Winner of the 2023 Birdhouse Prize!
On the Other Side of the Magpie by Hannah Lee
Lest We All Get Clipped by Joe Gross
Winner of the 2022 Birdhouse Prize!
Beatitude
a forsaken saint
in a shop-rite uniform
is begging alms
on the overpass.
he sees my uniform.
oh, you work at shit-rite, too?
we talk, & my wallet
comes out––
sometimes
multiplication
of loaves
just means
splitting
one loaf
between
two people.
but miracles,
like mutual aid,
are survival pending
revolution.
Goodbye Twitter
I have deactivated the Ghostbird Twitter account. Just couldn’t be part of Musk’s agenda - whatever it is. No judgement if you still use Twitter - I enjoyed it for a time.
Ghostbird lives on! Spread the word however you like.
Swim Poems by Steve Mentz
These poems explore ocean swimming as ecological meditation for the Anthropocene.
We swim into the flooding of our world, knowing we cannot stop it changing.
The keywords are feeling and form.
The goal is unlearning dominion.
The abrasive element is salt.
The color is blue.
Anthropocene Swimming
Every day, like prayer or meditation,
I follow high tide into buoyancy
Where only form patterns my exertion
And only feeling blazes my life in sea.
To see, to see! says the Polish master
In a language not his own. With violence
And despair he meets me on shore astern
Before I disembark the boat from whence
He stares down, sailor to swimmer, blind
To joy’s immersion intoxication
The wet that sets me afire slips my mind —
Swimming hits skin in time of dictation.
Not words but world’s wet on body I crave
To cross with slow arms from dawn to the grave.
Borderland by Sara Rempe
Rescue
(for Sid)
Everything is a threat.
Even the soft offering
of an open palm
is suspect. The past is
leashed to us
like shadow.
Here is the lesson
we didn’t learn:
there are people
who want to love us.
Forestwish by Francesca Hyatt
Metropolia by Paul Luikart
"With the concision of Lydia Davis and the obsessions of Flannery O'Connor, Metropolia takes
readers through a demented dreamscape of post apocalyptic cities, populated by broken characters
struggling to live, love, dream, and believe. I couldn't put it down."
— Cameron Dezen Hammon, author of This is My Body.
"Luikart's skillfully rendered moments manage to be hypnotically disturbing and darkly humorous at the same time. These brief glimpses possess a meditative quality not unlike stills from a half-forgotten movie. The guy can write."
— Reid Paley