Welcome to The Gallery at darkcoastpress.com!
The Gallery is an art gallery of great writing from a variety of writers in prose, poetry, essay, and experimental work. We diplay the best work that has been submitted to us openly, like a gallery, rather than a journal, magazine, or review. Come in off the street, read a bit, take its impressions away with you. The menu to the left is arranged by latest published edition, and all authors and featured pieces organized accordingly. Check back monthly for each new edition the first Friday of every month. Thank you, enjoy reading!
If you are interested in submitting work to appear on The Gallery we would love to have you. Send submissions by email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and please, please, please read our Submissions Guidelines, all the good stuff’s in there.
Jordan Hartt serves as the Director of Programs for Centrum, the nonprofit multidisciplinary arts
organization that has presented the Port Townsend Writers' Conference since its inception in 1974.
Founded by novelist Bill Ransom, the Conference is at the heart of the thriving Pacific Northwest
literary scene, a rigorous, craft-focused community for writers, editors, translators, and readers
working in a variety of styles and languages. Creative work has been featured in literary journals
as Another Chicago Magazine (ACM) and the Crab Creek Review.
The Owl
Jordan Hartt
owl trapped between the bald moon and forgetful blankets of snow dark blood runs between owl’s fingers motor oil strains between owl’s callused fingers cold wrench the snow falls around owl’s truck he’s on his back on the ground changing the oil sky white and close by snow falling the radio shorts out cold owl remembers changing the oil owl
remembers dancing the coldness giving way to the warmth of the tavern the bodies in flannel pitched in hard against one another blood the color of rust on his fingers pitchers of beer heads of animals on the cedar walls owl lifts off the snowy branch a flurry of snow falls to the ground owl remembers anne’s tongue-colored dress he remembers the
rust-colored snow owl remembers their silent hunts together he circles against the cold bald moon blue-black sky silent bodies of firs owl remembers motor oil remembers blood remembers anne packing the truck with her bags remembers the way they stood, cold sifting down around them owl remembers the flakes of snow settling on her tongue-
colored dress hat and sweater she gets in the truck drives uphill away from him a mouse darting across the white snow life is lived forward understood backward owl thinks the element of flight triggers him he dives, heart pounding, wings silent, earth silent under the blankets of snow she drives uphill, away from him, the copper-tasting thrill of the
hunt lurches him after her her truck lodges stuck in the snow tires spin he runs into the cabin grabs a carbine rifle, grabs bullets, his hands shake bullets spill onto the hard cedar floor like icicles breaking he skids outside sees the tires of her truck fling snow into the air as she presses the accelerator in panic he lugs his body up the hill, heart pounding
inside him blood flowing through him owl lifts off in flight what does it take to forget he wonders how much time how much whiskey the injections of how much ephedrine and pseudoephedrine into his veins how many mice how many bald moons how many freshly fallen blankets of snow how many skeletal firs how many metamorphoses how many
silent flights does it take to forget the mouse turns left, right, owl nestles the mouse in his talons, feels the terrified tongue-colored heart in his talons owl lifts through empty branches the heart beating wildly the brain protects the heart by forgetting what it has to forget to survive owl rises weightless, silent, above the treeline toward the cold bald moon
