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Individual Medley

by Dale Davis

Posted on by John McMurtrie

On the hillside west of the swimming pool, men with shovels followed the line of the fire, turning dirt onto glowing patches. Above them, on the ridge, a bulldozer clanked and roared as it cut a gap. The fire burned slowly through the dampened yellow grass, flaring only when a bush caught. Ashes lifted and

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Down to a science

by Ben Greenman and ChatGPT

Posted on by John McMurtrie

I am in a basement.I see. Is there anything specific you need assistance with while you are in the basement?I do need assistance, though perhaps not in the way you are thinking. Which raises an interesting question. Are you, in fact, thinking?As an AI language model, I do not “think” in the same way that

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The Blue Angels / The Spirituals App

by David Roderick

Posted on by John McMurtrie

The Blue AngelsHave you heard the sound of themduring Fleet Week the threat of our bruteaerial power flaying whole afternoonsin formation and turgid fumes over the Baymy friend at the Chron says they fly700 mph and 18 inches apartskimming the filigree of a sound barrieruntil they bang through foglike a truncheon hitting a skull I

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Parable of the Perfect Translator

by Kit Schluter

Posted on by John McMurtrie

It happened with great simplicity, without affectation.— Virgilio PiñeraOne early May afternoon at a café on Rue Scribe, a strange man presented himself to the university students as France’s greatest translator. Yet when these students looked into the name this man had given, they could find no trace of either him or his work. The

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The Köln Concert

by D.S. Waldman

Posted on by John McMurtrie

We showed up with a U-Haul and a Prius and could not see the ocean. They lay it on thick there, a friend had said of Pacifica, two, three weeks at a time. We pulled off at the bluffs before taking our things to the cottage on Winona. Five hours it took for the cat

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The Seamus

by Tara Ison

Posted on by John McMurtrie

I always sensed beast in the house. From the time I could sense anything, I knew I could reach for and grip onto a shaggy coat, pull myself up to lean against a beastly wall of muscle. I knew the scent of tartar breath, the scalloped air of a swinging tail, the sponge of a

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Phone call

by Cynthia Zarin

Posted on by John McMurtrie

Caroline is standing by the north ball fields in Central Park in the snow. It is February. There is some kind of construction going on—or it was going on—the big yellow trucks have stalled, but still, she has had to circumvent them. She is walking southeast, toward Seventy-Ninth Street, through the park. It is freezing.

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Coup de Vieux

by David L. Ulin

Posted on by John McMurtrie

For Tom Mageethrice in three nightsthe dead have come my waytwice it is youtwin cities accentrough and lowlike a globusin your throatI can hear the timbreyet I cannot carryback a word you saythen last night my grandfatheran ancient apparitionif younger than hewould be aliveeighth of a millenniumsince his shtetl birth and allthat’s left is this

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Any Orange Is Orange

by Olivia Clare Friedman

Posted on by John McMurtrie

Since Happy started saving lives, he’s gotten superstitious. You learn quick—don’t call him up on his shift and ask, How’s the day going? Any calls? because then for sure the radio will start, and they’ll be racing over, lights and sirens, to a one-bedroom in Pelican Bluff on Cooper Candy Drive, which is all gravel

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THE AESTHETICS OF INSCRUTABILITY: ON ‘CY TWOMBLY: INSCRIPTIONS’

by Dean Rader

Posted on by John McMurtrie

I do not remember the first Cy Twombly painting I saw, but I think it might have been this:​​​​​Cy Twombly, Orpheus, 1979 (Courtesy of Emanual Hoffmann Foundation, on permanent load to the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel; photo: Kunstsammlung Basel, Martin P. Bühler)© Cy Twombly Foundation.I was in graduate school. It was the ’90s. I was more than casually

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Poetry Takes Bloom

by Tess Taylor

Posted on by John McMurtrie

In the late spring of 2020, when everything seemed a bit bleak, I received a phone call from my old friend Hannah Fries, a poet who’d known me when I was writing poems and working on a farm in the Berkshires. Hannah is now an editor at Storey Press, and she had a fascinating proposal for me: Would

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‘Gardeners’ World,’ or What I Did During the Plague

by Cynthia White

Posted on by John McMurtrie

“Gardeners’ World, or What I Did During the Plague”For that hour, only the earthof his garden. Dark and friableas chocolate cake, throngingwith nematodes and fungi,more microbes in a spoon than humanson the planet. A fear-free hour.An hour without my trip-wired heart.Were you aware the peony,like the potato, is a tuber?I was in love with his

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