CLASSIFIED POETRY: ‘THE PRIVATE LIFE OF A GUARDIAN ANGEL’ BY PAT RAIA
I shoot dice with the sinners and extol the souls of the saints and I arm wrestle the devil for pocket change. I smoke too much and I drink too much and I overeat whenever I can. Still [….]
CLASSIFIED FICTION: ‘GROUNDS FOR DIVORCE’ BY WARREN PAUL GLOVER
The lock of the door of the Penelope Feathers’ Detective Agency turned with a click, and into the darkness stepped a tall, elegant figure. The figure walked confidently and knowingly towards a filing cabinet, the stiletto heels breaking the silence on the polished wooden floor. The top drawer of the cabinet rolled open and, with a clink, a drink was poured and the dark contents of the crystal goblet drained with the celebration of […]
CLASSIFIED FICTION: ‘SIGNALS’ BY PAUL BRADLEY
There isn’t much privacy in flats. I rarely speak to my neighbours, but I know their habits and routines. Above my bedroom is their kitchen. I know this because at tea time I stand on top of a step-ladder to be close to the ceiling so I can get snippets. The father, Jim, likes rugby league. The kids wind him up and sometimes he chases them around roaring like a monster. The mother, Anwen, tolerates this kind of thing but […]
CLASSIFIED POETRY: ‘NOT HERE ANYMORE’ BY MILTON P. EHRLICH
Yet I can still hear my musical alarm wake me up for work— Some day I’m going to murder the bugler, some day they’re going to find him dead. I see my white shirt hanging on the door, my empty shiny shoes lined up […]
CLASSIFIED ARTWORK: ‘A FUTURISTIC PAST’ BY BURHAN YILMAZ
BURHAN YILMAZ was born in 1981, in Silifke (Turkey). In 2005, he graduated from Mustafa Kemal University, Faculty of Education, Department of Art Education. 2009, Courses in fine arts at Ecole Regionale Superiore d’Expression de Plastique, in Tourcoing, Lille- France. In 2010 […]
CLASSIFIED FICTION: ‘THE MAGIC ASTERISK’ BY JOHN AARON ROSEN
Man either counts all of his blessings or curses all of his misfortunes, rarely both. Maurice Pando, having just been dismissed from the junior staff of the most prestigious Institute in the nation, could undertake neither. […]
CLASSIFIED POETRY: ‘REPRESSION’ BY HAYLEY CANNON
Warm, warm, warmer, hot until suddenly in relief. The thought you never thought you’d have the image it shocked you to conceive of pops lurches out of the autostereogram. Sirens pierce the quiet, trapdoor opens [….]
CLASSIFIED FICTION: ‘THE WIDOW AND HER DAUGHTER’ BY EWA MAZIERSKA
Of all the houses on our street, the last but one was the most mysterious to me. Or, to be precise, it was simply unknown. There was no mystery, because there was no curiosity on my part to learn what was going on […]
CLASSIFIED FICTION: ‘A MATTER OF TRADITION’ BY LARRY LEFKOWITZ
I had often heard it remarked that there was something unusual about the Bevin-Atleys, but when I asked precisely what, the speaker, at a loss to define it, would simply wave a hand in the air in a circular motion like some distraught falcon circling aimlessly […]
CLASSIFIED POETRY: ‘ZOETROPE’ BY BEN BARTON
Aliens have crawled across the border on their bellies Signed names in blue biro: Permits to trespass on our living quarters. We are powerless, shackled destined to watch […]