New Stories for May 17, 2021

Our stories this month are both in poetic form. We found each one striking in its fresh voice and evocative imagery, and we hope you enjoy the contrast in the ways story is conveyed by hitting narrative and sensory beats. Click through for the full version of each!

Polar Route

by Kael Moffat

Beneath silvered scraps of cloud, the sprinkled towns

of north Quebec and Newfoundland huddle like embers

of a banked fire whose clicks and pops are swallowed

by distance and the whine of brawny engines.

I press my fingers against the inner pane

and feel the ghost of sub-zero air just inches

away and wonder about prayers rising into the night,

evaporating from shards of glass and eviction

notices or springing like flowers from permafrost.

I close my eyes as if I could hear them all.

Vladimír, who sits to my right, told me as we cruised

above the Arctic that he speaks Czech, Hungarian, English,

German, and French and that he is a magician heading home

to Prague after a residency in Vegas.[…]

To continue reading “Polar Route,” click here.

The Banquet of the Holy Spirit

by Seattle Poet (anonymous)

The stars have sputtered into dust –
Frail points of light,
In droves devoured
By a swirling mass of black.
Orion’s arrows flit no more,
And the darkness strips the bear of his hide –
The hand of God has swept the skies of all their light,
And by his hand, the Sun and constellations die.

Yet the blood moon shines in all its garish red –
Though no sun remains to be eclipsed.
The night has disemboweled the light of day,
And its ravenous visage be drenched crimson
In the viscera of its slaughter –
Gaze you now upon the gore-stained face of God,
Peering down with a penetrating stare,
Upon frozen earth and flaming seas,
From a blackened, stellar veil
Of damned, digested souls. […]

To continue reading “The Banquet of the Holy Spirit,” click here.