Empty Mirror: Arts Magazine & Beat Generation Resource

Ray Manzarek

I turned my laptop on just after dawn this morning, as I usually do, and sat down with a cup of strong black coffee to see what was happening in the world. Two stories caught me like punches to the …{read more}

3 Poems by Amy Soricelli

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He Forgot Again: (Sunday, November 11, 1962)

If i could dance around the light like a bug -
I would see all that I was through the sparkling beauty of wings.
The fluttering movements wandering around like a blind bird

Poetry Book Review: SPRUNG by Laura Madeline Wiseman

SPRUNG by Laura Madeline Wiseman / San Francisco Bay Press, 259 Granby St. Suite 200, Norfolk, VA 23517 / 2012 / 100 pages / 978-0982829578

There’s fun in these irreverent poems, but also a serious look at gender and sexuality. …{read more}

Observations on the Cynic

Cut up by it, imagination
Strangled by stripes of shame
Painted poorly but purposefully by the kind of artist
whose arrows are shot before they are aimed
It burnt the blood from our dreams
Smoke rings in the distant scatter …{read more}

The Neighborhood

How did I get to Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, New York? A good question. Maybe a loss of direction? I think so. At least there were different expectations for my life. Did anybody care? Did I care? Like Holden Caufield, …{read more}

With All The Love I Know How: 6 Poems by Wojciech

Patience

i’m waiting for the president to ditch
his suit and tie and give his speech
in his underwear, looking down
at his crotch instead of teleprompters

i’m waiting for star’d generals to
dismiss their soldiers and abandon
the armies …{read more}

Absence

I woke up and you were gone. I rolled a joint and I stepped outside and lit it, saw the smoke linger in the sunlight, felt the THC enter my lungs and my bloodstream, realized it was the earliest I’ve …{read more}

Four Poems by Sam Silva

THINGS HAPPEN

Thank God these days I sleep and dream!

Things happen
…it is inevitable!, this angry wrangling
of the nerves
in a place that feels like Hell
or a paranoid respite
full of anxious passion

which can die down …{read more}