When I get the call I will put on my boots by Georgia Hertz

for I will help you dig the hole. Shovel meet earth. Sweat meet tears. Meet me here. Sometimes grief is a round, solid knot not easily released. Sometimes we must mourn the living. The wanton wishi…

From Troubles of The World
Held by Hannah Perrin King

Before language, there were hands. To receive, deliver. This I know—the holding of things, the releasing. How with fingertips he fed the ashes of my letters to the star magnolia’s shadow. How, into…

From Troubles of The World
Dove by Keith S. Wilson

the chocolate’s silver wrapper says get messy. alright. so you augury. you wellbutrin or two of cups or year of the rat. little difference between tragedy and alchemical balance. you run the calcul…

From Troubles of The World
Sylvan Pieces – V: Another Spring by Aloysius Bertrand (Louis Jacques Napoléon Bertrand)

All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Love. Another Spring — another bitter …

From Troubles of The World
East Wind by Ouyang Xiu

The burgeoning trees are thick with leaves. The birds are singing on all the hills. The east wind blows softly. The birds sing, the flowers dance. This minor magistrate is drunk. Tomorrow when he w…

From Troubles of The World
Suppose You Were a Bad Ghost by Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello

You tried so hard to be good, turning the shower on when no one was home, brushing your teeth so inaudibly that even standing in the hall with an ear pressed to wood, no one could hear you. The sun…

From Troubles of The World
Draft by Christophe Casamassima

Writing this like being tied to a tree unbecoming as one unties the aftermath. Birds rest in a bloodbath and the birds are silenced. This, a voice to sing with. You, who are my birdsong. From: Date…

From Troubles of The World
Evensong by Kirstin Allio

Even song empties. My sockets serve as mortar and stone, sand bags of bones, centrifuge of location specific vigilance. A hawk traces hunting circles, all first tries, my son’s first cry electrifie…

From Troubles of The World