CONTRIBUTORS

Eric Paul Shaffer

Eric Paul Shaffer is author of seven poetry volumes, including Even Further West (Winner of a 2019 Ka Palapala Po‘okela Book Award); A Million-Dollar Bill; Lāhaina Noon; Portable Planet; and Living at the Monastery, Working in the Kitchen. More than 500 poems appear in reviews in Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Scotland, Wales, and the USA. Shaffer teaches composition, literature, and creative writing at Honolulu Community College.

Extemporaneous Rant for the New America

overheard in a college town pizza parlor I don’t give a shit about what the little tune is for singing a haiku, and I don’t want to hear your big, silly words about what’s lost in translation. I know, and …

Posted in 96: NO THEME IX | Tagged

Aurora: Childhood Models of Movie Monsters

the werewolf Once a month, I howl at a full moon, mad with misty light. Lonely and masterless, I am my own dog. Frankenstein’s monster I did not ask for this: an assembly of reprehensible parts, a thunderbolt, and an …

Posted in 91: MONSTER | Tagged

My Dream of Gary Snyder

one for Joe Mills In mine, I gaze upward at a REM-state version of that spacy restaurant at LAX, the disk with a 360-degree diadem of windows, and I’m ascending a staircase on one elegant, arched white strut curving to …

Posted in 86: NO THEME VII | Tagged

Pope Innocent the Last Addresses the Crowd from The Gallows

As God’s first servant, I’m here to reveal His secret: we’re entertainment. We’re a spectacle for clouds, who admire our constant changes and read mystic meaning into our shifting shapes. For the wind and waves, who rub us like stones, …

Posted in 60: SILENCE | Tagged

What I’ll Miss When I’m Gone

I will miss the light. The south windows allow the sun to fill the rooms from morning to dusk. After all, without light, there is little to see, wall to wall, window to door, ceiling to floor, nothing but nothing …

Posted in 52: INTERLOCUTOR | Tagged

Obviously

If you want a “u,” you strike the “u” key, not the “i,” the “b,” or the “c.” None of us doubts the design. It’s obvious to all who lack the genius to create an algorithm of such majesty and …

Posted in 50: JACKPOT! | Tagged