Evil Spell
I thought ewe were joking about the guillotine. Sushi for breakfast. A strip stake when the
son goes down. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Count Dracula and then start looking. And now
fare queen my doubt comes dew. Mourning in the roses. Thorns in your crown. A-tisket, a-
tasket. My head in a basket.
Mistaken Undertaking
We were drunk when we climbed through the window and saw the coffins. Why not we
laughed when we lay down, and fell asleep. The cops didn’t think it was funny, guns drawn
and pointed at our skulls. “Shoot,” you said, wishing under the circumstances to avoid an
obscenity. Big mistake.
About the Author
Robert Witmer is an American who has lived in Tokyo, Japan, for the past 45 years. He served as a Professor of English at Sophia University until his retirement in 2022. His poems have appeared in many print and online journals, including Lily Poetry Review, The Mean Street Rag, Bacopa Literary Review, New Verse News, Parody, Shot Glass Journal, Moonday Mag and Reverie. His first book of poems, Finding a Way, was published in 2016. A second book, Serendipity, a collection of prose poetry pieces and haiku sequences, was published in March 2023.
About the Artist
Sean Reed is a student and photojournalist from Illinois. They got their start in photography as a teen, photographing diy punk shows in and around Chicago. Since then, they have held various roles producing and leading multimedia projects as a student journalist.
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