About the Future of the Site

By David Castro

We have been working on this site for two years now, and it has been a blast. Being a home for new and upcoming writers is something that I, myself, have wanted to do for a lifetime. Which is why the next thing I have to say is hard.

Both of our work lives have grown to the point where we don’t have a lot of free time life for other projects, including this one, and thus, we are putting the site on indefinite hiatus. If or when we have the time to commit to this project fully, we will open back up, but until then, we will not be taking anymore submissions.

Posts that are already queued to post will continue to be posted until they run out. If you have a piece that was due to post but wasn’t, we are sorry. If or when we start up again, those pieces will get priority to be published before new submissions.

We thank you for following us, for submitting your work with us, and for taking this journey with us. We hope we are able to start it up again. Please check out our featured authors and follow them, we know that they are going to do big things. Here’s to seeing you all again.

Micro Poem 35

Love, slept

Kindness, unconscious
Hope, frozen
Air, murdered
We need a fire, a flare
Please evoke Oxygen
Among the elements

–Soodabeh Saeidnia

Soodabeh was born in Iran and received multiple degrees from Tehran University of Medical Sciences. She has being worked as the University researcher, as a professor for 10 years in Japan, Iran and Canada, and has published about 150 scientific papers in prestigious journals as well as books in both English and Persian. Now, she is living in New York with her husband and 9-year-old son. She is interested in writing science fiction and poems in English, and has published a book of her poems in Persian named “Words for myself”, which you can find here, as well as her Facebook and Twitter.

Micro Poem 34

Tear me into pieces of a poem

Blow them to the wind
Let each line find its home
You know,
together, they didn’t work

–Soodabeh Saeidnia

Soodabeh was born in Iran and received multiple degrees from Tehran University of Medical Sciences. She has being worked as the University researcher, as a professor for 10 years in Japan, Iran and Canada, and has published about 150 scientific papers in prestigious journals as well as books in both English and Persian. Now, she is living in New York with her husband and 9-year-old son. She is interested in writing science fiction and poems in English, and has published a book of her poems in Persian named “Words for myself”, which you can find here, as well as her Facebook and Twitter.

Possessed Wine

pour thirst

into a glass of longing

gulping unsatisfactorily

ingredients of thousand pleasure

o dearest lover…

 

intoxicate me a century yearning

at hollow pharynx of addictiveness

breaking entire furor

so full of turbulence!

–Noor Aisya Buang
Aisya has been writing poems since 2011. Her poems and short stories have been published in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia newspapers. Her first poetry book Kastil Aisya (Aisya’s Castle)  has won book prize in Malay Literary Award, Singapore 2015 and shortlisted for Singapore Literature Prize 2016. Her second Malay poetry book Cahaya Dalam Sunyi (Light in Loneliness) has been published recently. She is now in preparation to translate her poems in English and publishing her first Malay short stories. She can be reached through email kastialaisya@gmail.com

Micro Poem 33

A planet for me,

A planet for you,
and another one
so close to mine
and too far from yours
for who still stands in doubt
to stay with me.

–Soodabeh Saeidnia

Soodabeh was born in Iran and received multiple degrees from Tehran University of Medical Sciences. She has being worked as the University researcher, as a professor for 10 years in Japan, Iran and Canada, and has published about 150 scientific papers in prestigious journals as well as books in both English and Persian. Now, she is living in New York with her husband and 9-year-old son. She is interested in writing science fiction and poems in English, and has published a book of her poems in Persian named “Words for myself”, which you can find here, as well as her Facebook and Twitter.

Then Gone

This morning I walked the dog.

The neighborhood was quiet.

The air was cold,

Or at least as cold as it can get in a sprinkler-fueled necropolis like this one.

The dog wandered from leaf to leaf, from pine cone to pine cone, anomaly to anomaly.

And then a leaf fell.

But it didn’t spiral down onto the ground.

For some reason,

the fates had crafted the leaf so perfectly,

that it flew.

In a straight line it flew all the way to the opposite side of the street like a paper airplane,

then settled to the ground.

Perfect.

And that moment’s gone.

It’ll never come again.

But I guess that’s perfection.

Fleeting.

Accidental.

Comes upon you when walking your dog down an empty street.

Never when you want it.

Never when you need it.

Just a leaf, in the sky, flying over your head.

Then gone.

–Joe Fisher

 

Joe is a writer living in Los Angeles. His plays have appeared in Los Angeles, Portland, New York, Dallas and Chicago. He has also worked on several feature film projects that he will not name because he is too embarrassed to admit he worked on them. He also has a son named Dash and a fish named Billy Bob.

Micro Poem 32

Even the rainfall

of your crimson tears
couldn’t extinguish
the torrential lava
coming out of

my inferno

–Soodabeh Saeidnia

Soodabeh was born in Iran and received multiple degrees from Tehran University of Medical Sciences. She has being worked as the University researcher, as a professor for 10 years in Japan, Iran and Canada, and has published about 150 scientific papers in prestigious journals as well as books in both English and Persian. Now, she is living in New York with her husband and 9-year-old son. She is interested in writing science fiction and poems in English, and has published a book of her poems in Persian named “Words for myself”, which you can find here, as well as her Facebook and Twitter.

Micro Poem 31

Rise above those clouds

Go beyond the sun
Transcend the galaxy
Just don’t cross out the line
between my wisdom

and your idiocy!

–Soodabeh Saeidnia

Soodabeh was born in Iran and received multiple degrees from Tehran University of Medical Sciences. She has being worked as the University researcher, as a professor for 10 years in Japan, Iran and Canada, and has published about 150 scientific papers in prestigious journals as well as books in both English and Persian. Now, she is living in New York with her husband and 9-year-old son. She is interested in writing science fiction and poems in English, and has published a book of her poems in Persian named “Words for myself”, which you can find here, as well as her Facebook and Twitter.

Micro Poem 30

You,

a long overdue
Me,
an expired nominee
We
aren’t promise-keeper,
let’s be free.

–Soodabeh Saeidnia

Soodabeh was born in Iran and received multiple degrees from Tehran University of Medical Sciences. She has being worked as the University researcher, as a professor for 10 years in Japan, Iran and Canada, and has published about 150 scientific papers in prestigious journals as well as books in both English and Persian. Now, she is living in New York with her husband and 9-year-old son. She is interested in writing science fiction and poems in English, and has published a book of her poems in Persian named “Words for myself”, which you can find here, as well as her Facebook and Twitter.

Laila’s Love

I—Laila
you have created
for every
glimpse of majnun
from desert-to-desert
grains of sand i abandon
turn into rosary beads
-tying prayers
to lonely sky
to an estranged land

–Noor Aisya Buang

Aisya has been writing poems since 2011. Her poems and short stories have been published in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia newspapers. Her first poetry book Kastil Aisya (Aisya’s Castle)  has won book prize in Malay Literary Award, Singapore 2015 and shortlisted for Singapore Literature Prize 2016. Her second Malay poetry book Cahaya Dalam Sunyi (Light in Loneliness) has been published recently. She is now in preparation to translate her poems in English and publishing her first Malay short stories. She can be reached through email kastialaisya@gmail.com

Micro Poem 29

Silence sings

whenever
the life’s wheel
hurdles on the gravel
dispersed by tiny minds.

–Soodabeh Saeidnia

Soodabeh was born in Iran and received multiple degrees from Tehran University of Medical Sciences. She has being worked as the University researcher, as a professor for 10 years in Japan, Iran and Canada, and has published about 150 scientific papers in prestigious journals as well as books in both English and Persian. Now, she is living in New York with her husband and 9-year-old son. She is interested in writing science fiction and poems in English, and has published a book of her poems in Persian named “Words for myself”, which you can find here, as well as her Facebook and Twitter.