“Wild flowers cut for two” now live on spillwords press nyc

flowers lift every blossom hightoward sunday’s somber skyexquisite hat, emits long sigh young’uns loud, dirty pantscardboard fans begin to dancechoir holds ceremonial stance tears spin, I sow a song, best I canwelcomes arise by awkward manmemories shift like mourning sand listen to preacher, job he’s doing, badhe never even knew my dadflowers jump off […]

“Freezer burn” live on MasticadoresIndia

Freezer Burn by Joni Caggiano Snow had fallen for five days in a row, and we were no longer allowed outside. Yet, my hateful sisters, Ruth and Elizabeth, somehow obtained mom’s approval to drive to the deli right up the street. Mom gave them money for sandwiches and hot cocoa. They both stuck their tongues […]

Live on MasticadoresIndia – “Secret behind my dad’s death”

Strange questions were bouncing off the wall when I said goodbye to Dad. As I lay, the phone down, my intuition was flexing its head like a water moccasin. I sensed a myriad of harsh realities lurking like monsters in dense fog. It was a simple lung biopsy, and they had stabilized his blood pressure, […]

Magnolia Sweet

Skin leaching brown hues like fragments of oozing figs gone badWindows reacting with endless weeping of humidity trappedVases with parched flowers thought to bewitch and beguile usAre eaten by dust mites exploding with toxic, endless self-shameShrouded in enigmas an ill room of wicked waywardness cameCrack by unnerving crack she brought it down with her blame […]

Striking Soldier

(one minute read) dark the liner underneath her emerald green eyessorted whispers exchanged in a smoke-filled hollowcloaked in sadness, she journeys to the bar that floats in the airwalls of black notes isolate reality in a bluesy canvasmoney cannot buy her escape, not this earthy eveningstirring within her nose, the sting of hospital air […]