Prose choice
Previous prose
DS Maolalai
Thunderstorms. Fireworks.
I’m in the spare bedroom/office.
Chrysty’s in a rotten bad mood.
she walks the apartment
like a donkey stable. kicks holes
out of drywall and violently
washes up plates. she’s told me
get out and I’ve gotten, that’s
fine. I haven’t done anything
(lest readers presume –
and it’s never uncharitable
to doubt a guy saying that) –
sometimes her mind just
goes to rags on uncomfortable
horses. she knows it; we both do.
it’s something with blood
sugar. some days she shakes
like her bones will break out
of the skin and deal violence
by chairlegs. the dog is in with me –
I drink coffee, play with her ears. we listen
to housework get half-
done like thunderstorms. fireworks,
new year’s midnight.
DS Maolalai has been described by one editor as “a cosmopolitan poet” and another as “prolific, bordering on incontinent”. His work has been nominated fourteen times for BOTN, eleven for the Pushcart and once for the Forward Prize, and released in three collections; “Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden” (Encircle Press, 2016), “Sad Havoc Among the Birds” (Turas Press, 2019) and “Noble Rot” (Turas Press, 2022)
Simon Ravenscroft
Blessed are the weak of mind for they shall have the appearance of answers and be troubled only when they encounter people with contrary answers and yet . . .
Tom Cardew
I pat its head until its face starts to flatten. Its body meets the floor, legs buckle under the weight of my enthusiasm . . .
Scott C. Holstad
Fifteen hours of processing time later, I was in my cell block and already two confrontations with Six Shooter, a massive Crip from the Compton/North Long Beach area, with a ‘tude. Early on he and his set surrounded me, two of them 187s like him. They made sure I knew if I stepped out of line, I wouldn’t be leaving while breathing. That didn’t go down with me very well. Some have said I have an attitude problem.
Rebecca Klassen
1) Liana vines are rooted in the earth and use trees to climb towards the canopy.
Mum sews in her armchair, the embroidery hoop in one hand like a tambourine as she plays it with cotton, the needle’s tempo remaining steady when Dad gets home from the pub again. I notice the root sprouting next to me from the carpet, curling around Mum’s ankles.
Luke Reilly on National Flash Fiction Day
The man is a master. Through livestreams and televisions and retinas, through a giant screen in the city centre, sixty million people have been watching his furrowed brows. Waiting for his fingernails to pick up a piece of clamshell or slate and place it on a gridded board.
Kayleigh Cassidy
Before I knew it, I was crying in front of my entire dance class. Thirty women and two men in neon active wear, staring at me as I tried to explain why I was late.
Meg Pokrass and Jeff Friedman (collaboration)
His guest from Scotland dawdled getting to the shower and by the time she arrived, it wasn’t there. Instead, there was a hologram of a shower, one that didn’t leak.
Hattie Logan
. . . There I was alone in the porters lodge, halfway through my morning coffee, black no sugar, when my walkie-talkie crackled into life.
It’s Bruce, the gardener “Mike, are you there? Stella’s just left her hideaway and is heading towards you” . . .
Cheryl Snell
Follow your room-mate and her boyfriend, but not so close that either one notices. Think shadow. Think Pink Panther. Plop down in the middle seat of three in the theater. Pretend you don’t hear your room-mate say “Do you mind?” Back at the apartment tell her you want to switch bedrooms. “I need the room with the door.” Because migraines.