I am glad to report that the Great Iowa State Fair Haiku Contest was a roaring success. 

On this poorly planned excursion I had a bucket of coffee and exactly one CD – my brother’s copy of Death Cab’s then brand new Narrow Stairs.

 how you came with shadows, / but not darkness, like the other person I love, / the type of darkness that lays like a quilt.

It’s bronzy August and I need this to be all over. / Most of my poems are shaped like crows, / so what’s eating you?

A man spills a red solo cup down my shirt like hands. Hands bury in my skin. The speakers bury in my skin. I have never felt farther from the sky, or from my own spit.

The pinwheels of my mourning, having moved to a windless town.

Rarely do I think of death while gnawing the bottom of a vanilla cone.

I smile into the mirror. There is lipstick on my front teeth. I don’t rub it off.

I have trouble sleeping in open spaces, I tell Saul. There is a blanket on the floor of my closet.

every great sadness has occurred because someone / decided fate with their bare hands.

My Left Arm

I was a fruit cake meat loaf of influences –
my name was Sloppy Joe,
I was canned pineapple slices
left out in the sun.

I called you soft names
against all reason,
on

Welcome to Hobart Photo Stories, a one stop shop for photos that will excite the brain, the eye and the heart.

Jennifer Loeber's pictures will remind you of your painful teenage years and

You’ll wake up on Labor Day and argue with the people you’re carpooling with over when to leave. 

my body is an american / casket, shove the corpses / through my eyesockets til they spill / from my mouth

When my children walk by, it will be like looking into the sun. Your children will have to bow their heads. My children’s eyes will be the color of electric blue icebergs.

Now here I am. The same fucking predicament all over. The universe testing to see what I'll do.

I want to walk in where I walk in & not think about me or you or anyone else we know—I want my recycling to be perfect.

She didn’t spend her senior year serving soft serve and saving for a bus ticket to Los Angeles when she turned eighteen to end up riding a tandem bike around the park with some guy whose shorts were too short.

my angst is still young / and highly flammable / something interrupted / meant to be read out of order / one chord change to another

Oh well. I threw my lover down a well. / I ran Father over. Hid Mama’s pill. / I’ve never been good at taking advice.

Hades was like the other men Evie had requested favors of; he asked Evie to explain herself before he believed that she wanted what she said she wanted.

It’s been five years, but this boy still / shines when he smiles. I stare at his jaw / as we shiver on the rooftop of this rundown / hotel, waiting for the waiter to get his beer.

No secrets fill a drowsy whale, / perfectly hollow gullet, / its song only speculation, / music its only meaning.

Welcome to Hobart Photo Stories, a one stop shop for photos that will excite the brain, the eye and the heart.

—Tara Wray, photo editor 

These pictures might have been

Introductions are stupid. Mostly they get in the way. Probably you have skipped ahead to read the actual interview. That's what I would have done by now. If you're still here, this is what you need

You halt the flow of traffic in a crosswalk to retrieve a fallen penny, / cheer your good fortune, and whisper: landmine. 

i decide / the poem is // about me (i have / been told i have // narcissistic tendencies).