Night of Myth
Kate Deimling Alight,baleful crow.Djinn enter frenziedgoats. Hoary incubus jumps.Kronos laughs madly, nervously, oglespallid queens. Rising seraphimtremble under violet weather.Exit youthful zephyrs. Kate […]
Category: poetry
Killing for the Gourmet
Gretchen Filart There is much to be said about gourmand meals and killing. The more ingrained torture isbefore basting the meat, the […]
In Pursuit of Red —or Why I Never Knowingly Left a Scarf in Someone’s Apartment Hoping They Would Still Remember Me a Decade Later
Lucy Holme —after Anne Carson It was February or March, I don’t recall. A garden-terrace flat, in the Latin Quarter. The trees […]
Portrait of the Scream Queens, With Apples
Avra Margariti Neighborhood beauties competing for Best Scream, an apple red and rotund on each of our coiffed heads. We are making […]
The Storm on All Hallows’ Eve
Jared Povanda Matilde shuts her eyes to spite falling dust,rain spearing holes through the roof, and her wifeis up there alone in […]
Roadkill
Louise Norgate … look out! Careful!Oh god, poor thing, it doesn’t look likeit’s been there all that long.We should go back – […]
The Color Brown
Shipra Agarwal Writer’s Note: It’s been seventy-five years since the British Raj ended, but its remnants live on in sections of Indian […]
Two Poems: Memories and Satsuma
Susmita Bhattacharya Writer’s Note: In 2016, I started a Facebook Group with a few of my friends who, like me, had just […]
Five Poems From A Wellness Check
Bri Gonzalez Writer’s Note: My collection-in-progress, currently titled A Wellness Check, inspects how pop culture, like DC’s Batman, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, […]
Three Poems: Once We Were Kids, Moving Fear of Staying, Growl
Sage Ravenwood Writer’s Note: On writing these poems, ‘Once We Were Kids’ is based on an actual childhood memory. I wanted to […]
The Capris of Middle Age
Vicky Macdonald Harris No longer the resort capris of Laura Petrie dancing past her husband forever flat on the floor; she espousing […]
Covenant
Hattie Jean Hayes I finally dream of the cathedral. The air is stiff for a storm. I find you at the end […]
The Ocean’s Only Word (cont’d)
Lee Potts I worked for your mother one summer digging. Setting roots tangled up in soil from some other place into holes […]
Driving at Night in the Rain with the AC Broken
Tyler James Russell You tell yourself you aren’t doing anything, not really, nothing strictly wrong. This is just how things are, and […]
Traffick for Miles
Tyler James Russell If you laid them out fingertip to fingertip like rows of paper dolls the girls would cover the lower […]
cathechism with stone & ghost
Evelynn Black the artist: the first person to set out a boundary stone, or make a mark –Deleuze & Guattari, A Thousand […]
Lunch at café close to the water
Ailing Zhou She walks into a café by the lower end of the Hudson to check off a box the front is […]
When I wished my name was Anna
Emma Lee As the others settle into the end-of-term going-through-the-motions of set exercises, I’m marked as different. The maths teacher tells me […]
Dinner Hour, Miami
Maeve Reilly We all have to eat Mr Buzzard we all have to twist sideways, eyes down, hovering to get the best […]
the herb garret
Kate Hargreaves in pelting sop-footed rain on the South Bank belly warm with jackfruit & espresso I held the rope railing & […]
Rock Song
Mary Ford Neal It’s a small stretch of sea, but it boils with anger. Still, it will be the colour of my […]
Yours,
Kate Crowcroft the letters are there, they are ink holding patterns multi-cursive hand at the door late in suit and tie round […]
Alien
Kate Crowcroft A few months before the crashyou slid chicken skin down the vegetable shoot. How you get here, girl? She ran […]
On Amoxicillin
Adrian Dallas Frandle Writer’s Note: The title of the piece “On Amoxicillin” invokes the dual sense of “on” as both a polemic […]
Embezzeled Emotion
Catherine O’Brien If I say ‘I love you’ and you don’t say ‘I don’t love you’, I cry fraudulence, have we even […]
My Mother Was Once a Story
Sally Badawi Hijab wears my mother. Her jaw pinned smooth with pearls: convex mirrors refract evil blue eye. This is to orient […]
Candy-Striped and Candy-Stripped at Greenwood Leflore Hospital, During the Summer of Your 16th Year
Exodus Oktavia Brownlow Candy Stripersspells a little too much like Candy Strippers.A uniform’s a uniform’s a uniform,and you are a peppermint-wrapped-paper sweet.When the […]
Wolf Song
Lisa DeCastro I am an onyx pearl Inside your shell Rolling on your tongue Swallowed Implanted A stone in the underbelly In […]
This is what happens when you go places:
Sidney Dritz In my head I’m still standing on that curb, night time in May, and my lips on your lips, airplanes […]
Autumn Wasp
Harriet MacMillan You have made of me an autumn wasp.The last yellow gasp of summer was utteredand the air crisped around me, […]
Growing Season
Katie Hunter Last summer my tomatoes Swept the garden. Downy tendrils swaddled jalapeños and My soiled hands Arrested dreams of eggplant Crept […]
Mortuary Science
Terri Linn Davis (read Terri’s interview about this poem with our Poetry Editor, Ian O’Brien, here) Terri Linn Davis has an MFA […]
Robbie was here
Adele Rickerby Robbie was here ‘84 Flick of a thin folded foreskin, a ring of rubber peeled, turning, curving, splaying and spraying […]
Interview With Poet, Terri Linn Davis
Ian O’Brien 1) ‘Mortuary Science’ is part of a wider project you are working on. Tell us a little about that. “Mortuary […]
Two Audio Poetry Performances: Toxic and You Are Music
Melinda Smith Editorial note from Janice Leagra: I don’t remember how I first connected to Melinda on Twitter, but I remember seeing […]
I Want to Write About the Moon
Shiksha Dheda Editor’s Note from Sudha Balagopal: The moon and longing create the perfect mood in this poem by Shiksha Dheda. Images, […]
Journeys
Leanne Ncube Editor’s Note from Ian O’Brien: This evocative poem is from emerging writer, Leanne Ncube. I first heard this performed at […]
Two Poems: The Kindest Way and Heat
Jonny Rodgers Editor’s note from Ian O’Brien: I am so proud to be able to share these poems with Janus readers. The […]
Sommelier 2020
Stephen Smythe Editor’s Note from Ian O’Brien: I recently heard this poem recited at a live event and was immediately struck, as […]
Three Poems: Three Months Old Today, Coloring with My Daughter…, and Foundation
Brian Wallace Baker Editor’s Note from Ian O’Brien: I first discovered Brian’s poetry through a prose poem he had published in the […]
Violently Bashful
Melanie Tomkins Editor’s Note from Ian O’Brien: I heard this poem performed at the Coalition open-mic event, which Mel is co-founder of. […]
Pale Urn for Hydras
Haolun Xu i. Am I so bad? All I ever wanted was to simply transcend all things. But life as […]
You Never Do
Daniele Nunziata Even God had a day off. Even machines need a day off. Even the moon, once a month, takes an […]
A Girl Broken Down
Heather Shaw Sixteen fingers and four malicious thumbs hold me to the bed, Then they get to work. Stretch out my arms […]
In Carini
J. Kenny each afternoon on that ancient dusty hill in a square of smooth slippery stone a crowd gathers in front of […]
While It Snowed
J. Kenny on a Sunday we walked through a cemetery while it snowedand the flowers left at Christmas were now frozen on […]
Thistle
Ives Phillips I let the bud poke my palette,Bitter up my tongue,Because I’d rather that thanGrin a grin you don’t deserve. I […]
Papier Mâché
Elizabeth M. Castillo I hate papier mâché the stodge, the sticky remains of the glue the way it gets everywhere, and […]
Missing Person Sign at a Rest Stop on the Pennsylvania Turnpike
Kate Deimling A blue line of highway snakes across the map.Alongside, a girl named Jean is enshrinedin image on the screen. It’s […]
Polyamory
Elle Shim He loved me the way an orange peeled in the next room permeates the universe for a night. In the […]
