Category: Poetry

Street empty as a healing heart, I lean the patio wall, Swisher Sweet packed with pot, friends equally afraid. Wednesday brings the chill, hawks fleeing ahead. They say it’s a west wind— it carries the desert, it trails a fire. A car scrapes a manhole cover, the squall of a New Depression song rackets from… Continue reading Building A Silence

Under horizon-to-horizon lead, with intermittent rain more mist than drops, we cleave Michigan north to south, driving between stands of pine and birch that go on mile after mile after mile. Well that we ate breakfast and fueled the car before we started, for there is nothing up here, anywhere, there being few exits and… Continue reading Thoughts Along I-75 South

It first appeared as a white patch on the ivy covered wall near an open window of the arts building   It caught my eye immediately Like paint spilled on a canvas of green   Not high up and easily seen Standard clean paper With words resting on their sides   Three corners fixed in… Continue reading The Question of Poetry

Dust on the dash, windows up as we roll through back roads, radio on static. I will never leave you – in my head, not on my tongue – as mile markers disappear into a cool sunset. That flight to Chicago – you walked me right up to the gate, pre-9/11 style – the night… Continue reading Oklahoma Dust

“What’s that?” My father and I were cleaning out my grandmother’s railroad apartment and had come near the end of the hallway with her chest of drawers. “Your grandmother’s bed sheets.” He gave a quick laugh. “She covered the mirror.” We put the chest down. “You can take them off.” I ripped the sheets off what was a full length mirror sitting floor… Continue reading Mirror, Mirror

You’re strapped in for the hour flight, when a young woman, all flush and out of breath, stops at your row, apologizes with her eyes for making you get up. You fumble with the seat belt, struggle with your cane like a shy schoolboy or a creaky invalid as you rise to let her slide… Continue reading Flight

a sad body without a lift inside adler shoes walking down narrow streets in the loneliness  of city lights drawing out the  sad colors with a strong yellow  bar of light that the artist  passes off as  a gift.     Guy Beining’s work has appeared recently in the Iowa Review, the South Carolina Review, Fiction International, Skidrow/Penthouse,… Continue reading Felt Tongue

Invisible and unnoticed heat / grasps the narrow edge […]

a brief moment / without any sounds […]