Plotnick‘s shorts must be numbered among the most original, unexpected and extraordinary productions on the net. We are delighted to offer a sampling of his creations here.

Russet thread mixed with a hint of brighter red for his hair. Tawny brown, pale rose for his face. He’s smiling, I can picture it, hint of teeth ivory mixed…

96 This magazine is all about the outré, the marvellous, the surreal and the occult. You’re rather on the positivist side of the equation, though you do allow for ghosts,…

Like Liberace, Korla Pandit had a television show. Debuting in 1949, it was the first all-music show on television. On each Adventures In Music broadcast, Korla Pandit used his prodigious…