
Reaping is also a paperback. Pick up the paperback from Prolific Press; the stories and poems published online are free to read here.
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The Flash Flood by Raymund P. Reyes
The Flash Flood It came at night. I was in bed, counting sheep like Pa taught me. The next day was a school day. I could hear Ma and Pa…
Fiction
Mysterious Ways by LaRue Cook
Mysterious Ways I got called to speak for the Lord in the summer of ’92. Boy, what a summer that was, let me tell you. I hadn’t said a prayer…
Poetry
Bones of Blue, Eyes of Gold by j.lewis
to redefine myself redesign everything from the inside out I would start with bones of blue not soft, gentle, pastels but deep, intense, midnight blues that hold the mysteries of…
Fiction
Dear Dr. Kevorkian by Gustaf Berger
our extinguished career for years and was at wit’s end with anger when that publicity-seeking DA terminated your career and sent you to prison and not even a prison where…
Fiction
Graveyard Polka by B. C. Nance
Graveyard Polka “Listen, now,” Victor said to the cab driver, “you drive to the front gate and wait thirty minutes…” Victor paused and looked at the western sky, now fading…
Poetry
Dutch by Adam Phillips
Dutch Darren Daulton crouched behind the plate, ligaments in his knees crackling like campfires in a primordial forest. he’d been pulled from the shadowed alleys of Philadelphia and pushed squinting…
Poetry
An Ordinary Morning by Joseph J. Kozma
Liquidized stones, almost Called lava, found its way Between the leaves Of maples just finished Bleeding sugar freely; It was a beautiful morning. Mornings are like that On days when…
Fiction
The Ecology of Duck Death by Diego Reymondez
that killed the duck in the end. A fairly human estimation of how much could get done in a day without bothering to factor in the hours of curiosity. So…
Poetry
Heart-Shaped Lollies by Linda Sacco
e Station. Heart-shaped lollies Stuck to cement floors Now appear at the bottom of my shoes. The sun Has turned them into a mixture Of sweet nothingness That children slip…
Poetry
Catch by Linda Sacco
Catch He asks, less subtly, what is the meaning? It’s true money doesn’t always fall from the ceiling but he can’t beat the feeling. (I’m a pretty picture on the…
Poetry
Johnson Grass… by Bob Carlton
Johnson grass, wild lettuce, white puff of thistle– untended, the ditch, low border between upper mowings–
Poetry
Fat Wet by Bob Carlton
Fat Wet… Fat wet snow flakes fall softly lost on ground unfrozen. Gray skies, bare trees black with water, smoky breath, stinging ears, summer a thought lost in a shiver.
Poetry
Inversion by David Russomano
Inversion Almost the exact opposite of those birds you hear singing in nearby hedges, but can’t see: this hawk, perched on a low-hanging branch unobscured by leaves, its talons sunk…
Poetry
We Pass by David Russomano
We Pass gas stations, grain silos, a small cemetery, telephone poles marching single file, mills, a bowling alley, fast food chains with names that we all recognize, a maze carved…
Poetry
Lovecraft Baby by Joshua Medsker
Lovecraft Baby Sickly bodies produce the sickest lines a yahoo from back east, evilly divine or is that divinely evil, he ain’t no gent he’s an agoraphobic shaman from Providence…
Poetry
What We Sow by Deborah Davitt
What We Sow They finished the ring road when I was young, but I remember its dirt surface scarring the desert, the barricades. Later, we drove along it; turned east…
Poetry
Second Memory by Heather Heckman-McKenna
Second Memory It’s dark and big and dauntingly unfamiliar considering I had known it for so many months. A dark, big stairway. Much darker and bigger than it’s ever seemed…
Fiction
Open Your Eyes by Shirley Smothers
Open Your Eyes I had been feeling sad and lonely. I decided to go back into the past and visit my childhood home. When I arrived, my sister, mother, and…
Poetry
Alone in This Place by Shawn Aveningo
, and I’ll be here in the woods all alone and abandoned.” ~Grimm (TV Series) NBC ; Season Two, Episode 19, “Endangered.” I can’t relate to the concept of bomb…
Poetry
The Flag Bearer by Joseph J. Kozma
The Flag Bearer One morning when he woke up He felt like a triangle In a rectangular world. The black milk of the night Refused to clarify, templates Fell apart…
Fiction
The Fall of King Marty by Daniel Tobin
t sends Isaac’s head all the way around his body, kind of like those cartoons he used to watch when he was younger. He is suddenly spinning, gravity seizing control…
Poetry
Inwood Today by Albert Katz
Inwood Today before that restaurant opened there was another restaurant in the same spot a different name same type of food but less expensive that shop selling shoes used to…
Poetry
Pileated by David Anthony Sam
Pileated His hand is in the rapid hammering as if his touch still carpentered my world, shaping with router and band saw the wood that grew from the black humus.…
Fiction
My Commencement Speech to the Inwood, Indiana, Home-Schooled Class of 2016 by Joel Haskard
diana, Home-Schooled Class of 2016: Today you come out into the world as graduates, leaving behind the musty corridors full of old newspapers and windows covered in aluminum foil, the…
Poetry
Wicked Waltz by Lorraine Cipriano
Wicked Waltz Born in the age of phonographs in a small sinister place that was in the middle of Inwood, Indiana where secrets were better left unspoken because of the…
Poetry
Ghost Town by Deborah Davitt
Ghost Town History’s for sale, non-refundable, you can have it for just a penny. Don’t mind the bullet-riddled signs or the vandalized windows. Not part of the Old West, it…
Poetry
Do You See? by Caitlyn Mlodzik
Do You See? Do you see wain in the foxlight? Do you glimpse the turbulence of the moon? Do you recognize the vulnerability of sunlight? Do you descry the essence…
Poetry
The Woman in The Tree by Lianne Kamp
ted beneath the ground calves invisible inside the wood bark grew shiny where the feminine body prepared to expose a hint of thigh. There it was a shapely ass and…
Fiction
We Will never Forget You by Matt Braynard
lls down the steps, and breaks her wrist. In the news reports, her injury is counted among the others caused by the tragedy at the high school that day. The…
Poetry
Soft Grass Murmur by Alan Inman
ding on its haunches a few yards away gives us no warning before its charge interrupting our lakeside meal and rest.
Poetry
Country Funeral by Alan Inman
Country Funeral down the rambling path they led us to the open mouth of earth where I would lay to rest someone I never met lifting a cask gently.
Fiction
Redemption by Janete Cabral-Jackson
Redemption “So thanks again for letting me stay here the night.” John said. “Yes, you’re not the first one to get lost. I am known as Fishwick around these parts.”…
Fiction
Baggage from Rustling Pines by Nidhi Singh
s, ghosts need an audience, an inner circle of admirers so to say, people who will vouch for them. Take them out of their comfort zone, and voila, they have…
Poetry
Journey Alongside a Minor Highway by David Pring-Mill
d by sights and sounds, unknowingly digested by the world. There are ways to escape, to go higher, to be more than indoctrinated particles, to make the world pronounce you…
Fiction
Bobby Boyd’s Bad Eyes by Neva Bryan
can play poker? Bullshit!” “I swear, Jennie, I seen it with my own eyes. Bobby trained it to play. And the scary thing is, it’s good.” I shook my head…
Fiction
On Every Street by Jeff C. Stevenson
On Every Street There’s one in every town, an old house where an elderly person or couple have lived for years in relative isolation. The neighbors don’t see them much…
Poetry
The Bluish Hue by Patricia Rossi
The Bluish Hue Midnight…I am doused in darkness, ignited in black suffocation… Yet I see an ethereal light? With apparent reticence dawn arrives shackled to an impenetrable fog… Mother Nature…
Poetry
A Collection of Horror Story Haiku by Bobby Aldridge
, low chuffing in the tall grass, which way did they go? ——————————— I fall from the bridge, through memories toward my wife. The coarse rope snaps tight. ——————————— Faint…
Fiction
White Lies by Kristan Campbell
White Lies Cassie tried to concentrate on the familiar scenery outside of the smudged, back seat window of her mother’s clunky black ’74 Impala. The same graying stalks of corn…
Poetry
Inwood Knows by Stephanie De Haven
Inwood Knows 1. Inwood knows what it is to sleep in a kill-zone, and hear the trains scream through the straggle pines that we call “The Woods”. Inwood knows the…
Poetry
The Drought in Wichita Falls by Samuel Underwood
ill dry up and be forgotten, while others prefer to keep quiet and go about their days, watering lawns at designated times and displaying their faith in the Good Lord…
Poetry
I’ll Be Back by Timothy Philippart
I’ll Be Back Death knocked on the wrong door, twice this week. He stopped on my street, bold as a cloudless sunrise. He checked his book, across the road, one…
Poetry
Silence by Lynette Esposito
Silence the birds are quiet in Inwood Indiana at dusk in summer
Poetry
Visiting New Places by Lynette Esposito
e in Inwood… an Indiana town where color is a bit off on the common things… a bit of a mystery the locals say when passing through, one sees a…
Poetry
Commuting by Morgan Bazilian
Commuting A day breaks Unfettered by guilt or gravity. The foothills seem to be laying back, reclining. The dirt sighs, aware of the heat that will return unabated. The water…
Poetry
Untitled Poems by Bekah Steimel
Untitled Poems I. I’m as dark as the dreams of a demon cold to the touch as if I’m already partially dead I stroll around in the shadows dodging the…
Fiction
Under the Stars by Joseph Benedict
Under The Stars I “Thanks for coming. I’m sure my father would have appreciated it.” Robert forced his lips into a smile as the elderly couple made their way through…
Poetry
Springtime by John Reinhart
Springtime arrived, open mouthed, black, screeching harpy-like in the tree branch above my picnic table, sure to shit all over the white paint, something dead hanging from her claws; mechanically…
Poetry
Watching the Lamar River Rapids by Tovah S. Yavin
single drop Lurch and hop across a rock And wondered if he’d rather stay To sun himself in sleepy thought. I guessed he’d love to waste a day Lurking in…
Poetry
Woman Hollering Creek by JR Vork
nst bank Skirt billows beneath Damp from heat Tears, down her cheek Hand to empty womb Her child, glassy eyes … breath still Floats, beyond dawn Murder, they whisper Mother,…
non-fiction
Eddie Says Goodnight by Charles Christian
iana talks about Eddie Slabaugh anymore. Why would they, there’s nobody left who remembers Eddie Slabaugh. Sure, he has the same name as the family who run the restaurant in…
Fiction
Glossoplegia by Bill Lisbon
Glossoplegia Randall looked up at the grid pattern of panels in the room’s drop ceiling and imagined a board game. The squares of florescent lights would mean something special. The…
Fiction
Too Young to Face the Dawn by Andrew DiPrinzio
rying now in your crib, which your father moved from our bedroom to the guest room. He sleeps there with you because on your first morning home post-hospital, when you…
Poetry
Felon by Charles Kell
Felon One time only the walls started to close in. My head pounded with sweat damp beads on my arms and thighs. White dirty concrete pressed against my burning temples.…