An independent, ad-free leftist magazine of critical essays, poetry, fiction, and art.
by Caleb Brennan. “Tough guy, huh?” asks the officer. “You having fun?” goads his partner. As his knee crushes the windpipe of his victim, his body language is stern and unfeeling, as if taking the position is some sort of burden. “He’s not responsive right now, bro!” one pedestrian says. “Check for a pulse,” says another. A cop with nothing to say turns away, expressing his indifference with his posture.
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by Stephen Ira. In this manicured room built by working class boyfriends, if I keep my clothes on…
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by Maximillian Alvarez. “Someday, perhaps, it will be a joy to remember even these things.” Aeneas offers these words to his weary shipmates when things seem to be at their lowest. It’s not a promise. Nothing is guaranteed. Someday, perhaps.
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by Lyta Gold. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it,” the menu promises. TAROT is a trendy place, far too trendy for her, and it serves pomegranate tacos and goose egg omelets and “magic beans,” which are lentils.
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by A.M. Gittlitz. One Friday this March, you might have noticed a weird trending item about Bob Dylan releasing a nearly 20-minute new song about the JFK assassination. You might have listened to it for a few seconds and turned it off, or left it running and walked away to make coffee, returning to find one of his classics autoplaying.
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by Jonathan Todd: When was the first time? / are you even born yet / tumbling through as an accident
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by upfromsumdirt: for fuck’s sake is why you come as did your /elders a century before breaking / bread over caviar and raspberries
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by Sasha Dukarov Warren. Why are politicians and economists talking like doctors, and doctors talking like generals? Whose “crippled” body is this that needs protection?
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by Jon Greenaway. At a recent rally, Donald Trump (in one of his typically free-associative speeches) decided to complain about Bong Joon-Ho’s latest film, Parasite, which took home Best Picture at the Oscars. To Trump, this was something of a distaster.
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by Matt Mitchell. i have always hated my great aunt’s paintings of the house / she & my grandfather grew up in. it is too late to live there, / because the city of grafton knocked it down a decade ago.
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