Another Letter to the Editor

I think I know whyI like this piece. It’s what I strive forin everything I do. It disrupts everyone. From Generation Z to the Greatest Generation, this one has something to unnerve and destabilizeeveryone’s moral justice.No quarter. Almost no socialor political allegiance. Just one man’s interpretation based on experience. There is a certain purity in that which makes me feel safe. Who knows what the ramificationswill […]

Holy of Hollies

It is written that the almondsprung from thegenitals of theNear Eastern Goddess Cybele. And I thought that Iwas just eating nuts. They say that woman’sessence is in apricots and scallops, and floatslike the lotus and lily. But like some *sshole, I thought you were a ringto wear, some black stoneto venerate. I consecratethe stone and tried to wear it,like an amulet, makingyou […]

The Last Days of Summer

God is the original face before I was born. The lost part of my brain, drifting across beginninglesslifetimes, bobbing in the embryonic fluid. God is tortoise tracks and prayers bya beachside grave and the last daysof summer. Why the universe is so hot,crowded, and noisy, yet arrives quietly each lonely evening, on my doorstep, a bouquet of suffocating tulips. George […]

My Turn

When it was my turnto go inI sat cross-leggedby the ventilatorand told my buddygoodbye.I could have cried but he deserved morethan that. He deservedwhat carries no weight. Time. Before the lungs fillwith river water, and the dream oozes away from fingers like the texture of drowning lotus petals no longercaught between the rocks.  George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. […]

Everything Is Invented

with words, including the age of rocksand trees and picked strawberries andparticles of sand, all those ideas falling apart between the lips and fingers and toes. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, The Angle at St. John Fisher College, […]

How To Fall Out of Love

If we are lucky, it is like an ant on thesidewalks of Times Square. This memory. This oval shaped, solid, durable, now fixed, singular, squishy, ripping sounding, earthy tasting, leathery,months-long, crimson-colored, knuckle sized thing. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram Journal, Ampersand […]