On Orthodox Easter in Mariupol We finished our jelly beans red and yellow, purple, green, the last bite of cho…
Tag: War
New Poetry by Michal Rubin: “I Speak Not Your Language” and “Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad of Jijlya”
I, born from the womb of
my mother’s remembrances
wrapped in the cocoon
of her story[…]
…
New Fiction from Cameron Manning: “Glory Chasers”
May 3, 2009 After Captain Short returned from his training with the Australians, he scheduled himself to take leave t…
New Poetry by Chris Bullard: “All Wars Are Boyish”
All Wars Are Boyish Autopilot on self-destruct, we went joy riding on tanks into the thermal wasteland. The st…
New Fiction from Adrian Bonenberger: “Fort Mirror”
Getting posted to Fort Mirror was a death sentence. The most coveted of all postings, soldiers jockeyed for th…
New Fiction from Brian Barry Turner: “Death Takes a Temporary Duty Assignment”
Death had narrowed his search of potential candidates down to two soldiers, both with high kill counts. Qualified app…
New Poetry by Kevin Honold: “A Brief History of the Spanish Conquest”
A Brief History of the Spanish Conquest Tell me again of that fabulous kingdom where a single ear of co…
New Fiction from J.G.P. MacAdam: “A Sleeping Peace”
Author’s note: I arrived at this story after reading an article in Rolling Stone called ‘Highway to Hell:…
New Poetry by Michael Carson: “Politics”
Politics Every 20 years or so boys dress up And kill each other for fun. It’s the way of the wrack of the world The w…
New Nonfiction from Jon Imparato: “You Had Me at Afghanistan”
“I was lying in a burned‐out basement with the full moon in my eyes. I was hoping for replacement when the sun burst …
Interview with Navy Veteran and Artist Skip Rohde, by Larry Abbott
Skip Rohde was an officer in the Navy for twenty-two years, with four submarine deployments and service in Desert Shi…
New Poetry by Ben Weakley: “In Some Distant Country” and “How Will You Answer”
In Some Distant Country We have seen this before, in booksand on the screen, like dust plumes risingin some distant c…
New Poetry by D.W. McLachlan: “Tanana River” and “The Heaviness of Age”
Tanana River We followed your Hilux along the riparian zone,a green snake blooming through the desert brown,when you …
New Fiction from Moe Hashemi: “Javid”
We buried Javid on a gloomy Friday morning in late December, shortly before Ali was gassed on the battlefront. All th…
New Fiction from Adam Straus: “ANA Checkpoint”
Sergeant Reiss insisted on giving a full patrol order every time we left the wire. I thought it was overkill, …
New Flash Fiction from Mary Doyle: “Triple X”
It’s zero-three hundred and I’m yanked out of a sleep so deep I wake thrashing and fighting like a marlin at the end …
New Review from Adrian Bonenberger: “‘The Hardest Place’: Wes Morgan’s Post-Mortem on Americans in Afghanistan’s Pech Valley”
If I were to write a morality tale about America’s counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan—something in line with Ed…
New Poetry from Andy Conner: “Apples,” “Untouchable,” “Remanded In Custody”
Apples‘The landmines are just like apples’Khmer Rouge survivor Apples can peel your skinLike it isn’t there But more …
New Poetry from Scott Janssen: “Bottle Tree”
On my first visit I askedA stock question about Whether you’d been in the military. Marines, nineteen sixty-six, you …
New Poetry from Nestor Walters: “Homecoming”
Only the dead have seen the end of war –Plato he lies down, finally to rest. grey light bands his closed door with no…
New Poetry from Sheila Bonenberger: “They Gave Their Lives”
The brass buttons are piled in a bowl that sits on the shop counter beside the cash register, so I buy one,watch as t…
New Poem from Nazli Karabiyikoglu: “Hymn: A Coffin at the Gates of Topkapi”
The head, decapitated,it sits on a shore, at some corner of the world.Desperation is what they feel as blood g…
New Poetry from George Kramer: “Three Snapshots of Superman’s Mother,” “Google Earth”
Three Snapshots of Superman’s Mother Budapest, Hungary. December 1944. This stagnant end squats over its …
Poetry from Westley Smith: “Homecoming,” “On Not Dying,” “Nocturne”
Homecoming He doesn’t feel quite right, being there—same house, a little run down, dirtierthan he remembers. They smi…
New Poetry from Jacqlyn Cope: “Mission 376: Patient X,” “Prolonged Exposure Therapy,” “Doxies and Rum”
MISSION 376: PATIENT X There’s dirt in his mouth now &nbs…
Poetry from Dennis Etzel: “The War in Coming Out,” “The War in Men,” “The War in their Duties”
The War in Coming Out Today we honor those soldiers who fought for our country against oppressing forces. It was a ma…
New Poetry from Mbizo Chirasha: “Casava Republics,” “Sad Revolutionary Lullabies,” “Rhetorics”
CASAVA REPUBLICS Juba Child of lost sperm in sunsets of political masturbation Wagadugu Deadline of our revolutions D…
New Poetry from D.A. Gray: “Mosul Reflections,” “St. Martin in the City,” “The Rearview Has Two Faces”
Mosul Reflections Ten years and the place is not the same. Memory of green hills in a dry land,cratered by what fell …
“What Is The Name Of Your Dead Horse”
We start again:With promises made for silver pass, platinum deferment,tithing calls go out to the faithful wealthy,su…
Poetry by Stephen Mead: Remembering Beirut, Halloween ’83; Map Pins; Forced Labor
Remembering Beirut, Halloween ‘83 The ground beds a stuffed effigy with bulging leaves.Through peculiar affinity it r…
Hostile Threat Detected: Adrian Bonenberger Reviews Joe Pan’s “Operating Systems”
Joe Pan popped up on many veteran writers’ radars in 2014. He had recently written the first great poem about what le…
Three Poems from Suzanne Rancourt
The Shoes That Bore Us It is a dream of kind slippers that coddle bunions appeasedby hands mittened as the same kind …
New Poem from Olivia Garard: “Hurry Up”
Hurry up – Halt. And quiet, Marines sleep. – Covers askew necks cocked weighted by the waiting. Dozing so…
Poetry Review: Graham Barnhart’s THE WAR MAKES EVERYONE LONELY
1. The book arrives. By mail and on the cover. There are clouds. Gray clumped in altostratus heaps. A military helico…
New Poetry from Amalie Flynn: “Celebrate”
1. Celebrate them. 2. Celebrate the soldier who went to war Just to kill. This soldier accused of shooting and Killin…
New Poetry from Paul Lomax
Faces oak branches reach &n…
Poetry from Bryan Blanchard: “Pillar of Salt” and “The Mannequin”
Pillar of Salt Raining fire, burning steel …And now I see haunted Images of headlessBodies bathed in bloodstained San…
New Poetry from Edison Jennings
A Letter to Greta “…so pitying and yet so distant,” Cecil Beaton Among my father’s posthumous flotsam recently …
New Poetry from Liam Corley
In Which I Serve as Outside Reader on General Petraeus’s Dissertation [The current version of the Army’s Field …
Suicide, the Soldier’s Bane
Here’s how it happens: you get a text. Or you see a cryptic post about the importance of friendship and “reaching out…
New Essay from Jerad W. Alexander: An Exchange of Fire
I don’t know your name, but we tried to kill each other once. Do you remember it? It happened on November 5, 2005, on…
The Hundred-Year Itch, or Remembering The Great War
Here are some facts about The Great War. It started in 1913. We know that from books. and the scarred nobles grandma …
New Fiction by Matthew J. Hefti: “Jean, not Jean”
Jean, not Jean by Matthew J. Hefti When I look in the mirror, I think I look stupid. Otherwise, I don’t even t…
New Fiction from Patrick Hicks: Into the Tunnel
Editor’s Note: “Into the Tunnel” is the first chapter of Patrick Hicks’s new novel, ECLIPSE. …
New Essay: Axe by M.C. Armstrong
I met a woman on my way to Iraq. Just before I stepped onto the midnight plane to Baghdad, she asked me what should …
THE WORDS ON THE INTERNET SAID MICHAEL HERR HAS DIED
Where were you when Michael Herr died in 2016? What were you doing? Did you listen to the opening voiceover of Apocal…
FOB by Daniel Ford
An excerpt of the debut novel Sid Sanford Lives! by Daniel Ford Sid stepped into the desert surrounding the cramped f…
New Poetry by Maurice Decaul
U S Grant on the Disbanding of the Iraqi Army I heard thunder in the mountains witnessed soft amber lightening in the…