In the 1870s

Half-white, half-black, she wears a clean
straw hat, ribbon died deep lavender
and a couple of roses poised. Still,
her lips below broad nose, and solemn,
her brown eyes wide with song
as the pastor extols the continuing good
of Jesus revived from His cross.
High pale lace on her young throat
and a cameo beckoning love: time
can only begin to touch
the way she understands the world, 
a sash still tight around her waist 
and all, all she reaches for 
denied her without anything said
as though she were invisibly
an outcast diver swimming deep,
drowning as she reaches for the pearl.

—Submitted on 09/26/2022

Katharyn Howd Machan is the author of Dark Side of the Spoon (The Moonstone Press, 2022) and many other collections. She edited Adrienne Rich: A Tribute Anthology (Split Oak Press, 2012) and other anthologies. A professor of writing in at Ithaca College, she served as Tompkins County’s first poet laureate. Machan lives with her husband, fellow poet Eric Machan Howd, and two cats, Footnote and Byron.

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered for publication.

Visit our Kickstarter for A MONTH OF SOMEDAY, the debut chapbook by Gerald Wagoner. 

The Year in Streaming

the child and siren align    
summering down
hands incomplete as 
dancers waxing 
rainbow moonstone
“can you stop suffering
for like, a minute?”   
do you mean could i?
burn through? 
wave by wave? 
at what difference?
in a spiral, crocodile 
& roses aaaaallll day
teach myself 
(again) to rest 
is not to squander
lighten 
as the sun hits 
off the cymbal 
nn-tsk 
like back in the day  
when we were still 
planets to a plum—
swan-swank 
gonging in between

—Submitted on 09/26/2022

Andrew K. Peterson is the author of A blue nocturne notebook (Spuyten Duyvil, 2021) and four other collections. In 2017 he was a co-organizer of the Boston Poetry Marathon. He lives near Boston.

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered for publication.

Visit our Kickstarter for A MONTH OF SOMEDAY, the debut chapbook by Gerald Wagoner. 

Song For Goners
after Jeff Tweedy

Inside our tiny place
there’s still a long way
to go walking off the pier
at a loner pace, together.
I forget the least time
I meant home.
I mean, that’s inevitable.
I’m a fiber of a fiber,
goner than miles.
While I’m here, I’ll stay
in the salt of a crying
day. Say what you say;
I’ll try to listen,
reply in my cosmic
unpaid-upturned-
out-tuned-intuition-
think-I’ll-call-it-a-way-
kind-of-way. Sifting
the evidence, pouring
milky dust from a bowl.
Remainders of reminders
until they call me back.
I don’t mean to forget,
there’s just not a lot of time,
my love. The in-between’s
been like a lot of things
with lids – unfastened.
Just stay.
If it’s OK with you,
then it’s OK with me.
If you say that it’s just,
then it’s so.

—Submitted on 09/26/2022

Andrew K. Peterson is the author of A blue nocturne notebook (Spuyten Duyvil, 2021) and four other collections. In 2017 he was a co-organizer of the Boston Poetry Marathon. He lives near Boston.

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered for publication.

Visit our Kickstarter for A MONTH OF SOMEDAY, the debut chapbook by Gerald Wagoner. 

Ode to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Subway, bus, or train,
surely the way to heaven
is run by the MTA.
Accursed network of rails and snarls,
spaghetti yards and sidetracks, cold
crowded platforms and broken air conditioning,
who else connects New Haven to Mott Haven,
Murray Hill, Manhattan, to Murray Hill, Queens,
Atlantic to Zerega, and every place in between?
We courted in high school, tied the knot at graduation,
ever together til death, or a transfer. 

We count our days by the paychecks,
the predawn breakfasts shared on deadline,
the nightcaps home with our Playbills in pockets.
Like any marriage, we’ve had rough times:
blizzards, strikes, fare hikes, 
yes, a mugging or two, missed connections
that changed my life, damn you:
lost a job, met a bad love, missed a plane.
Yet I chase after you like a schmuck,
and my heart still skips a beat 
when you come round the bend.

—Submitted on 09/26/2022

Bruce E. Whitacre is the author of The Elk in the Glade: The World of Pioneer and Painter Jennie Hicks (Crown Rock Media, 2022). His poems have appeared in American Journal of Poetry, Big City Lit, RFD, and other journals and anthologies. He holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. He is a native of Nebraska and lives in Forest Hills, Queens with his husband.

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered publication.

Weather Report for the April 12, 2021 KKK Rally in Huntington Beach, California


The clouds are broken.
California’s KKK Grand Dragon walks with a cane.
The police ride horses. 

The air quality is fair. 
“Fair” means the air is generally acceptable for most. 
However, sensitive groups may experience 
minor to moderate symptoms from long-term exposure.

The first person arrested is a Black man.

It is 64 degrees 
but the “real feel” is 74.
Wind gusts out of the south-southwest 
are clocked at 8 miles per hour.

The clouds remain broken.
There is only a one percent chance of rain
but it could rain.
It could.

—Submitted on 09/25/2022

Lisa Alvarez is a coeditor of Why to These Rocks: 50 Years of Poems from the Community of Writers (Heyday, 2021) and Orange County: A Literary Field Guide (Heyday, 2017). Her poem have appeared in Air/Light, Huizache, and Rise Up Review, among other journals. She holds an MFA in fiction from UC Irvine and co-directs the Writers Workshops at the Community of Writers in the Sierra Nevada.

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered publication.

House of Mirrors

in this house of mirrors look around you
all around you looks at you if you think

you are out of sight of stars remember
light itself is the mirror the stars 

made you the stars own you the stars 
constantly surveil you the sun

itself shines its light at you for hours
because it must know you will soon 

sin though you never believed in God 
the sun will whisper I am your sunshine 

your only sunshine and every other 
source of light will seem ninety-three

million miles away and in 
no rush to reach you

—Submitted on 09/25/2022

James Croal Jackson is the author of Count Seeds With Me (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press, 2022), Our Past Leaves (Kelsay Books, 2021), and The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights, 2017). Based in Pittsburgh, he works in film production and edits The Mantle Poetry.

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered publication.

Cancion Loquillo

Instead of sirens — glissando
of bells silvers sky’s vault.

The west darkens — There will be rain.

If you were a bird, what would they
name you? What song would you bring,
laced in bright ribbons, to my door?

Flamboyana trees shed their blossoms.

There is not enough room in this hour
to hold all the sounds of your sea.

—Submitted on 09/25/2022

W. Luther Jett the author of Watchman, What of the Night? (CW Books, 2022), Little Wars (Kelsay Books, 2021), Everyone Disappears (Finishing Line Press, 2020), Our Situation (Prolific Press, 2018), and Not Quite (Finishing Line Press, 2015). His poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. A retired special educator, Jett lives in Washington Grove, Md.

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left.

By Running Water

Say you’re this stream bed
framed by green willows
luscious with mud and trout fry;
channeling current through eelgrass,
tendrils, clusters of waterbug eggs.

Dream you’re the river
accepting this onrush
each blink each minute
open as love’s vast capacity.
One body pouring towards ocean,

weaving blue murmurs
from flint cliffs to sandbars 
flashing your twined 
ceaseless motion, 
your silver-coin flickers of hope.

—Submitted on 09/24/2022

Michael H. Levin is the author of Falcons (Finishing Line Press, 2020), Man Overboard (Finishing Line Press, 2018), and Watered Colors (Poetica Publishing, 2014). A lawyer and solar energy developer, Levin lives in Washington, DC.

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left.