Raif is a stalled academic, as uncertain of the past as he is the future, whose girlfriend is about to move in. They meet by chance, nothing important is said, yet Iris turns away and starts to run. She is running from what this encounter has woken in her. In the City of Love's Sleep is a contemporary fable about what it means to fall in love in middle age. It charts the steps two people take towards one another and what it means to have taken those steps before.

    Everytime, he looked at me, it broke my heart a little bit more.Everytime he went away, I wrote.When he came back, I lived again.And in the end it fell apart.

    It tells the story of how Orbis Rex, Young Matt and his Circle of Friends, Queen Dido and the blind Dom'nic did battle with 'a wet and withered bat' from Wuhan.

    The resonance of this image grows through each section of the book as Hahn skillfully employs theme and variation, counterpoint and mirroring techniques. The ibis first appears as part of an illusion, the disappearing object in a magician’s trick, which then evokes the greatest disappearing act of all—death—where there are no tricks to bring about a reappearance. The rich complexity multiplies as the second section focuses on a disappearing lady and a dramatic final section brings together the bird and the lady in their common plight—both caged by their mortality, their assigned time and role.  All of the illusions fall away during this brilliant denouement as the two voices share a dialogue on the power of metaphor as the very essence of poetry. bird trick iv It’s all about disappearance. About a bird in a cagewith a mirror, a simple twiston the handle at the sidethat makes it come and go at the magician’s insistence. It’s all about innocence.It’s all about acceptance.It’s all about compliance.It’s all about deference.It’s all about silence. It’s all about disappearance.

    Awake chronicles Laux's coming to terms with a childhood darkened by violence and sexual abuse--a struggle at once to embrace and to forgive the past.

    The poem started out as a simple observation of the snow in moonlight, and turned into a poem with more to offer. I'm offering it free to my readers. I've had it on my blog, where it's gotten much response, and wanted to give everyone another way to access it.

    We know much of poetry ever was and ever shall be elegiac. Jane Mead’s poem could be neither more literal nor nearer the verge of appearing a little too perfect for this world. As the laundry room floods and the grape harvest gets done; as Michoacan waits for another time, her beautiful, practical mother is dying. Ashes are scattered in the pecan groves of her own Rincon, her own corner of the world, and the poet, in elementary script, draws a sustaining record of the only feeling worth the struggle, and she cannot, will not, does not fuck it up." — C.D. WrightJane Mead's fifth collection candidly and openly explores the long process that is death. These resonant poems discover what it means to live, die, and come home again. We're drawn in by sorrow and grief, but also the joys of celebrating a long life and how simple it is to find laughter and light in the quietest and darkest of moments.…This year I have disappearedfrom the harvest routine—the pickers throwing their traysunder the vines, grape hooksflying, the heavy bunches flying—pickers running to the running tractorswith trays held high above their headsand the arc of dark fruit falling heavily into the half-ton bins.The hornets swarming in the diesel-filled air.Jane Mead is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Money Money Money | Water Water Water (2014). Her poems appear regularly in journals and anthologies, and she's the recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, and a Lannan Foundation Completion Grant. She teaches at the low-residency MFA program at Drew University and farms in Northern California.

    Important, so inspiring... Please read this book" -Sonny Moore, Recording Artist "There are very few ways to get inside the mind of a lyricist. One way is through reading their diaries, the other through sleeping with them. Eric's book is the more entertaining of the options. It's a raw look inside the heart and mind of a rock 'n' roll spiritualist whose struggles with love (Chaplin) and versus the world (Keaton) are laid out bare like an exhibitionist on a double-dare." -Mike Shea, Founder, AP Magazine "Coma Therapy" is the sound of a powerful new voice in contemporary American literature. Victorino's brand of punchy prose often draws comparisons to the likes of Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson. This debut collection of poems and short stories draws a dangerously thin line between the heartwarming and the horrifying... Eric Victorino then mischievously walks that line all the way to the last page. Defiant, triumphant, hopeful and wise.

    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

    There was a woman.There was a cross. But in factthey have hung him too high to be touched.—from "A Woman Wipes the Face of Jesus"

    Created over 3 years and inspired by each other’s promptings and shared ideas, Nobody is a watery world from which Tillyer and Oswald gave expression to the shared belief that tension is the essence of form, or as Tillyer eloquently describes, ‘Not competing, but traveling side by side; a shared path.’.Their theme is water, which they recreate in a collage of words and images; a rush of selves and other life forms where fluidity is given voice and form. The choice of watercolour is particularly apt, described by Oswald as ‘an absence – as if the thing depicted were already elsewhere and what’s left is merely a tidemark’. In Oswald, this quality is expressed in waves of language where the un-named characters assume the quality described by Oswald as ‘the weather’s or water’s leavings’.‘Nobody’ is an alias of Odysseus, one of his lost selves, adrift and unable to get home. Oswald’s words are his rhapsody, a circling shoal of sea voices which ends where Homer’s epic begins. Caught between The Odyssey and The Oresteia and not knowing either story’s conclusion, the poet goes on speaking surrounded by water. Perhaps he is only an alias of Odysseus, one of his lost selves, unable to get home?This poem is a circling shoal of sea voices, inspired by Homer’s descriptions of the sea – ‘the bodiless or unbounded thing’ which ends at The Odyssey’s beginning whilst the paintings immerse us in a visionary experience of an elusive, almost abstract, lyrical and romantic world. Springing from Tillyer’s belief in the shared essence of all things, the paintings are a tangible accompaniment to Oswald’s poem, explored through paper, water, and pigment, resulting in a single dazzling work of words and watercolour.

    

    each poem is incredibly impactful and beautifully written. stories of love, heartbreak, suffering, and healing come alive on the page in an incredible way. let this book of poetry touch your soul and help you feel free. join trevor capiro on this journey towards healing.

    Nell is a slum girl from Waterloo, hiding a secret pregnancy and facing a desperately uncertain future.Sensing an opportunity to exploit Nell's vulnerabilities, Alice takes her under her wing and, before long, Nell is experiencing the secret world of hoisting, with all the dangers - and glamorous trappings - that comes with this underworld existence.Alice has a longstanding feud with Billy Sullivan's all-male gang in Soho, and thinks Nell could be a useful weapon in her vendetta. But Nell has a secret agenda of her own, and is not to be underestimated. And the more she is exploited by both Alice and Billy, the more her hunger for revenge grows. As she embraces the seedy underbelly of London, will she prevail in carving out her own path to power and riches......and crown herself the Queen of Thieves?From Sunday Times bestselling author Beezy Marsh comes a thrilling new crime saga series, perfect for fans of Sam Michaels, Martina Cole and Jessie Keane.

    The finished product is a document of a year’s worth of moments filled with joy, sorrow and unexpected beauty. The book y creates the sense that present moments do not just disappear and provides a visceral understanding of how these moments fit into the context of the rest of our lives.The short verses in Haiku Year stab and elate. They hint at both the transcendence and mediocrity of everyday life. The power of Michael Stipe’s southern, twilight drenched lyrics from early REM albums is present in the volume. Douglas A. Martin’s sparse yet descriptive prose gleams throughout. The thoughtful storytelling of Grant Lee Phillips is pared down to the simplest words to describe an instance.The Haiku Year is about the appreciation of small moments of beauty, ultimately adding up to the appreciation and respect not only for our individual lives but for all the lives that intersect with ours. The Haiku Year effortlessly urges readers to enjoy details and to let spare moments pierce through the numbness of everyday routine.