“Outsider ~ A contestant given little chance of winning; long shot.” The American Heritage Dictionary, definition #2.

The notion that outsiders are few seems common, yet the majority of our world consists of them. This definition better describes the everyday run o’ the mill outsider—those purposely and accidentally excluded because of sex, skin color and monetary status—who are never acknowledged in life nor posthumously revered because they just didn’t fit in.

—Lee Anne

Abraham and Abdul run Wright’s Meat & Grocery
on Main St.
(at least at night),
stealing winning lottery tickets
from their customers.

Me,
I buy cigarettes to smoke,
and walk alone
across ice and snow.

Morning Room

They spoke quietly of returning late
and now that it was morning
the day waited,
the whole day

and hallways
were empty with yellow light
from the bathroom.
Shadows like cold tiles.

They continued speaking of light
that was just spreading

the windows open
and would be there awhile
before having to leave

—watching telephone wires slash patterns out of the sky.

Home was never more than closed eyes.

Joseph Massey

My head seems full of words today, displayed like plastic magnets from a kitchen fridge. I draw and clutch a fistful here and there, And fret out notions, like toy soldiers Ranged for battle in the summer grass. Just now, while tinkering with inner talk, The whispers of surrounding shadows called, And I could faintly hear some spilling sand: A gentle hourglass, making warning sounds, To waken me from this finagling.

Bram Moreinis

late winter snowstorm:
a button pops off & clicks
on the wooden floor

Clark Strand

It’s maddening to capture only once
An opus—or image, a state of mind
Cradled & cajoled jealously—then face
Its repeated silhouettes in decline.
Art circles the moon, but genius the sun:
Our world shrinks, tears its masterpieces
Foil-wrapped with prizes for consolation
Where peace-chiefs translate half-baked truces
And deny lies, continue consensus
For consensus’ sake. Blue-eyed critics
Rule a red-eyed world of soothsayers, fools
And seers, deepen trenches as missiles

Whistle—luck the applauded respite
Blind passion the windfall’s soft scarlet.

Sean Brendan-Brown