and your teeth were floating up there
among the long winding
sutures of the sky.
a few looked up as people do
and saw themselves there
beautiful
with outstretched arms
and grins that demanded
“come over here and
drown with us.”
This small turnout just south of Carmel Highlands
holds more of the Holy than I am able
to capture here. I am sitting in the bed
of my mom’s Ford something, which she selflessly
lends to me any time I come back here
and I am thinking of impulse, foolishness,
and self-exile, though in the scope of
all history, I’m sure this is pretty dumb.
All I know now is that god’s land has been long
occupied, and though the waves crash wildly
against patient rocks and the wind hisses an
eternally drumming note, this place feels
domesticated; it’s displayed like a wicked
petting zoo. A few free things make their home
in the sky, though even they depend on
the will of people to preserve something
fundamental here. Only the deep fault lines
waiting to rise and stretch their stiff bones remain
unmanageable. There are always other
powers that will refuse to bend under the
pressure of human desire--unseen, still,
a cold and unfeeling creature which will
carelessly bring to dust a whole world of
convenience that invites millions to forget:
The only ones telling the stories are us.
L O V E / / R O O M
Though I love
Though I am inclined to sin(g)
Though Pontevin’s Spirit still
dances ( inside of me )
Though my words hang above my
head like a halo or
a crane
I am still confined to the three rooms I have made.
There is a room with - out
windows / or / lights
and I can only go in when
t h e d o o r o p e n s
but I can never see what’s inside.
There is a room of
stolen gold that is
locked so nobody else might
steal it/backfromme.
There is a room I
tried to burn away once (
look how it only
dulls the bright of my
eyes / look
how the ashes settle
in the spaces under my eyes
).
there is nothing sad about broken.
each of us is a
patchwork car job
held together with
duct-tape & bailing wire
and the world is an
invisible factory floor
chopping together
chunks of body & heart
with a ricocheting clash
like armies and storm clouds
in the dark. memory might
be lain upon the flesh
as a thin layer of whatever paint;
and the back fender that was
never readjusted, slapped
as if to say
“there is nothing else to do here.”
a portion of some wall rises
letting the light of reality
ooze in like water or sludge
and another broken thing is
released, playing on a limping
tire like a skip and finding
in the junkyard of the soul
the immortal scraps of each other.
you are not dead
you are dying, but
you are not dead
your dying is of the dead
and you’re dead are never dying
still, you are not dead
my dead asked me about the dying
the dead always seem to forget the dying
while the dying always remember the dead
until they are also dead
my dead asked me about the dying
as the dying became a part of the dead
the dead opened and the dying went in
and the dead always seem to forget the dying
i am not dead but I sometimes forget the dying
the dying come to me and remind me of the dead
for the dead exists in all the dying
and the dying is absent of all the dead
the dying sometimes imagine the dead are singing to them
the dying build vessels for the dead
but the dead never inhabit them
the dead are always forgetting the dying
still, you are not dead.
Bionote
Brian Sheffield is a performance poet living and working in New York. He is Co-founder and Editor-in-chief of Mad Gleam Press, which publishes POST(blank), a French-American Word Art journal. He has been published internationally through small and independent journals and anthologies.
Tuesday, 5 May 2020
3 Poems by Melyssa G. Sprott
Havoc
Dusk blossoming
from lonely seeds,
through gentle moonlight,
wandering roots thrive.
Stone-weighted soul,
withering at the bottom of the river—
the surface looks so calm.
Bloom
You love my petals and my stem,
but can’t see my roots or dark within.
My stretching leaves and twisting vine,
shielding me from what’s outside.
I hide my pain and petals torn—
I’ve been destroyed by my own thorns.
My pallor gives way to deeper hues,
like my thoughts turning to you.
I will stay here, as I will be—
growing wildly, but never free.
The Lot
Each leaf on the tree
every branch a trusted friend
I know this lot well
Every little squirrel
chipper morning companions
frolicking joyful
All of the creatures,
the trees, the leaves, the branches—
I belong right here
Bionote
Melyssa G. Sprott was in born Pittsburgh and lives in Ashtabula Harbor of Northeastern Ohio, United States; she is a writer, artist, and award-winning photographer, using many different means and mediums of self-expression.
Melyssa had an early desire for writing, having begun composing poems and songs and spinning tales from before she was old enough to hold a pencil. Her mother would transcribe her words for her. This young love for poetry would grow into a burning wild fire. Poetry became a survival skill to get her through hardships and a reminder that when the world—or even home, wasn’t a safe place—she could escape to the comfort of her pens and notebooks.
Though known as a “dark poet,” or one whose subjects are generally more morose topics, her works should be viewed as more of a survival guide—if she can make it through the hard times, so can you. Creativity is catharsis.
She has written and published over 10,000 poems so far over the course of her life, in thirteen poetry collections and eleven children’s books in thirteen years, and has contributed to numerous collaborative short horror collections, and countless poetry anthologies.
She spent several years as senior moderator at one of the world’s largest online poetry forums as well as teaching poetry forms. She found it quite a privilege to help instruct others on some of the many forms of poetry, whether they had been novice or experienced poets, English speaking or from outside the United States. Other credits included: Co-Managing Editor and Staff Writer of the VoicesNet.com Literary Journal, Poet-in-Residence, and the VoicesNet Hall of Fame.
Physical art, cutting and manipulating paper and texture is a current favorite activity—especially regarding paper roses, woven paper art, and children’s book illustrating. When acting as photographer, she enjoys capturing flora, fauna, insects, architecture, nature, and anything else that might be of interest at that moment.
She is employed as an Administrative Assistant and the entire Art Department at a small non-profit. She and her family volunteer at a local food pantry every week and very much enjoy helping others.
Dusk blossoming
from lonely seeds,
through gentle moonlight,
wandering roots thrive.
Stone-weighted soul,
withering at the bottom of the river—
the surface looks so calm.
Bloom
You love my petals and my stem,
but can’t see my roots or dark within.
My stretching leaves and twisting vine,
shielding me from what’s outside.
I hide my pain and petals torn—
I’ve been destroyed by my own thorns.
My pallor gives way to deeper hues,
like my thoughts turning to you.
I will stay here, as I will be—
growing wildly, but never free.
The Lot
Each leaf on the tree
every branch a trusted friend
I know this lot well
Every little squirrel
chipper morning companions
frolicking joyful
All of the creatures,
the trees, the leaves, the branches—
I belong right here
Bionote
Melyssa G. Sprott was in born Pittsburgh and lives in Ashtabula Harbor of Northeastern Ohio, United States; she is a writer, artist, and award-winning photographer, using many different means and mediums of self-expression.
Melyssa had an early desire for writing, having begun composing poems and songs and spinning tales from before she was old enough to hold a pencil. Her mother would transcribe her words for her. This young love for poetry would grow into a burning wild fire. Poetry became a survival skill to get her through hardships and a reminder that when the world—or even home, wasn’t a safe place—she could escape to the comfort of her pens and notebooks.
Though known as a “dark poet,” or one whose subjects are generally more morose topics, her works should be viewed as more of a survival guide—if she can make it through the hard times, so can you. Creativity is catharsis.
She has written and published over 10,000 poems so far over the course of her life, in thirteen poetry collections and eleven children’s books in thirteen years, and has contributed to numerous collaborative short horror collections, and countless poetry anthologies.
She spent several years as senior moderator at one of the world’s largest online poetry forums as well as teaching poetry forms. She found it quite a privilege to help instruct others on some of the many forms of poetry, whether they had been novice or experienced poets, English speaking or from outside the United States. Other credits included: Co-Managing Editor and Staff Writer of the VoicesNet.com Literary Journal, Poet-in-Residence, and the VoicesNet Hall of Fame.
Physical art, cutting and manipulating paper and texture is a current favorite activity—especially regarding paper roses, woven paper art, and children’s book illustrating. When acting as photographer, she enjoys capturing flora, fauna, insects, architecture, nature, and anything else that might be of interest at that moment.
She is employed as an Administrative Assistant and the entire Art Department at a small non-profit. She and her family volunteer at a local food pantry every week and very much enjoy helping others.
2 Poems by James K. Beach
UNCIRCUMSCISED NOSTALGIA
"A film from the '60s. Set in the Arctic in an igloo. In the igloo lived an Eskimo. The Eskimo went out to work every day by digging a fresh hole in the ice for catching fish to feed him -- his family of a wife and a toddler. After he caught his per diem of fish he would hike back on snowshoes, to his igloo, to feed himself and his wife and a baby with the daily fish. Before supper, you know the wife, do you know what she did? She took off her furs and warmed his feet under her breasts. Yeah, and that was their life!"
ERASING FOOTPRINTS
My carbon footprint is small because I use public transportation and buy used clothes sometimes. Yet there are those who wanna erase my every imprint on this planet-- even the harmless internet stamps I leave from time to time. My cleaners carefully dust or sponge off any dirt on my prose, pocket those most poetic lines, then claim them as their own... All the while I keep trying to get a word in edgewise. Pity those fools for dirtying their hands! My life is witnessed and known despite the audible shushings and covert collusion of their jealous and or snobby group. My carbon-based life is getting erased character by character (double-meaning intended) whilst the ones with filthy mitts look squeaky clean despite the mess they create in their loud, expensive, materialistic plane of existence; my poor plane is a private jet of the mind next to their public first class bourgeois charter to wherever I've wanted to go or ever been... My footprints are their bane and their glory.
Bionote
JAMES K BEACH opted to overindulge in poetry and lit before discovering that bohemian professions are a bit more challenging and dangerous than they appear... But anyway. Taking risks is a risk, as anyone knows. Since 2002, he's used his Bachelor's in Writing to amass 150+ journalism bylines in 20 venues, be managing editor at AWAREing Press, and do related tasks in publishing. Currently he's working various temp jobs in the USA, looking at graduate schools, and considering the significance of mating young. CREATIVE WRITING CREDITS: Antique Children Journal, Blue Monday Review, Danse Macabre Online, The Exhibit Literary, Jivin' Ladybug Journal, Mad Hatters' Review, Paraphilia Magazine, Poetry Pacific, Smokebox Commentary, Warhol Stars UK, Wood Coin Magazine, and others.
"A film from the '60s. Set in the Arctic in an igloo. In the igloo lived an Eskimo. The Eskimo went out to work every day by digging a fresh hole in the ice for catching fish to feed him -- his family of a wife and a toddler. After he caught his per diem of fish he would hike back on snowshoes, to his igloo, to feed himself and his wife and a baby with the daily fish. Before supper, you know the wife, do you know what she did? She took off her furs and warmed his feet under her breasts. Yeah, and that was their life!"
ERASING FOOTPRINTS
My carbon footprint is small because I use public transportation and buy used clothes sometimes. Yet there are those who wanna erase my every imprint on this planet-- even the harmless internet stamps I leave from time to time. My cleaners carefully dust or sponge off any dirt on my prose, pocket those most poetic lines, then claim them as their own... All the while I keep trying to get a word in edgewise. Pity those fools for dirtying their hands! My life is witnessed and known despite the audible shushings and covert collusion of their jealous and or snobby group. My carbon-based life is getting erased character by character (double-meaning intended) whilst the ones with filthy mitts look squeaky clean despite the mess they create in their loud, expensive, materialistic plane of existence; my poor plane is a private jet of the mind next to their public first class bourgeois charter to wherever I've wanted to go or ever been... My footprints are their bane and their glory.
Bionote
JAMES K BEACH opted to overindulge in poetry and lit before discovering that bohemian professions are a bit more challenging and dangerous than they appear... But anyway. Taking risks is a risk, as anyone knows. Since 2002, he's used his Bachelor's in Writing to amass 150+ journalism bylines in 20 venues, be managing editor at AWAREing Press, and do related tasks in publishing. Currently he's working various temp jobs in the USA, looking at graduate schools, and considering the significance of mating young. CREATIVE WRITING CREDITS: Antique Children Journal, Blue Monday Review, Danse Macabre Online, The Exhibit Literary, Jivin' Ladybug Journal, Mad Hatters' Review, Paraphilia Magazine, Poetry Pacific, Smokebox Commentary, Warhol Stars UK, Wood Coin Magazine, and others.
2 Poems by Milton P. Ehrlich
A SEASONED PROFESSOR GOES FOR A STROLL IN OAKLAND
He’s intrigued
by the many shades of skin,
having published papers
forecasting the future
of a world population
with coffee-colored skin.
He’s well aware of how
institutionalized racism
makes people of color
sometimes want to be
whiter than white,
even with a hue of blue.
He himself prefers light
dark skin, like Lena Horne.
When 2 young women
pass by with his preferred
skin color, he fantasies
about how much they
might want to spend
a night in bed with him.
MISCHEVIOUS BLISS
When she spreads her legs,
he wanders in.
It’s a safe place to call home,
somewhere he hasn’t been
since his life began.
Like the music of his youth,
Pack up your troubles
in your old kit-bag
and smile, smile, smile.
Ontogeny recapitulates
phylogeny.
Bionote
Milton P. Ehrlich Ph.D. is an 87- year-old psychologist and a veteran of the Korean War. He has published many poems in periodicals such as the London Grip, Arc Poetry Magazine, Descant Literary Magazine, Wisconsin Review, Red Wheelbarrow, Christian Science Monitor, and the New York Times.
He’s intrigued
by the many shades of skin,
having published papers
forecasting the future
of a world population
with coffee-colored skin.
He’s well aware of how
institutionalized racism
makes people of color
sometimes want to be
whiter than white,
even with a hue of blue.
He himself prefers light
dark skin, like Lena Horne.
When 2 young women
pass by with his preferred
skin color, he fantasies
about how much they
might want to spend
a night in bed with him.
MISCHEVIOUS BLISS
When she spreads her legs,
he wanders in.
It’s a safe place to call home,
somewhere he hasn’t been
since his life began.
Like the music of his youth,
Pack up your troubles
in your old kit-bag
and smile, smile, smile.
Ontogeny recapitulates
phylogeny.
Bionote
Milton P. Ehrlich Ph.D. is an 87- year-old psychologist and a veteran of the Korean War. He has published many poems in periodicals such as the London Grip, Arc Poetry Magazine, Descant Literary Magazine, Wisconsin Review, Red Wheelbarrow, Christian Science Monitor, and the New York Times.
1 Poem by Anthony Watkins
Arbortorturaium vidas migratius
Upon leaving the garden of eden
They moved into cheap mortal
Off sunset
Low slung window
Set against the pavement
Gondola chandeliers
Sailed across the yellowed
Plaster sky
And the lord rested
And said, this is a good day
Bionote
Anthony Watkins has been writing poetry about the south for over 50 years. He lives in South Florida and publishes Better Than Starbucks: betterthanstarbucks.org
Upon leaving the garden of eden
They moved into cheap mortal
Off sunset
Low slung window
Set against the pavement
Gondola chandeliers
Sailed across the yellowed
Plaster sky
And the lord rested
And said, this is a good day
Bionote
Anthony Watkins has been writing poetry about the south for over 50 years. He lives in South Florida and publishes Better Than Starbucks: betterthanstarbucks.org
5 Poems by Truth Thomas
Born in the City of Lakes
Purple made the Richter dance,
drummed through gates
of every ear’s resistance,
triggered high heel boot tsunamis,
heck-a-slammed godly,
the body of all guitars, the only one
to make them come, running —
Purple, crumble-cracked walls
of MTV's segregated keep,
swallowed up record label masters
over masters —
crushed them mofos whole,
in Paisley jaws
of sequined tectonic plates —
this Purple, our Purple.
And God said it was good,
as doves cried happy tears at the news,
and Sheila played timbales into glee,
and Mayte dressed up smiles
to dance upon their graves.
And God said it was funky —
damn funky, the epicenter of this quake:
the sound of a train approaching —
a "Slave" shaking out of his name.
At Motel 6
Bedbugs worship every mattress concert — suckers
for
humping
headboard
drums
for
pillows
playing
moans
for
Every worshiping bedbug, mattress concerts suck —
The Bloody Red Wheelbarrow
(after WCW)
so much is built
upon
a black mother’s
child
pooling blood in
streets
shot by the white
police.
In Chicago
his badge of blues, made Rekia blood fruit
firing
his
homicidal
entitlement
firing
his
acquittal
Ammunition —
firing
his badge of blues, made Rekia bleeding fruit.
What Officer Weekley Said After Shooting
Seven-Year-Old Aiyanna Jones
“It fired. The bullet hit a child, ” like his gun
was
crop
circle
mystery,
was
poltergeist
tantrum
possessed —
was
like a child, his gun — It. The bullet fired. Hit.
[theskinnypoetryjournal@gmail.com]
Purple made the Richter dance,
drummed through gates
of every ear’s resistance,
triggered high heel boot tsunamis,
heck-a-slammed godly,
the body of all guitars, the only one
to make them come, running —
Purple, crumble-cracked walls
of MTV's segregated keep,
swallowed up record label masters
over masters —
crushed them mofos whole,
in Paisley jaws
of sequined tectonic plates —
this Purple, our Purple.
And God said it was good,
as doves cried happy tears at the news,
and Sheila played timbales into glee,
and Mayte dressed up smiles
to dance upon their graves.
And God said it was funky —
damn funky, the epicenter of this quake:
the sound of a train approaching —
a "Slave" shaking out of his name.
At Motel 6
Bedbugs worship every mattress concert — suckers
for
humping
headboard
drums
for
pillows
playing
moans
for
Every worshiping bedbug, mattress concerts suck —
The Bloody Red Wheelbarrow
(after WCW)
so much is built
upon
a black mother’s
child
pooling blood in
streets
shot by the white
police.
In Chicago
his badge of blues, made Rekia blood fruit
firing
his
homicidal
entitlement
firing
his
acquittal
Ammunition —
firing
his badge of blues, made Rekia bleeding fruit.
What Officer Weekley Said After Shooting
Seven-Year-Old Aiyanna Jones
“It fired. The bullet hit a child, ” like his gun
was
crop
circle
mystery,
was
poltergeist
tantrum
possessed —
was
like a child, his gun — It. The bullet fired. Hit.
[theskinnypoetryjournal@gmail.com]
2 Poems by Dianna Mackinnon Henning
Because He Cannot Be Human, and She Cannot Be Donkey.
His name is Jacob, his fur an unruly thatch.
My sister is in love with him, brings him carrots,
apples and such. He lives in a field down the road
in Starksboro, Vermont. They are neighbors.
I wonder if he dreams about her at night,
if he’d like to snuggle with her at the old Mill House
on cold evenings. He reaches so far into his barreled chest
for a voice to greet her that it must take years
for such braying as his, a voice filled with such sadness
that only momentarily they will meet like this; two
reaching across the fence to hold, to stay held, to be
steadied by what fierce yearning as brings opposites together.
Animal Mission
In the beginning there was promise.
We lived together in harmony,
took only what was needed and that was sufficient.
The Shepherd walked with his sheep,
animal spirit commingling with human spirit,
breath of the sacred between them.
We suffered when we stopped seeing
everything as part of us,
when we thought human greater,
therefore, separate and superior.
The Shepherd set down his water horn,
gave up daily treks over green hills.
He forgot his thirst for clear streams.
Forgot what the earth told his feet.
This division split our spirits,
and the animals cried for their people.
A fracture grew between nations.
At night the animals pined for us to enter their lives,
but we’d forgotten the wholeness of the world,
and for this the animals continue to weep.
Bionote
Published in, in part: The Moth, Ireland; Sukoon, Volume 5; Mojave River Review; the New Verse News; Hawaii Pacific Review; Sequestrum; South Dakota Review; Naugatuck River Review; Lullwater Review; The Kentucky Review; Blue Fifth Review; The Main Street Rag; Clackamas Literary Review; 22 wagons by Danijela Trajković, Istok Akademia, an anthology of contemporary Anglophone poetry; California Quarterly; Poetry International and Fugue. Three-time Pushcart nominee. New work due out 2019 in New American Writing, The Kerf. Henning taught through California Poets in the Schools, received several CAC grants and taught poetry workshops through the William James Association’s Prison Arts Program. Henning’s third poetry book Cathedral of the Hand published 2016 by Finishing Line Press.
His name is Jacob, his fur an unruly thatch.
My sister is in love with him, brings him carrots,
apples and such. He lives in a field down the road
in Starksboro, Vermont. They are neighbors.
I wonder if he dreams about her at night,
if he’d like to snuggle with her at the old Mill House
on cold evenings. He reaches so far into his barreled chest
for a voice to greet her that it must take years
for such braying as his, a voice filled with such sadness
that only momentarily they will meet like this; two
reaching across the fence to hold, to stay held, to be
steadied by what fierce yearning as brings opposites together.
Animal Mission
In the beginning there was promise.
We lived together in harmony,
took only what was needed and that was sufficient.
The Shepherd walked with his sheep,
animal spirit commingling with human spirit,
breath of the sacred between them.
We suffered when we stopped seeing
everything as part of us,
when we thought human greater,
therefore, separate and superior.
The Shepherd set down his water horn,
gave up daily treks over green hills.
He forgot his thirst for clear streams.
Forgot what the earth told his feet.
This division split our spirits,
and the animals cried for their people.
A fracture grew between nations.
At night the animals pined for us to enter their lives,
but we’d forgotten the wholeness of the world,
and for this the animals continue to weep.
Bionote
Published in, in part: The Moth, Ireland; Sukoon, Volume 5; Mojave River Review; the New Verse News; Hawaii Pacific Review; Sequestrum; South Dakota Review; Naugatuck River Review; Lullwater Review; The Kentucky Review; Blue Fifth Review; The Main Street Rag; Clackamas Literary Review; 22 wagons by Danijela Trajković, Istok Akademia, an anthology of contemporary Anglophone poetry; California Quarterly; Poetry International and Fugue. Three-time Pushcart nominee. New work due out 2019 in New American Writing, The Kerf. Henning taught through California Poets in the Schools, received several CAC grants and taught poetry workshops through the William James Association’s Prison Arts Program. Henning’s third poetry book Cathedral of the Hand published 2016 by Finishing Line Press.
5 Poems by Joneve McCornick
Questions Emerging From A Dream About Eating A Pet
Does food, like medicine, heal separation?
when we eat we make what is not us, our own?
is eating, like touching, a way to know the illusionary nature of form?
are rules made to be broken in ways that work
like – bite off more than chewable if very hungry (and learn what you learn)?
My teacher
(for Minoru Kawabata)
He taught painting in Manhattan,
a wisp of a man, almost transparent,
who knew his world
and what he intended came about.
He didn’t seem to know he was famous.
He found living seeds of promise
on every student’s canvas
and ways to coax forth their powers;
he showed us to more deeply care
and we grew as artists.
Beyond wisdom, missing nothing
he chose the precise words and gestures
to calm the space and lift our spirits.
Though he spoke little English,
he touched our hearts with such elegance
that we outdid ourselves.
Universal Duality
The condition of Duality endures inside and out –
I know yet continue to move one way and another.
Why not – what have I to lose?
Comfort is soon boring
but somewhere there must be
an ‘off the grid’ –
a place beyond repetition
for retiring Faustian souls?
I had
I had exotic plumage once soft, brilliant green, gold, red I turned into a swallow frail and lice-ridden What was I thinking?
3 Chinese formula poems
Wafting in fragrance a peach blossom falls. Blown into the bushes a love letter is lost. No one sees.
***
Hidden in weeds cat watches crow pulling up a worm. Overhead a plane purrs trailing smoke.
***
Under dark sky pink buildings glow, a man looks up, takes deep breaths, forgets to hurry.
3 haiku
carp swims up my scroll, turns into silver crescent predicting long life
elegant bamboo, the lucky kind, curls 3 times; yellow base means death
my boots sometimes sink climbing over a snow bank, ice cream cone steady
Bionote
Joneve McCormick hosts and co-hosts several online poetry journals, such as Joneve & Friends, an ongoing web project featuring poems and nature photographs. Her poems, short stories and articles have appeared in various journals, periodicals, anthologies, and on websites such as World Poems. Three Poets: Voices from the West Coast, an ebook which features the poetry of Koon Kau Woon and Changming Yuan along with Joneve's, is available on Amazon. Two solo collections have been published: The Visitor (2019), available on Amazon and Small Bird Bones (chapbook, The New Press, NYC).
Does food, like medicine, heal separation?
when we eat we make what is not us, our own?
is eating, like touching, a way to know the illusionary nature of form?
are rules made to be broken in ways that work
like – bite off more than chewable if very hungry (and learn what you learn)?
My teacher
(for Minoru Kawabata)
He taught painting in Manhattan,
a wisp of a man, almost transparent,
who knew his world
and what he intended came about.
He didn’t seem to know he was famous.
He found living seeds of promise
on every student’s canvas
and ways to coax forth their powers;
he showed us to more deeply care
and we grew as artists.
Beyond wisdom, missing nothing
he chose the precise words and gestures
to calm the space and lift our spirits.
Though he spoke little English,
he touched our hearts with such elegance
that we outdid ourselves.
Universal Duality
The condition of Duality endures inside and out –
I know yet continue to move one way and another.
Why not – what have I to lose?
Comfort is soon boring
but somewhere there must be
an ‘off the grid’ –
a place beyond repetition
for retiring Faustian souls?
I had
I had exotic plumage once soft, brilliant green, gold, red I turned into a swallow frail and lice-ridden What was I thinking?
3 Chinese formula poems
Wafting in fragrance a peach blossom falls. Blown into the bushes a love letter is lost. No one sees.
***
Hidden in weeds cat watches crow pulling up a worm. Overhead a plane purrs trailing smoke.
***
Under dark sky pink buildings glow, a man looks up, takes deep breaths, forgets to hurry.
3 haiku
carp swims up my scroll, turns into silver crescent predicting long life
elegant bamboo, the lucky kind, curls 3 times; yellow base means death
my boots sometimes sink climbing over a snow bank, ice cream cone steady
Bionote
Joneve McCormick hosts and co-hosts several online poetry journals, such as Joneve & Friends, an ongoing web project featuring poems and nature photographs. Her poems, short stories and articles have appeared in various journals, periodicals, anthologies, and on websites such as World Poems. Three Poets: Voices from the West Coast, an ebook which features the poetry of Koon Kau Woon and Changming Yuan along with Joneve's, is available on Amazon. Two solo collections have been published: The Visitor (2019), available on Amazon and Small Bird Bones (chapbook, The New Press, NYC).
4 Poems by S.K.Y. Varnam
CULLING
I have no use for images of wheat fields,
children with sun in their hair,
women bright with fertility,
arms heaped with grain,
feet in the fecund dust.
To my ears, “harvest” speaks of hunger and All Hallows;
the hanging ropes of the gallows swing with the waving wheat.
My voice echoes the uncertain rhythm of the heart,
frost-edged with the reminder that one day the beat will stutter,
winter descending with the rush of the reaper’s scythe.
I bite the fresh-picked fruit with the appetite of famine.
SAVOUR
I suffer from hesitant incisors,
coy canines, a tense tongue.
I must train myself to savour the sweeter things.
Pry fresh cookies off a hot baking tray,
fingers slightly scorched, delicious.
Dent crisp meringue. Sample chocolate chips.
Let honey coat my fingers.
The chilled spoon accuses me.
Dessert sits melting;
my throat is dry.
CRAVINGS
My body no longer craves sweet things,
nor does it hunger for blood.
My limbs devour sleep instead,
pulling me down to gorge
on a poorly made bed.
They drag my prey to me,
rumpled fabric trapped in my embrace.
I’d gnaw my sheets to shreds
to feel rested.
RECIPE FOR DISASTER
Grandma speaks of s*vages and peasants,
the virtues of classical music and gold jewellery,
while living in an apartment with cheap parquet floors.
When I was a child, she was a witch
who baked shortbreads.
I was no Gretel;
I would not be fooled by gingerbread.
Now she’s teaching me to test dough
the way her grandmother did,
squeezing it in her fist ’til it muffins up over her fingers.
She encourages me to use my hands when baking
and tastes the raw dough, telling me her grandmother told her not to,
that it would make her sick.
Now she has her timid moments.
She forgets things—even baking ingredients.
But she also makes these jokes,
sometimes with a sly look,
with an open-mouthed smile
I never noticed when I was younger.
I wonder if it’s the same smile she had then.
It allows me in.
Bionote
S.K.Y. Varnam is a queer, neurodivergent, and disabled Toronto-based writer, artist, and editor, as well as the founder of The Quilliad Press. Much of their work focuses on neurodivergency, queerness, and feminist themes. Their work has been published in several journals, including Hamilton Arts & Letters, The Quarterday Review, Breath and Shadow, Third Wednesday, and Transition Magazine.
I have no use for images of wheat fields,
children with sun in their hair,
women bright with fertility,
arms heaped with grain,
feet in the fecund dust.
To my ears, “harvest” speaks of hunger and All Hallows;
the hanging ropes of the gallows swing with the waving wheat.
My voice echoes the uncertain rhythm of the heart,
frost-edged with the reminder that one day the beat will stutter,
winter descending with the rush of the reaper’s scythe.
I bite the fresh-picked fruit with the appetite of famine.
SAVOUR
I suffer from hesitant incisors,
coy canines, a tense tongue.
I must train myself to savour the sweeter things.
Pry fresh cookies off a hot baking tray,
fingers slightly scorched, delicious.
Dent crisp meringue. Sample chocolate chips.
Let honey coat my fingers.
The chilled spoon accuses me.
Dessert sits melting;
my throat is dry.
CRAVINGS
My body no longer craves sweet things,
nor does it hunger for blood.
My limbs devour sleep instead,
pulling me down to gorge
on a poorly made bed.
They drag my prey to me,
rumpled fabric trapped in my embrace.
I’d gnaw my sheets to shreds
to feel rested.
RECIPE FOR DISASTER
Grandma speaks of s*vages and peasants,
the virtues of classical music and gold jewellery,
while living in an apartment with cheap parquet floors.
When I was a child, she was a witch
who baked shortbreads.
I was no Gretel;
I would not be fooled by gingerbread.
Now she’s teaching me to test dough
the way her grandmother did,
squeezing it in her fist ’til it muffins up over her fingers.
She encourages me to use my hands when baking
and tastes the raw dough, telling me her grandmother told her not to,
that it would make her sick.
Now she has her timid moments.
She forgets things—even baking ingredients.
But she also makes these jokes,
sometimes with a sly look,
with an open-mouthed smile
I never noticed when I was younger.
I wonder if it’s the same smile she had then.
It allows me in.
Bionote
S.K.Y. Varnam is a queer, neurodivergent, and disabled Toronto-based writer, artist, and editor, as well as the founder of The Quilliad Press. Much of their work focuses on neurodivergency, queerness, and feminist themes. Their work has been published in several journals, including Hamilton Arts & Letters, The Quarterday Review, Breath and Shadow, Third Wednesday, and Transition Magazine.
1 Poem by Waqas Rabbani
Hinge
The hinge
that supports the weight
of all my ambitions
has come undone
through no fault of mine
I long to taste
the freedom and peace
of youth
I once knew
but my veins
are unglued
from the trappings
of their biological machinations
and this old heart pumps dust
ground from my own bones
choking up
my soul
where is that
sense of creation
of wonder
and imagination
I belonged to
I ponder, as I lock my windows
to the light of hope
and the winds of change
and sit in darkness
hoping for an end
my sunflowers die
in a withering field
a perfect picture
of dashed hopes
and dreams.
I give them no water
for who am I
to challenge fate
and time itself
I'm inconsequential
in the greater scheme of things.
Bring me to green fields
after I am dead
and put a brush
in my hands
to paint
one last time
I've heard dead artists
get more respect
from the living.
Stuff my eyes
full of dirt
so I don't forget
where I belong
and let the sunlight
break through the soil
and light up
my empty shell
from within
perhaps in death
I will win
the game of chance
I lost
when I was alive
if I was ever alive.
Bionote
Waqas Rabbani has been writing since many years and has written for many platforms such as New London Writers, Nation, NayaDaur and Brandsynario.
The hinge
that supports the weight
of all my ambitions
has come undone
through no fault of mine
I long to taste
the freedom and peace
of youth
I once knew
but my veins
are unglued
from the trappings
of their biological machinations
and this old heart pumps dust
ground from my own bones
choking up
my soul
where is that
sense of creation
of wonder
and imagination
I belonged to
I ponder, as I lock my windows
to the light of hope
and the winds of change
and sit in darkness
hoping for an end
my sunflowers die
in a withering field
a perfect picture
of dashed hopes
and dreams.
I give them no water
for who am I
to challenge fate
and time itself
I'm inconsequential
in the greater scheme of things.
Bring me to green fields
after I am dead
and put a brush
in my hands
to paint
one last time
I've heard dead artists
get more respect
from the living.
Stuff my eyes
full of dirt
so I don't forget
where I belong
and let the sunlight
break through the soil
and light up
my empty shell
from within
perhaps in death
I will win
the game of chance
I lost
when I was alive
if I was ever alive.
Bionote
Waqas Rabbani has been writing since many years and has written for many platforms such as New London Writers, Nation, NayaDaur and Brandsynario.
3 Poems by Andrea Moorhead
Speaking stones
The inscriptions bleed tonight
letters moving right to left
forcing the darkness between to glow
where the mark of a stone chisel
catches the edge of a star.
Howling
A pattern of ice on the eyelids
it’s hard to see any farther
than the swaying hemlock
the night is matte black
charcoal powdered
you’re singing again
somewhere far out
beyond the window
where the northwest wind
pulls down the sun
After the books are closed
Stretching the air before night
and the stars crackle and spit
a child wanders through the woods
his hands fern-feathered and sure
there are no pelicans here nor tigers
he’s looking for something else
something that can’t be discovered in the day
it’s caught in his hair now
filaments of salt-light
and the thin long strands of a dolphin’s dream.
Bionote
Andrea Moorhead, editor of Osiris and author of several collections of poems, including The Carver’s Dream (Red Dragonfly Press) and À l’ombre de ta voix (Le Noroît). Translations include Dark Menagerie by Élise Turcotte (Guernica Editions). The Autumn 2018 issue of The Bitter Oleander features her work. She received the Prix international de poésie Antonio Viccaro 2018.
The inscriptions bleed tonight
letters moving right to left
forcing the darkness between to glow
where the mark of a stone chisel
catches the edge of a star.
Howling
A pattern of ice on the eyelids
it’s hard to see any farther
than the swaying hemlock
the night is matte black
charcoal powdered
you’re singing again
somewhere far out
beyond the window
where the northwest wind
pulls down the sun
After the books are closed
Stretching the air before night
and the stars crackle and spit
a child wanders through the woods
his hands fern-feathered and sure
there are no pelicans here nor tigers
he’s looking for something else
something that can’t be discovered in the day
it’s caught in his hair now
filaments of salt-light
and the thin long strands of a dolphin’s dream.
Bionote
Andrea Moorhead, editor of Osiris and author of several collections of poems, including The Carver’s Dream (Red Dragonfly Press) and À l’ombre de ta voix (Le Noroît). Translations include Dark Menagerie by Élise Turcotte (Guernica Editions). The Autumn 2018 issue of The Bitter Oleander features her work. She received the Prix international de poésie Antonio Viccaro 2018.
1 Poem by Victoria Crawford
Kawaakari: moonlit river
Milky Way spills down
eventide’s pitcher
of moonrise silver
commingling stardust
and tumbling water.
Liquid surge unveils
dual nature: dark light,
high low, stop go.
The pewter swirls spill
valleys and mountains in flux,
changeless in the glow of
the moonlit river.
The slip of
smoke white snake,
static action,
wet ropes rise and fall.
Droplets splash patterns
of ivory lace
cresting the night.
Stream tickles the ear
silent uproar
in the sliding surge.
Fluid luminescence
molecules roll together,
union, division,
evolve seaward.
Bionote
Living for many years in Asian countries, California poet Victoria Crawford endeavors to reveal the heart of cultures and nature in her poetry. Her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies such as Hawaii Pacific Review, Postcard Poetry and Prose, Canary, and Academy of the Heart and Mind.
Milky Way spills down
eventide’s pitcher
of moonrise silver
commingling stardust
and tumbling water.
Liquid surge unveils
dual nature: dark light,
high low, stop go.
The pewter swirls spill
valleys and mountains in flux,
changeless in the glow of
the moonlit river.
The slip of
smoke white snake,
static action,
wet ropes rise and fall.
Droplets splash patterns
of ivory lace
cresting the night.
Stream tickles the ear
silent uproar
in the sliding surge.
Fluid luminescence
molecules roll together,
union, division,
evolve seaward.
Bionote
Living for many years in Asian countries, California poet Victoria Crawford endeavors to reveal the heart of cultures and nature in her poetry. Her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies such as Hawaii Pacific Review, Postcard Poetry and Prose, Canary, and Academy of the Heart and Mind.
1 Poem by Paul Robert Mullen
the last time you were seen
was late spring
sat in a clapped out car on the seafront
staring out at the waves
at dusk
counting stars
one for each mistake
and we all know
how many stars the night sky
holds
Bionote
Paul Robert Mullen is a poet, musician and sociable loner from Liverpool, U.K. He has three published poetry collections: curse this blue raincoat (2017), testimony (2018), and 35 (2018). He also enjoys paperbacks with broken spines, and all things minimalist. Twitter: @mushyprm35
Magazines/E-zines/Journals/Anthologies published in: Allegro, Anti-Heroin Chic, Bending Genres, Black Bough Poetry, Bonnie's Crew, Cleaning Up Glitter, Constellate, Crossways, Dodging The Rain, Dreamcatcher, Eunoia Review, Four X Four, Ghost City Press, Heron Clan, Mojave Heart, Panning For Poems, Pendora, Selcouth Station, Sub Rosa, The Canon's Mouth, The Fiction Pool, The Fictional Café, The Foxglove Journal, The Interpreter's House, The Journal, The Mark Literary Review, The Pangolin Review, Three Drops From A Cauldron, Turnpike Magazine, Wellington Street Review, Words For The Wild.
was late spring
sat in a clapped out car on the seafront
staring out at the waves
at dusk
counting stars
one for each mistake
and we all know
how many stars the night sky
holds
Bionote
Paul Robert Mullen is a poet, musician and sociable loner from Liverpool, U.K. He has three published poetry collections: curse this blue raincoat (2017), testimony (2018), and 35 (2018). He also enjoys paperbacks with broken spines, and all things minimalist. Twitter: @mushyprm35
Magazines/E-zines/Journals/Anthologies published in: Allegro, Anti-Heroin Chic, Bending Genres, Black Bough Poetry, Bonnie's Crew, Cleaning Up Glitter, Constellate, Crossways, Dodging The Rain, Dreamcatcher, Eunoia Review, Four X Four, Ghost City Press, Heron Clan, Mojave Heart, Panning For Poems, Pendora, Selcouth Station, Sub Rosa, The Canon's Mouth, The Fiction Pool, The Fictional Café, The Foxglove Journal, The Interpreter's House, The Journal, The Mark Literary Review, The Pangolin Review, Three Drops From A Cauldron, Turnpike Magazine, Wellington Street Review, Words For The Wild.
1 Poem by Stefanie Bennett
SCOPE
Late in the day
and slightly
arched over
my shoulder
suggests that
if I am
of whale descent
then words
are water.
Bionote
Stefanie Bennett, ex-blues singer & musician has published several poetry titles, a novel, 2 chapbooks & a libretto & worked with ICAN & Arts Action For Peace. Of mixed ancestry [Italian/Irish/Paugussett-Shawnee] she was born in Queensland, Australia.
Late in the day
and slightly
arched over
my shoulder
suggests that
if I am
of whale descent
then words
are water.
Bionote
Stefanie Bennett, ex-blues singer & musician has published several poetry titles, a novel, 2 chapbooks & a libretto & worked with ICAN & Arts Action For Peace. Of mixed ancestry [Italian/Irish/Paugussett-Shawnee] she was born in Queensland, Australia.
1 Poem by R. David Fulcher
Perception
You who do not
believe
that angels dance
on pinheads;
tell me that
rainbows
are not contained
in prisms,
that love does not
lie
in the shadows
of photographs,
that you do not
lie.
Nothing
exists in a single state.
I am not
contained by these walls.
I can shrink and reside
in the dirty hovel
of a bottle.
I can expand and reside
in the mansion of verse.
Bionote
R. David Fulcher is an author of horror, science fiction, fantasy and poetry. His major literary influences include H.P. Lovecraft, Dean Koontz, Edgar Allen Poe, Fritz Lieber, and Stephen King.
His first novel, a historical drama set in World War II entitled Trains to Nowhere, and his second novel, a collection of fantasy and science fiction short stories, Blood Spiders and Dark Moon, are both available from www.authorhouse.com and www.amazon.com. His work has appeared in numerous small press publications including Lovecraft’s Mystery Magazine, Black Satellite, The Martian Wave, Burning Sky, Shadowlands, Twilight Showcase, Heliocentric Net, Gateways, Weird Times, Freaky Frights and the anthologies Dimensions and Silken Ropes. His passion for the written word has also inspired him to edit and publish the literary magazine Samsara, located online at www.samsaramagazine.net, which has showcased the work of writers and poets for over a decade.
R. David Fulcher resides in Ashburn, Virginia with his wife Lisa, a native of Stony Brook, Long Island, and their rambunctious cats.
You who do not
believe
that angels dance
on pinheads;
tell me that
rainbows
are not contained
in prisms,
that love does not
lie
in the shadows
of photographs,
that you do not
lie.
Nothing
exists in a single state.
I am not
contained by these walls.
I can shrink and reside
in the dirty hovel
of a bottle.
I can expand and reside
in the mansion of verse.
Bionote
R. David Fulcher is an author of horror, science fiction, fantasy and poetry. His major literary influences include H.P. Lovecraft, Dean Koontz, Edgar Allen Poe, Fritz Lieber, and Stephen King.
His first novel, a historical drama set in World War II entitled Trains to Nowhere, and his second novel, a collection of fantasy and science fiction short stories, Blood Spiders and Dark Moon, are both available from www.authorhouse.com and www.amazon.com. His work has appeared in numerous small press publications including Lovecraft’s Mystery Magazine, Black Satellite, The Martian Wave, Burning Sky, Shadowlands, Twilight Showcase, Heliocentric Net, Gateways, Weird Times, Freaky Frights and the anthologies Dimensions and Silken Ropes. His passion for the written word has also inspired him to edit and publish the literary magazine Samsara, located online at www.samsaramagazine.net, which has showcased the work of writers and poets for over a decade.
R. David Fulcher resides in Ashburn, Virginia with his wife Lisa, a native of Stony Brook, Long Island, and their rambunctious cats.
2 Poems by Michael Keshigian
LAKE DANCE
Peaceful undulation gently raps
the brownish-green barnacled pier
as the crystal blue pulse
of the extensive lake
abounds with life
below its pristine surface
fettered only by
a rustling breeze
that instigates ripples
to momentarily dance out of step
against the placid mirror
which reflects its tranquil message,
enrapturing my mind
to join in a serene
pas-de deux,
waltzing gracefully upon
the wavering crests
till the whispering breath ceases.
THE EARTH WITHIN
We awoke in light,
wriggling in the palm
of a muddy hand,
divided into portions
under a stone,
we were the life
that delighted the sun
as we edged toward an empty cave.
Heaven rinsed us with a sigh
and set afloat
the Earth in our veins.
Behind our eyes
loomed the ocean,
beneath our fingernails
vegetables slept,
between our toes
hovered the path of discovery,
a model universe floated
undiscovered in our brain.
The great plates trembled
and the chatter of teeth
shattered the ensuing silence,
glacial ice masses cracked
and the capillaries of vision
slid into a sea of fascination,
a body born
under sunlight, in sand,
saturated with rain,
blossomed skyward
to propagate the world.
Bionote
Michael Keshigian’s thirteenth poetry collection, The Garden Of Summer was released April, 2019 by Flutter Press. He has been widely published in numerous national and international journals, recently including Red River Review, Sierra Nevada Review, Oyez Review, Bluepepper, Muddy River Review, Smoky Quartz and has appeared as feature writer in over twenty publications with 7 Pushcart Prize and 2 Best Of The Net nominations. (michaelkeshigian.com)
Peaceful undulation gently raps
the brownish-green barnacled pier
as the crystal blue pulse
of the extensive lake
abounds with life
below its pristine surface
fettered only by
a rustling breeze
that instigates ripples
to momentarily dance out of step
against the placid mirror
which reflects its tranquil message,
enrapturing my mind
to join in a serene
pas-de deux,
waltzing gracefully upon
the wavering crests
till the whispering breath ceases.
THE EARTH WITHIN
We awoke in light,
wriggling in the palm
of a muddy hand,
divided into portions
under a stone,
we were the life
that delighted the sun
as we edged toward an empty cave.
Heaven rinsed us with a sigh
and set afloat
the Earth in our veins.
Behind our eyes
loomed the ocean,
beneath our fingernails
vegetables slept,
between our toes
hovered the path of discovery,
a model universe floated
undiscovered in our brain.
The great plates trembled
and the chatter of teeth
shattered the ensuing silence,
glacial ice masses cracked
and the capillaries of vision
slid into a sea of fascination,
a body born
under sunlight, in sand,
saturated with rain,
blossomed skyward
to propagate the world.
Bionote
Michael Keshigian’s thirteenth poetry collection, The Garden Of Summer was released April, 2019 by Flutter Press. He has been widely published in numerous national and international journals, recently including Red River Review, Sierra Nevada Review, Oyez Review, Bluepepper, Muddy River Review, Smoky Quartz and has appeared as feature writer in over twenty publications with 7 Pushcart Prize and 2 Best Of The Net nominations. (michaelkeshigian.com)
3 Poems by George Payne
A Soldier Almost Out of His Body
Almost out of my body,
I have seen things that I
can not explain or even feel.
Like a blush on the gray cheeks
of a corpse,
as if I am putting
on someone else's makeup
just to go out and kill.
Knowing That It Doesn't Matter
Hear the sermons in the clouds-
that pure experience of big, bright bursts
of Congolese rainfall in the middle of May.
The feeling of a phone losing reception,
and knowing that it doesn't matter
The One Reduced
There is a question among Zen masters:
When the many are reduced to one, to what
is the one reduced?
The one is reduced to the liberating truth. The
sunrise. The Law of Karma. A history of photography,
and two boys dancing on the Moon.
The one is a thousand kinds of funeral foods.
No matter what may come, people are hungry.
And we are not the fastest sharks in the ocean.
Most of our time is spent getting rid of our own waste.
What a waste. The one reduced is the one who has learned
how to not waste. Flashed in front of a new intruder, they will
not flinch at the thought of being eaten alive.
Bionote
Payne’s poetry has appeared in many journals, magazines, and anthologies, including Cholla Needles, The Adirondack Almanac, Mojave He{art}t Review, MORIA Poetry Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, Front Porch Review, Chronogram Magazine, Talker of the Town, Zingara Poetry Review, Ovi Magazine, River Poets Journal, Adelaide, Ink, Sweat, and Tears, Califragile, Deep South Magazine, Amethyst Review, From the Edge Poetry Magazine, and others. His blogs, essays, and letters to the editor, have appeared in national and international publications such as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Toronto Sun, the Havana Times, the Atlantic, and Rolling Stone.
Almost out of my body,
I have seen things that I
can not explain or even feel.
Like a blush on the gray cheeks
of a corpse,
as if I am putting
on someone else's makeup
just to go out and kill.
Knowing That It Doesn't Matter
Hear the sermons in the clouds-
that pure experience of big, bright bursts
of Congolese rainfall in the middle of May.
The feeling of a phone losing reception,
and knowing that it doesn't matter
The One Reduced
There is a question among Zen masters:
When the many are reduced to one, to what
is the one reduced?
The one is reduced to the liberating truth. The
sunrise. The Law of Karma. A history of photography,
and two boys dancing on the Moon.
The one is a thousand kinds of funeral foods.
No matter what may come, people are hungry.
And we are not the fastest sharks in the ocean.
Most of our time is spent getting rid of our own waste.
What a waste. The one reduced is the one who has learned
how to not waste. Flashed in front of a new intruder, they will
not flinch at the thought of being eaten alive.
Bionote
Payne’s poetry has appeared in many journals, magazines, and anthologies, including Cholla Needles, The Adirondack Almanac, Mojave He{art}t Review, MORIA Poetry Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, Front Porch Review, Chronogram Magazine, Talker of the Town, Zingara Poetry Review, Ovi Magazine, River Poets Journal, Adelaide, Ink, Sweat, and Tears, Califragile, Deep South Magazine, Amethyst Review, From the Edge Poetry Magazine, and others. His blogs, essays, and letters to the editor, have appeared in national and international publications such as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Toronto Sun, the Havana Times, the Atlantic, and Rolling Stone.
1 Poem by Shayan Ashoori
Calm After the Storm
w i b l s
n d o w
t ips over
r
e
e
l
o
u
d
t
h
u
n
d
e
r
and
silence
Bionote
Shayan Ashoori is located in Toronto, Ontario and is passionate about science, politics, philosophy, as well as reading poetry, fiction, and history.
w i b l s
n d o w
t ips over
r
e
e
l
o
u
d
t
h
u
n
d
e
r
and
silence
Bionote
Shayan Ashoori is located in Toronto, Ontario and is passionate about science, politics, philosophy, as well as reading poetry, fiction, and history.
1 Poem by Donna Puccinani
Circles
I heard a rabbi
on the radio talking of God,
the great Circle from which
we humans are not excluded
but dwell in our own
small circle inside.
Are we like eggs
laid by the God-woman
in a cosmic nest beyond
human making?
Thunder will call us forth
into the galaxy of Being.
Lightning
will illumine our vision
for one split-second
of stellar wisdom,
the mysticism of unfulfilled
desire forever encased
in the divine. Love,
loneliness and astonishment
are our lot, ice and fire,
fact and fantasy, the benediction
of weeds and roses living together
in a secret garden, never touching.
Bionote
Donna Pucciani, a Chicago-based writer, has published poetry worldwide in such diverse journals as Shi Chao Poetry, Poetry Salzburg, and Journal of Italian Translation. Her seventh and most recent book of poems is EDGES.
I heard a rabbi
on the radio talking of God,
the great Circle from which
we humans are not excluded
but dwell in our own
small circle inside.
Are we like eggs
laid by the God-woman
in a cosmic nest beyond
human making?
Thunder will call us forth
into the galaxy of Being.
Lightning
will illumine our vision
for one split-second
of stellar wisdom,
the mysticism of unfulfilled
desire forever encased
in the divine. Love,
loneliness and astonishment
are our lot, ice and fire,
fact and fantasy, the benediction
of weeds and roses living together
in a secret garden, never touching.
Bionote
Donna Pucciani, a Chicago-based writer, has published poetry worldwide in such diverse journals as Shi Chao Poetry, Poetry Salzburg, and Journal of Italian Translation. Her seventh and most recent book of poems is EDGES.
2 Poems by Elaine Fetcher Chapman
Angle of Repose
I cross the small that connects
our studies and ask to borrow
his book again. He thinks it strange
that I’ve taken an interest in soil:
definitions, explanations, formulas,
dirt, clay, and sand. Actually a single
phrase has attracted me, angle of repose---
a technical term;
how soil eventually settles.
Tonight for dinner we had lasagna
from the cafe down the street.
We split the serving. It tasted sweeter.
We had to remove the newspapers,
mail piled on the table to make a place
for our plates . I remember the meals
I used to prepare, ten or twelve people
around the table: Brunswick Stew, cornbread,
meat loaf and mashed potatoes, almond butter.
We are not unhappy. We enjoy our work
and find pleasure in the smallest events:
a song on the radio, a brief embrace
in the kitchen, the new comforter and sheets,
a mid-afternoon nap, at night
the weight of our bodies in bed.
first published in THE SUN and then in chapbook: DOUBLE SOLITUDE
What Are You Thinking?
The curve of my rounded bottom fits
the curve of your rounded belly.
Arms cross over my breasts. Hands
rest across your arms. I finger
the hair on one forearm. The hair on your chest
lightly sweeps my back when you stir. My eyes blink
Your chin rests on the crown of my head.
O the Comfort Inn, an island view,
the drapes wide open; the sun descending
below the sound; I keep looking over our shoulders
to the back wall, changing tones of pinks and reds,
our particular abiding. Not wanting
to move until we both are ready. The setting
takes fifteen to twenty minutes. We only discuss
color. We can’t hear the surf.
WE do not mention we are motherless.
first published in 5AM, also from DOUBLE SOLITUDE
Bionote
Elaine Fletcher Chapman (formerly Elaine Walters McFerron) is the author of a volume of poems, Hunger for Salt published by Saint Julian Press and a letterpress chapbook, Double Solitude published by Green River Press. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor teaching Literature at Old Dominion University, Chapman worked on staff at The Bennington Writing Seminars, Bennington College for 18 years. She founded The Writer’s Studio where she teaches poetry, nonfiction and an ongoing class, On Keeping a Journal. She also provides editing services and organizes Poetry Readings and Crossing Over Writing Retreats. For the last 39 years she has worked as a therapist in private practice. Also she is a Certified iRest Yoga Nidra Meditation teacher. Her poems have been published in Rabid Oak, The Tishman Review, The EcoTheo Review, The Cortland Review, Connotation, The Sun, Calyx, Poet Lore, 5AM, Salamander, and others. She was guest blogger on The Best American Poetry Blog and The Solstice Literary Magazine blog. She now lives on the West side of the Chesapeake Bay near the James River in Newport News, Virginia. She also spends a great deal of time in the San Francisco Bay area. Trailer and Poetry Videos for Hunger For Salt: www.vimeo.com/elainefletcherchapman or www.elainefletcherchapman.com
I cross the small that connects
our studies and ask to borrow
his book again. He thinks it strange
that I’ve taken an interest in soil:
definitions, explanations, formulas,
dirt, clay, and sand. Actually a single
phrase has attracted me, angle of repose---
a technical term;
how soil eventually settles.
Tonight for dinner we had lasagna
from the cafe down the street.
We split the serving. It tasted sweeter.
We had to remove the newspapers,
mail piled on the table to make a place
for our plates . I remember the meals
I used to prepare, ten or twelve people
around the table: Brunswick Stew, cornbread,
meat loaf and mashed potatoes, almond butter.
We are not unhappy. We enjoy our work
and find pleasure in the smallest events:
a song on the radio, a brief embrace
in the kitchen, the new comforter and sheets,
a mid-afternoon nap, at night
the weight of our bodies in bed.
first published in THE SUN and then in chapbook: DOUBLE SOLITUDE
What Are You Thinking?
The curve of my rounded bottom fits
the curve of your rounded belly.
Arms cross over my breasts. Hands
rest across your arms. I finger
the hair on one forearm. The hair on your chest
lightly sweeps my back when you stir. My eyes blink
Your chin rests on the crown of my head.
O the Comfort Inn, an island view,
the drapes wide open; the sun descending
below the sound; I keep looking over our shoulders
to the back wall, changing tones of pinks and reds,
our particular abiding. Not wanting
to move until we both are ready. The setting
takes fifteen to twenty minutes. We only discuss
color. We can’t hear the surf.
WE do not mention we are motherless.
first published in 5AM, also from DOUBLE SOLITUDE
Bionote
Elaine Fletcher Chapman (formerly Elaine Walters McFerron) is the author of a volume of poems, Hunger for Salt published by Saint Julian Press and a letterpress chapbook, Double Solitude published by Green River Press. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor teaching Literature at Old Dominion University, Chapman worked on staff at The Bennington Writing Seminars, Bennington College for 18 years. She founded The Writer’s Studio where she teaches poetry, nonfiction and an ongoing class, On Keeping a Journal. She also provides editing services and organizes Poetry Readings and Crossing Over Writing Retreats. For the last 39 years she has worked as a therapist in private practice. Also she is a Certified iRest Yoga Nidra Meditation teacher. Her poems have been published in Rabid Oak, The Tishman Review, The EcoTheo Review, The Cortland Review, Connotation, The Sun, Calyx, Poet Lore, 5AM, Salamander, and others. She was guest blogger on The Best American Poetry Blog and The Solstice Literary Magazine blog. She now lives on the West side of the Chesapeake Bay near the James River in Newport News, Virginia. She also spends a great deal of time in the San Francisco Bay area. Trailer and Poetry Videos for Hunger For Salt: www.vimeo.com/elainefletcherchapman or www.elainefletcherchapman.com
1 Poem by Jennifer M. Phillips
Just Stop
I can't settle. Time goes.
The words bunch, block, and back up
like ice chunks in a narrow-necked bottle.
When you said, "I am a popular girl!"
I heard "poplar girl". A grove
of trembling slender stems popped into mind.
Dodging the clutch of the pursuing god.
Too much Ovid. Silly.
There really is no time
to just pretend.
Put off mind-play, don't let its motor idle.
Delve into quiet like a heron
into a mullet. Shelve stale projects,
dalliances and procrastinations.
Let the blood well up in the wound,
tell it, all the way to hell and back.
Or lock up your looking,
click the wards and drop the tumblers,
stack the cards and bluff.
It's gone bad. Don't settle.
Give up burning your living
every driven moment. Just stop.
Pull your hair back, roll the dice.
Bionote
Phillips is an Anglo-Welsh immigrant, an Episcopal Priest, a gardener, grower of Bonsai, and painter, and has been writing poetry and prose since she was seven. She grew up in upstate New York and have lived in New Mexico, St. Louis, Rhode island, and now am back in Massachusetts, where she graduated from Wellesley College and Andover Newton Theological School. Her spiritual sense and writing life have always been rooted in landscapes and their infinite changeability. She has published poetry in a fistful of little magazines, and was recently a finalist in the International Lawrence Durrell Foundation's White Mice Poetry Contest. Her forthcoming poetry chapbook is "Sitting Safe In the Theatre of Electricity".
I can't settle. Time goes.
The words bunch, block, and back up
like ice chunks in a narrow-necked bottle.
When you said, "I am a popular girl!"
I heard "poplar girl". A grove
of trembling slender stems popped into mind.
Dodging the clutch of the pursuing god.
Too much Ovid. Silly.
There really is no time
to just pretend.
Put off mind-play, don't let its motor idle.
Delve into quiet like a heron
into a mullet. Shelve stale projects,
dalliances and procrastinations.
Let the blood well up in the wound,
tell it, all the way to hell and back.
Or lock up your looking,
click the wards and drop the tumblers,
stack the cards and bluff.
It's gone bad. Don't settle.
Give up burning your living
every driven moment. Just stop.
Pull your hair back, roll the dice.
Bionote
Phillips is an Anglo-Welsh immigrant, an Episcopal Priest, a gardener, grower of Bonsai, and painter, and has been writing poetry and prose since she was seven. She grew up in upstate New York and have lived in New Mexico, St. Louis, Rhode island, and now am back in Massachusetts, where she graduated from Wellesley College and Andover Newton Theological School. Her spiritual sense and writing life have always been rooted in landscapes and their infinite changeability. She has published poetry in a fistful of little magazines, and was recently a finalist in the International Lawrence Durrell Foundation's White Mice Poetry Contest. Her forthcoming poetry chapbook is "Sitting Safe In the Theatre of Electricity".
1 Poem by Les Wicks
The Raptures of the Weapon
We, the onlookers hover & howl
but the packets of death fly free ignoring all.
Without gravity or guilt, could
a life could be like this?
We share it, an almost obligatory joy as
light pirouettes within the CPUs
& drones circle targets.
Missiles must fly.
Oiled & polished, the gun longs
for the caress of its trigger.
Knife-hilts are engraved
with their prayers of purpose.
Each killing thing has its destiny
while I am nothing much, dodged
the whetstones for decades.
So by a rutted trail watch this
malice-free desecration with an unhealthy interest.
I admit it has a dire beauty
& there is an art
deep in any despoil.
There is a relationship, the intent
& the target. Fire & steel,
remote detonations, the casual coupling.
Narratives are annealed.
Amongst the mortars & swords
words too have been sharpened to maim.
Last summer I bled & the wound refused to seal.
But have I too laid waste across this warfare called living?
Perhaps this is DNA stuff, small predators like me,
lacking fang or claw, we also scratch plans. Aspire to savagery.
But pleased to say with little result. Across this imperfect life
I have failed at that clean certainty that lubricates the greater hates.
Bionote
Over 40 years Wicks has performed widely across the globe. Published in over 350 different magazines, anthologies & newspapers across 28 countries in 15 languages. Conducts workshops & runs Meuse Press which focuses on poetry outreach projects like poetry on buses & poetry published on the surface of a river. His 14th book of poetry is Belief (Flying Islands, 2019).
We, the onlookers hover & howl
but the packets of death fly free ignoring all.
Without gravity or guilt, could
a life could be like this?
We share it, an almost obligatory joy as
light pirouettes within the CPUs
& drones circle targets.
Missiles must fly.
Oiled & polished, the gun longs
for the caress of its trigger.
Knife-hilts are engraved
with their prayers of purpose.
Each killing thing has its destiny
while I am nothing much, dodged
the whetstones for decades.
So by a rutted trail watch this
malice-free desecration with an unhealthy interest.
I admit it has a dire beauty
& there is an art
deep in any despoil.
There is a relationship, the intent
& the target. Fire & steel,
remote detonations, the casual coupling.
Narratives are annealed.
Amongst the mortars & swords
words too have been sharpened to maim.
Last summer I bled & the wound refused to seal.
But have I too laid waste across this warfare called living?
Perhaps this is DNA stuff, small predators like me,
lacking fang or claw, we also scratch plans. Aspire to savagery.
But pleased to say with little result. Across this imperfect life
I have failed at that clean certainty that lubricates the greater hates.
Bionote
Over 40 years Wicks has performed widely across the globe. Published in over 350 different magazines, anthologies & newspapers across 28 countries in 15 languages. Conducts workshops & runs Meuse Press which focuses on poetry outreach projects like poetry on buses & poetry published on the surface of a river. His 14th book of poetry is Belief (Flying Islands, 2019).
3 Poems by Niels Hav
Encouragement
Isn’t it an uplifting thought
that in a few decades we
and this whole confused epoch
with its dizzy politicians,
wornout arguments,
mawkish TV hosts, dim journalists,
and the complete crapitalistic jubilant choir
will be gone? For all time!
We will disappear.
They will disappear.
I will disappear.
You will disappear.
It will all disappear.
Hurrah!
The dead have no telephones
Letters
no one has written
never arrive.
Snow covers the churchyard.
A taxi waits outside
for ten years.
The dead have no telephones.
Translation Heather Spears
EPIGRAM
You can spend an entire life
in the company of words
not ever finding
the right one.
Just like a wretched fish
wrapped in Hungarian newspapers.
For one thing it is dead,
for another it doesn't understand
Hungarian.
Translation: P.K. Brask & Patrick Friesen
Bionote
Niels Hav; in his native Danish the author of six collections of poetry and three volumes of short fiction. His work has been translated into several languages such as English, Arabic, Portuguese, Turkish, Dutch and Farsi. In English he has We Are Here, published by Book Thug - and poetry in numerous magazines.
Isn’t it an uplifting thought
that in a few decades we
and this whole confused epoch
with its dizzy politicians,
wornout arguments,
mawkish TV hosts, dim journalists,
and the complete crapitalistic jubilant choir
will be gone? For all time!
We will disappear.
They will disappear.
I will disappear.
You will disappear.
It will all disappear.
Hurrah!
The dead have no telephones
Letters
no one has written
never arrive.
Snow covers the churchyard.
A taxi waits outside
for ten years.
The dead have no telephones.
Translation Heather Spears
EPIGRAM
You can spend an entire life
in the company of words
not ever finding
the right one.
Just like a wretched fish
wrapped in Hungarian newspapers.
For one thing it is dead,
for another it doesn't understand
Hungarian.
Translation: P.K. Brask & Patrick Friesen
Bionote
Niels Hav; in his native Danish the author of six collections of poetry and three volumes of short fiction. His work has been translated into several languages such as English, Arabic, Portuguese, Turkish, Dutch and Farsi. In English he has We Are Here, published by Book Thug - and poetry in numerous magazines.
2 Poems by Gonzalinho da Costa
APHORISMS
An aphorism is an ekphrasis about the portrait of life.
The sound of one hand clapping is very loud against the side of your head.
Don’t crow until the sun has fully risen.
You can’t teach an old dog.
Speech is golden when silence is gilded.
Wit is the soul of irony.
An eye for an eye is the gaze between two lovers. A tooth for a tooth is a dental implant.
No evil is unmixed with good. Proportion makes all the difference.
Humanity is not a zero-sum game.
The most destructive alienation is not from a particular community or from society but from oneself.
Be moderate in all things, including moderation itself.
Witness does not require words.
The virtue of silence involves the exercise of good judgment.
Technology is tyranny.
Mercy presupposes an unequal relationship between those who give mercy and those who receive it, because to be merciful is to give what we possess, sometimes in abundance, to our neighbor, so that we ourselves in some way experience deprivation and want.
Distraction is drinking coffee as you pray. Praying while you drink coffee is devotion.
We should not be so occupied with death that we forget to live.
POLITICAL APHORISMS
There is no economy. There is only political economy.
Two linchpins curbing the abuse of political power are the ideology of human rights and the principle of separation of powers.
A liberal republican democracy is the politico-ideological system—imperfect—that when genuinely put into practice effectively checks the abuse of power.
A weak democracy creates the enabling environment that allows fascism to rise and bite off the hand that feeds it.
Judicial tyranny is to contradict and subvert the meaning of the law plainly and unambiguously stated.
The law weaponized against the legitimate political opposition is the misrule of law.
Politicization of the judiciary undermines the impartiality, integrity, and equity that necessarily define the sound administration of justice.
Appeasement emboldens the aggressor.
Truth and justice will prevail, sometimes atop a heap of dead bodies.
Three signs of the devil at work: murder, harlotry, deceit.
Fight fire with fire to start a conflagration.
It’s the political economy, stupid.
Bionote
Gonzalinho da Costa—a pen name—is a management communication and research, statistics, and machine learning consultant. A lover of world literature, he has completed graduate degrees in the humanities, management, communication, and statistics, and writes poetry as a hobby.
An aphorism is an ekphrasis about the portrait of life.
The sound of one hand clapping is very loud against the side of your head.
Don’t crow until the sun has fully risen.
You can’t teach an old dog.
Speech is golden when silence is gilded.
Wit is the soul of irony.
An eye for an eye is the gaze between two lovers. A tooth for a tooth is a dental implant.
No evil is unmixed with good. Proportion makes all the difference.
Humanity is not a zero-sum game.
The most destructive alienation is not from a particular community or from society but from oneself.
Be moderate in all things, including moderation itself.
Witness does not require words.
The virtue of silence involves the exercise of good judgment.
Technology is tyranny.
Mercy presupposes an unequal relationship between those who give mercy and those who receive it, because to be merciful is to give what we possess, sometimes in abundance, to our neighbor, so that we ourselves in some way experience deprivation and want.
Distraction is drinking coffee as you pray. Praying while you drink coffee is devotion.
We should not be so occupied with death that we forget to live.
POLITICAL APHORISMS
There is no economy. There is only political economy.
Two linchpins curbing the abuse of political power are the ideology of human rights and the principle of separation of powers.
A liberal republican democracy is the politico-ideological system—imperfect—that when genuinely put into practice effectively checks the abuse of power.
A weak democracy creates the enabling environment that allows fascism to rise and bite off the hand that feeds it.
Judicial tyranny is to contradict and subvert the meaning of the law plainly and unambiguously stated.
The law weaponized against the legitimate political opposition is the misrule of law.
Politicization of the judiciary undermines the impartiality, integrity, and equity that necessarily define the sound administration of justice.
Appeasement emboldens the aggressor.
Truth and justice will prevail, sometimes atop a heap of dead bodies.
Three signs of the devil at work: murder, harlotry, deceit.
Fight fire with fire to start a conflagration.
It’s the political economy, stupid.
Bionote
Gonzalinho da Costa—a pen name—is a management communication and research, statistics, and machine learning consultant. A lover of world literature, he has completed graduate degrees in the humanities, management, communication, and statistics, and writes poetry as a hobby.
2 Poems by Antony Johae
A Reason for Parting
“The supernatural envelops us and answers us and answers our needs like the atmosphere, but we do not see it.” Charles Baudelaire
In the churches of Rome
I shadowed spirits
You looked for proportion.
In silent chapels
I found space sacred
You measured it.
In St. Peter’s palace
I wondered at magnificence
You took note of scale.
I sounded celestial ceilings
You saw classic form.
That is why we had to part.
We Used To Swim Here
We used to swim here.
You taught me to coordinate my arms and legs
to breathe in time with the strokes
lose my fear of water
ride the waves as they came in.
Now you have gone
I am floundering.
Bionote
Antony Johae is a freelance writer and has taught literature in England, Ghana, Tunisia, and Kuwait. While in Ghana he wrote Guinea Coast Impressions. In 2015, he published Poems of the East. He divides his time between Lebanon and the UK. Lines on Lebanon is in progress. Poetry Salzburg will publish After-Images: Homage to Eric Rohmer in 2019.
“The supernatural envelops us and answers us and answers our needs like the atmosphere, but we do not see it.” Charles Baudelaire
In the churches of Rome
I shadowed spirits
You looked for proportion.
In silent chapels
I found space sacred
You measured it.
In St. Peter’s palace
I wondered at magnificence
You took note of scale.
I sounded celestial ceilings
You saw classic form.
That is why we had to part.
We Used To Swim Here
We used to swim here.
You taught me to coordinate my arms and legs
to breathe in time with the strokes
lose my fear of water
ride the waves as they came in.
Now you have gone
I am floundering.
Bionote
Antony Johae is a freelance writer and has taught literature in England, Ghana, Tunisia, and Kuwait. While in Ghana he wrote Guinea Coast Impressions. In 2015, he published Poems of the East. He divides his time between Lebanon and the UK. Lines on Lebanon is in progress. Poetry Salzburg will publish After-Images: Homage to Eric Rohmer in 2019.
1 Poem & 3 Photos by Fabrice Poussin
Sublimation
I ran through an icy dew
facing another light
blinded by those distant rays
in a land abandoned by greed.
Desert of humanity so frail
I see a dilapidated realm in the distance
warm in the embrace of a gentle dress
of silk I let the cosmos inflate this breast.
Given to infinity I lie among the blades
grass almost still in a soft breeze
unsure of what this shell may mean
waiting for another gift.
It seems not long ago I slept in the cradle
a life whose secrets were preciously kept
awaited me with every dawning sun
atop the mouth of an ancient fire.
In awe before the breath within those veins
a tingling invades the flesh I venture to touch
pearls roll down my sides and sublime
I extend my arms to welcome another life.
Artist's Statement
Photography, like I would suggest any other art form, is poetry; it is language. To speak of one’s words and choices of syntax, is very difficult. How often does the creator of his own work stops to observe, analyze, dissect and discuss his own work from the inside in? All queries are legitimate from the mind of the viewer, but where lie the answers? All I can suggest is possibilities, options, and let the observer decide for himself. These photographs combine the use of ice and glass to give a different view of what surrounds us, here wild flowers, stone and the inside of a cathedral.
Bionote
Fabrice Poussin teaches French and English at Shorter University. Author of novels and poetry, his work has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The Chimes, and many other magazines. His photography has been published in The Front Porch Review, the San Pedro River Review as well as other publications.
I ran through an icy dew
facing another light
blinded by those distant rays
in a land abandoned by greed.
Desert of humanity so frail
I see a dilapidated realm in the distance
warm in the embrace of a gentle dress
of silk I let the cosmos inflate this breast.
Given to infinity I lie among the blades
grass almost still in a soft breeze
unsure of what this shell may mean
waiting for another gift.
It seems not long ago I slept in the cradle
a life whose secrets were preciously kept
awaited me with every dawning sun
atop the mouth of an ancient fire.
In awe before the breath within those veins
a tingling invades the flesh I venture to touch
pearls roll down my sides and sublime
I extend my arms to welcome another life.
Artist's Statement
Photography, like I would suggest any other art form, is poetry; it is language. To speak of one’s words and choices of syntax, is very difficult. How often does the creator of his own work stops to observe, analyze, dissect and discuss his own work from the inside in? All queries are legitimate from the mind of the viewer, but where lie the answers? All I can suggest is possibilities, options, and let the observer decide for himself. These photographs combine the use of ice and glass to give a different view of what surrounds us, here wild flowers, stone and the inside of a cathedral.
Bionote
Fabrice Poussin teaches French and English at Shorter University. Author of novels and poetry, his work has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The Chimes, and many other magazines. His photography has been published in The Front Porch Review, the San Pedro River Review as well as other publications.
2 Poems by D. R. James
Lakeside Bird Feeder, First Day
It should’ve taken only that scouting,
squawking jay to get the word out.
Framed by a pane, on a perch,
he was posed, a post card, puffed
against the brittle cold. His stylish
scarf feathers flicked an impatient face,
and his scruffy topknot busily signaled
who knew who in the neighborhood:
“Easy Supreme and Sunflower Mélange
swinging free off this deck!” See, he’d need
some wirier guys to stir it up, to urge
the tiny silo to flowing so he could
swoop in, scoop out the run-off: “Anyone
game enough to give it a go?” But, no.
And now, not a single soul for supper.
—first published in A Little Instability without Birds (Finishing Line Press, 2006)
Lakeside Bird Feeder, Squirrels
Now if I had ambition I’d be
this kung fu squirrel, this lighter one,
this Jackie Chan, scaling stucco
to ledge to chimney to the hovering skid
of the evil whiz kid’s waffling chopper,
perpetual motion my only gear,
my sidekick wacky as this blacker one,
who tries but can’t quite nab his half
of the substantial stash. Their
choreography is manic, their fight scenes
replete with wall-walking, roof leaping,
jumps across gaps and gorges—all
their own improv’d stunts, every feat
a fleeting, one-take opportunity. It’s
those reflexes that make the difference:
when gravity catches their rare missteps
they can spin around an inch-thick span
of diagonal steel or the slippery rim
of a seed-spill dish, always squirming
all four feet first—whereas I’d just drop,
back-ass-down to the unforgiving earth,
my spindly claws and my mangy tail
spread like a shredded chute, a plea
for anyone at all to catch me. So,
I’ll leave these antics to my friends,
for today, the squirrels, until I can find
a way to foil them, deter them from
this wintertime welfare I’ve intended
for the birds, whose more manageable
business will give me the docile pleasure
I’ve been seeking: sitting here in a chair,
swathed in luscious listlessness, slinging
these escape lines toward anywhere I wish.
—first published in Psychological Clock (Pudding House Publications, 2007)
Bionote
D. R. James has taught college writing, literature, and peace-making for 36 years and lives in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. His most recent of nine collections are Flip Requiem (Dos Madres Press, 2020), Surreal Expulsion (The Poetry Box, 2019), and If god were gentle (Dos Madres Press, 2017), and his micro-chapbook All Her Jazz is free, fun, and printable-for-folding at the Origami Poems Project. https://www.amazon.com/author/
.
It should’ve taken only that scouting,
squawking jay to get the word out.
Framed by a pane, on a perch,
he was posed, a post card, puffed
against the brittle cold. His stylish
scarf feathers flicked an impatient face,
and his scruffy topknot busily signaled
who knew who in the neighborhood:
“Easy Supreme and Sunflower Mélange
swinging free off this deck!” See, he’d need
some wirier guys to stir it up, to urge
the tiny silo to flowing so he could
swoop in, scoop out the run-off: “Anyone
game enough to give it a go?” But, no.
And now, not a single soul for supper.
—first published in A Little Instability without Birds (Finishing Line Press, 2006)
Lakeside Bird Feeder, Squirrels
Now if I had ambition I’d be
this kung fu squirrel, this lighter one,
this Jackie Chan, scaling stucco
to ledge to chimney to the hovering skid
of the evil whiz kid’s waffling chopper,
perpetual motion my only gear,
my sidekick wacky as this blacker one,
who tries but can’t quite nab his half
of the substantial stash. Their
choreography is manic, their fight scenes
replete with wall-walking, roof leaping,
jumps across gaps and gorges—all
their own improv’d stunts, every feat
a fleeting, one-take opportunity. It’s
those reflexes that make the difference:
when gravity catches their rare missteps
they can spin around an inch-thick span
of diagonal steel or the slippery rim
of a seed-spill dish, always squirming
all four feet first—whereas I’d just drop,
back-ass-down to the unforgiving earth,
my spindly claws and my mangy tail
spread like a shredded chute, a plea
for anyone at all to catch me. So,
I’ll leave these antics to my friends,
for today, the squirrels, until I can find
a way to foil them, deter them from
this wintertime welfare I’ve intended
for the birds, whose more manageable
business will give me the docile pleasure
I’ve been seeking: sitting here in a chair,
swathed in luscious listlessness, slinging
these escape lines toward anywhere I wish.
—first published in Psychological Clock (Pudding House Publications, 2007)
Bionote
D. R. James has taught college writing, literature, and peace-making for 36 years and lives in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. His most recent of nine collections are Flip Requiem (Dos Madres Press, 2020), Surreal Expulsion (The Poetry Box, 2019), and If god were gentle (Dos Madres Press, 2017), and his micro-chapbook All Her Jazz is free, fun, and printable-for-folding at the Origami Poems Project. https://www.amazon.com/author/
.
1 Poem by Jake Kemman
Definitions
Hover
In
the subliminal
Tell
us what to call our food
What
the time of day
Says
to the angle of leafy shadows
Stretching
gently across
Our
faces
Composed
Like
sunlit notes
Hold
me. Please.
While
the clouds of definition dictate what
I
fear.
Thank
you for holding me.
Your
hands make it okay.
Bionote
Jake Kemman is an aspiring journalist, lazy poet, and co-author of a yet-unfinished book of humanist (he thinks) spaceship science fiction. He was one of three editors of Hedge Apple’s Spring 2020 edition, has been published in a Z Publishing House anthology for emerging poets of Maryland, and otherwise runs a blog-of-many-faces with his amazing superhuman wife. Find them at www.twoandback.com
Hover
In
the subliminal
Tell
us what to call our food
What
the time of day
Says
to the angle of leafy shadows
Stretching
gently across
Our
faces
Composed
Like
sunlit notes
Hold
me. Please.
While
the clouds of definition dictate what
I
fear.
Thank
you for holding me.
Your
hands make it okay.
Bionote
Jake Kemman is an aspiring journalist, lazy poet, and co-author of a yet-unfinished book of humanist (he thinks) spaceship science fiction. He was one of three editors of Hedge Apple’s Spring 2020 edition, has been published in a Z Publishing House anthology for emerging poets of Maryland, and otherwise runs a blog-of-many-faces with his amazing superhuman wife. Find them at www.twoandback.com
2 Poems by James Croal Jackson
Oklahoma
In these plains I have been
tornado chaos the storm swirling
out of shotglass. Unpredictable
system of bankruptcies this
unknowable thing can become
in a field touching down. Sky
sirens. Muck dust. Lightning
flicks a weary finger– my hand
on your back my funnel
into sky a violin sirensong,
a tenuous tremolo.
Fiction
I strive for greatness a small rock
slips off my tongue words
on the verge of something cosmic
a novel expanding underneath each
breath
Bionote
James Croal Jackson (he/him) has a chapbook, The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017), and poems in Jenny, *82 Review, and Reservoir. He edits The Mantle (themantlepoetry.com). Currently, he works in the film industry in Pittsburgh, PA. (jimjakk.com)
In these plains I have been
tornado chaos the storm swirling
out of shotglass. Unpredictable
system of bankruptcies this
unknowable thing can become
in a field touching down. Sky
sirens. Muck dust. Lightning
flicks a weary finger– my hand
on your back my funnel
into sky a violin sirensong,
a tenuous tremolo.
Fiction
I strive for greatness a small rock
slips off my tongue words
on the verge of something cosmic
a novel expanding underneath each
breath
Bionote
James Croal Jackson (he/him) has a chapbook, The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017), and poems in Jenny, *82 Review, and Reservoir. He edits The Mantle (themantlepoetry.com). Currently, he works in the film industry in Pittsburgh, PA. (jimjakk.com)
1 Poem by James B. Nicola
In the Beginning, or, Making a Point
In the beginning was the line
The point and then the line
The nothingness and then the point and line
And then someone imagining the line
Who put words on the line
To make a point
And then in a capricious moment
Blinked or sneezed or chuckled if not wept
So that the line
Somewhere, some time, somehow
Swerved
Into the spiral that becomes a cornucopia,
Gives rise to us, and grows. And as a line
Goes on forever in both directions, we
Imagine how the spiral does the same
And so a word
And then another word
To make a point
A line
A spiral
Growing out to everything
Till everything
Dissolves to nothingness
And the beginning
Of a point
A line
The word
Bionote
James B. Nicola’s poetry and prose have appeared in Poetry Pacific; the Antioch, Southwest, Green Mountains, and Atlanta Reviews; Rattle; Barrow Street; Tar River; and Poetry East, garnering two Willow Review awards, a Dana Literary award, and six Pushcart nominations. His full-length collections are Manhattan Plaza (2014), Stage to Page (2016), Wind in the Cave (2017), Out of Nothing: Poems of Art and Artists (2018) and Quickening: Poems from Before and Beyond (2019). His nonfiction book Playing the Audience won a Choice award. He is facilitator for the Hell's Kitchen International Writers' Roundtable, which meets twice monthly at Manhattan's Columbus Library: walk-ins welcome!
In the beginning was the line
The point and then the line
The nothingness and then the point and line
And then someone imagining the line
Who put words on the line
To make a point
And then in a capricious moment
Blinked or sneezed or chuckled if not wept
So that the line
Somewhere, some time, somehow
Swerved
Into the spiral that becomes a cornucopia,
Gives rise to us, and grows. And as a line
Goes on forever in both directions, we
Imagine how the spiral does the same
And so a word
And then another word
To make a point
A line
A spiral
Growing out to everything
Till everything
Dissolves to nothingness
And the beginning
Of a point
A line
The word
Bionote
James B. Nicola’s poetry and prose have appeared in Poetry Pacific; the Antioch, Southwest, Green Mountains, and Atlanta Reviews; Rattle; Barrow Street; Tar River; and Poetry East, garnering two Willow Review awards, a Dana Literary award, and six Pushcart nominations. His full-length collections are Manhattan Plaza (2014), Stage to Page (2016), Wind in the Cave (2017), Out of Nothing: Poems of Art and Artists (2018) and Quickening: Poems from Before and Beyond (2019). His nonfiction book Playing the Audience won a Choice award. He is facilitator for the Hell's Kitchen International Writers' Roundtable, which meets twice monthly at Manhattan's Columbus Library: walk-ins welcome!
1 Poem by Ying Wu
Your Own Horizon
Waves start somewhere.
Ocean swell. Wind chop.
Motor wake. Tidal surge.
You watch as sunlight
shimmers on the harbor
and feel the way your own
thoughts dance and ripple
and feel the space
inside your mind
beyond the shores
of things you know
or plan or dream –
this open space.
Waves start somewhere.
Bionote
Ying Wu is a poet and cognitive scientist. She hosts the Gelato Poetry reading series in San Diego (meetup.com/BrokenAnchorPoetry). She is a proud member of the editorial teams of Writer’s Resist and the Kids! San Diego Poetry Annual. More examples of her work can be found online at Poetry and Art at the San Diego Art Institute (poetryandartsd.com), the Serving House Journal (servinghousejournal.com), and Writer’s Resist, as well as in the material world at the San Diego Airport, and in print journals, such as the Clackamas Literary Review. She currently studies insight and problem solving (insight.ucsd.edu) at UC San Diego and lives with her husband and daughter on a sailboat in the San Diego Bay.
Waves start somewhere.
Ocean swell. Wind chop.
Motor wake. Tidal surge.
You watch as sunlight
shimmers on the harbor
and feel the way your own
thoughts dance and ripple
and feel the space
inside your mind
beyond the shores
of things you know
or plan or dream –
this open space.
Waves start somewhere.
Bionote
Ying Wu is a poet and cognitive scientist. She hosts the Gelato Poetry reading series in San Diego (meetup.com/BrokenAnchorPoetry). She is a proud member of the editorial teams of Writer’s Resist and the Kids! San Diego Poetry Annual. More examples of her work can be found online at Poetry and Art at the San Diego Art Institute (poetryandartsd.com), the Serving House Journal (servinghousejournal.com), and Writer’s Resist, as well as in the material world at the San Diego Airport, and in print journals, such as the Clackamas Literary Review. She currently studies insight and problem solving (insight.ucsd.edu) at UC San Diego and lives with her husband and daughter on a sailboat in the San Diego Bay.
2 Poems by Douglas Cole
Festive Cruise Ships to Far Star Resorts
Portholes shimmer like jewels in the mist,
ships like souls plunging into the orange sun.
In Berkeley, I wandered magical jungle hills,
streets fact-checking themselves,
verandas overlooking the groves—
I put the pipe to her lips.
Her friends were like handmaids all night
trying to talk her back down. The brother was later
cured of cancer by miracle. The jasmine dream,
silver creeks flowing through eucalyptus groves,
squirrels climbing up to my knee and that girl
following me around with her camera.
The romance of the university: the best,
smartest professors, the brightest students—
a village of the excellent! But I didn’t have the grades
or the money. Look, sails are filling with wind,
mountains are wandering around, and the cold blue
water is coming back into the sound.
Soul Parts
all my life I’ve been holding my breath
five minutes boy five minutes of silence
and then we’ll let you go
death is a get-out-of-jail-free card
my mind stumbles through your syntax
too much un and re
I am between the lines and the intermissions
a pause in the grueling routine
Bionote
Douglas Cole has published six collections of poetry and a novella. His work has appeared in several anthologies as well as The Chicago Quarterly Review, The Galway Review, Bitter Oleander, Louisiana Literature and Slipstream. He has been nominated twice for a Pushcart and Best of the Net and received the Leslie Hunt Memorial Prize in Poetry. He lives and teaches in Seattle. His website is douglastcole.com.
Portholes shimmer like jewels in the mist,
ships like souls plunging into the orange sun.
In Berkeley, I wandered magical jungle hills,
streets fact-checking themselves,
verandas overlooking the groves—
I put the pipe to her lips.
Her friends were like handmaids all night
trying to talk her back down. The brother was later
cured of cancer by miracle. The jasmine dream,
silver creeks flowing through eucalyptus groves,
squirrels climbing up to my knee and that girl
following me around with her camera.
The romance of the university: the best,
smartest professors, the brightest students—
a village of the excellent! But I didn’t have the grades
or the money. Look, sails are filling with wind,
mountains are wandering around, and the cold blue
water is coming back into the sound.
Soul Parts
all my life I’ve been holding my breath
five minutes boy five minutes of silence
and then we’ll let you go
death is a get-out-of-jail-free card
my mind stumbles through your syntax
too much un and re
I am between the lines and the intermissions
a pause in the grueling routine
Bionote
Douglas Cole has published six collections of poetry and a novella. His work has appeared in several anthologies as well as The Chicago Quarterly Review, The Galway Review, Bitter Oleander, Louisiana Literature and Slipstream. He has been nominated twice for a Pushcart and Best of the Net and received the Leslie Hunt Memorial Prize in Poetry. He lives and teaches in Seattle. His website is douglastcole.com.
1 Poem by Casey Bush
Old Man Scrubbing Graffiti from the Library Wall
Enraptured progenitor of consensus
What mushrooms ring your tree?
What faded flowers do you wear in your hair?
What possibly can be learned from poetry
That isn’t already written in the lines on your face?
Sacrifice the firmament in the name of revenue
Lower the skies until all panoramas collide
Drink from the river until it runs dry
And then retreat to a mountain top citadel
Where pious folk seek desolation
Where men of granite tremble before thunder
And their women weed gardens without crops
As Splendor is superior to Veracity
As latitudes will continue to meander
As there’s no arrogance that can prevent erosion
All you need to know is in your own mind
And all you need to subsist is at your fingertips
Old age can wait until it’s too late
Keep silent about tomorrow’s incandescence
Keep silent about the power of music
Gray hair on your head
Has more color than can be imagined
Without the light of day
Bionote
Casey Bush is a longtime Portland poet whose most recent collection “Student of the Hippocampus” was published in 2017 by Last Word Press (Olympia, WA). He is a senior editor of The Bear Deluxe Magazine which explores environmental issues through the literary and graphic arts.
Enraptured progenitor of consensus
What mushrooms ring your tree?
What faded flowers do you wear in your hair?
What possibly can be learned from poetry
That isn’t already written in the lines on your face?
Sacrifice the firmament in the name of revenue
Lower the skies until all panoramas collide
Drink from the river until it runs dry
And then retreat to a mountain top citadel
Where pious folk seek desolation
Where men of granite tremble before thunder
And their women weed gardens without crops
As Splendor is superior to Veracity
As latitudes will continue to meander
As there’s no arrogance that can prevent erosion
All you need to know is in your own mind
And all you need to subsist is at your fingertips
Old age can wait until it’s too late
Keep silent about tomorrow’s incandescence
Keep silent about the power of music
Gray hair on your head
Has more color than can be imagined
Without the light of day
Bionote
Casey Bush is a longtime Portland poet whose most recent collection “Student of the Hippocampus” was published in 2017 by Last Word Press (Olympia, WA). He is a senior editor of The Bear Deluxe Magazine which explores environmental issues through the literary and graphic arts.
2 Poems by Josh Medsker
Four Inspiring Quotes
(with Inspirobot)
I. Life is not a project, it’s a joke;
understand that you’re losing your mind.
II. Trust the silliness, not the realness, for
if you believe in yourself, a comedian wins.
III. Encourage the cosmofinity of animals, for
without consciousness there is no rhythm.
IV. Look busy and ask no questions (after the
impossible comes the confusion).
Hair Poem
When you fall asleep on the couch
and your mouth’s slightly open
I lean over and kiss your temple
smelling up all of you, just
filling my mind with you
before going upstairs
for more tea.
Sometimes I just want to
clip a lock of your hair
so I can glue it on me
like a mustache
and wear you every day.
Bionote
Josh Medsker's writing has appeared in many publications, including: Poetry Pacific, Contemporary American Voices, The Brooklyn Rail, The Review Review, Haiku Journal, and Red Savina Review. For a complete list of Mr. Medsker's publications, please visit his website. (www.joshmedsker.com)
(with Inspirobot)
I. Life is not a project, it’s a joke;
understand that you’re losing your mind.
II. Trust the silliness, not the realness, for
if you believe in yourself, a comedian wins.
III. Encourage the cosmofinity of animals, for
without consciousness there is no rhythm.
IV. Look busy and ask no questions (after the
impossible comes the confusion).
Hair Poem
When you fall asleep on the couch
and your mouth’s slightly open
I lean over and kiss your temple
smelling up all of you, just
filling my mind with you
before going upstairs
for more tea.
Sometimes I just want to
clip a lock of your hair
so I can glue it on me
like a mustache
and wear you every day.
Bionote
Josh Medsker's writing has appeared in many publications, including: Poetry Pacific, Contemporary American Voices, The Brooklyn Rail, The Review Review, Haiku Journal, and Red Savina Review. For a complete list of Mr. Medsker's publications, please visit his website. (www.joshmedsker.com)
1 Poem by Bruce Louis Dodson
We Are The People
On the bus
The vast majority of us
Stand next to others we don’t know
Strange faces . . . colors, smells, beliefs
The other people
Crowded on a pre-dawn morning
On our way to work
Then home again—and maybe later
Two days off
Or not.
We have known dismal, late night rides . . . almost alone
Or waiting for the next one coming by
We do this almost without second thought
Simple necessity of life and
Lack of money, chauffeurs, maids
We are the maids, chauffeurs
Blue and white collars
Making world go round
Clean up the mess—pay taxes
Fight the wars
For those
Who never stood beside us.
So it goes.
Bionote
Bruce Louis Dodson is an American expat living in Borlänge, Sweden. Recent work has appeared in: Foreign & Far Away Anthology, Trip of a Lifetime Anthology, Pirene’s Fountain, Tic Toc Anthology, Litro Magazine, Cordite Poetry Review, Buffalo Almanac, So It Goes, Maintenant, Permafrost, Whitefish Review, Pure Slush, and Dash Literary Journal.
On the bus
The vast majority of us
Stand next to others we don’t know
Strange faces . . . colors, smells, beliefs
The other people
Crowded on a pre-dawn morning
On our way to work
Then home again—and maybe later
Two days off
Or not.
We have known dismal, late night rides . . . almost alone
Or waiting for the next one coming by
We do this almost without second thought
Simple necessity of life and
Lack of money, chauffeurs, maids
We are the maids, chauffeurs
Blue and white collars
Making world go round
Clean up the mess—pay taxes
Fight the wars
For those
Who never stood beside us.
So it goes.
Bionote
Bruce Louis Dodson is an American expat living in Borlänge, Sweden. Recent work has appeared in: Foreign & Far Away Anthology, Trip of a Lifetime Anthology, Pirene’s Fountain, Tic Toc Anthology, Litro Magazine, Cordite Poetry Review, Buffalo Almanac, So It Goes, Maintenant, Permafrost, Whitefish Review, Pure Slush, and Dash Literary Journal.
2 Poems by Gene Hodge
A Little Girl’s Smile
When God created the worlds
he took the light from his heart,
gave it to the sun,
who shared it with the moon,
who shared it with the stars.
Together . . .
they placed it
in a little girl’s smile
and named it
“Love.”
The Day I Became Friends With The Rain
It was in the year—
that people complained
that it rains every day
and sarcastically . . .
that the sun
must have taken permanent residence in Florida—
that I . . .
walked one day, without an umbrella,
in a downpour,
that the dogs, from there dog houses barked,
and neighbors peaked through curtains
at a crazy man
who laughed and talked—as if with great sense—
to the rain.
Bionote
Gene Hodge is a member of the Chattanooga Writer’s Guild. He was born in Sparta, Tennessee. Attended Sparta White County High School, and then Business College in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
After two years of active service in the United States Army, he studied four years as an electrician apprentice—receiving a Journeyman Wireman certification through International Bureau of Electrical Workers, Local 175. He is a professional entertainer and performs locally and through-out the southeast. Many of his poems have been published in Songs of Eretz Poetry Review.
When God created the worlds
he took the light from his heart,
gave it to the sun,
who shared it with the moon,
who shared it with the stars.
Together . . .
they placed it
in a little girl’s smile
and named it
“Love.”
The Day I Became Friends With The Rain
It was in the year—
that people complained
that it rains every day
and sarcastically . . .
that the sun
must have taken permanent residence in Florida—
that I . . .
walked one day, without an umbrella,
in a downpour,
that the dogs, from there dog houses barked,
and neighbors peaked through curtains
at a crazy man
who laughed and talked—as if with great sense—
to the rain.
Bionote
Gene Hodge is a member of the Chattanooga Writer’s Guild. He was born in Sparta, Tennessee. Attended Sparta White County High School, and then Business College in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
After two years of active service in the United States Army, he studied four years as an electrician apprentice—receiving a Journeyman Wireman certification through International Bureau of Electrical Workers, Local 175. He is a professional entertainer and performs locally and through-out the southeast. Many of his poems have been published in Songs of Eretz Poetry Review.
1 Poem by Lindsay Ballew
Package
the woman at the post office said
That box is full of possibilities
Yes it is a typewriter
Bionote
Lindsay Ballew is a native Texan who chased the desert to New Mexico, where she is raising two boys with her beautiful soulmate, and works with her elders as an occupational therapist. She is new to submitting poetry, and has been published by Cacti Fur.
the woman at the post office said
That box is full of possibilities
Yes it is a typewriter
Bionote
Lindsay Ballew is a native Texan who chased the desert to New Mexico, where she is raising two boys with her beautiful soulmate, and works with her elders as an occupational therapist. She is new to submitting poetry, and has been published by Cacti Fur.
2 Poems by Andrew Shields
Poet Spam
Undetectable anabolic steroid
maxes your poetic imagination.
Guaranteed immediate publication.
No side effects! Surest way to avoid
rejection slips. Make every urine test
completely clean. Why not be the best?
Write more and better poems in no time.
100 pills for 19.99.
Two Small Snowmen Discuss The Skiing Conditions
"There isn't enough
perfect snow."
"You have to make
a little go
a long way."
"The powder's good,
but much too thin."
"I wish it would
snow again."
"More perfect snow,
and we could ski."
"And we could grow."
Bionote
Andrew Shields lives in Basel, Switzerland. His collection of poems "Thomas Hardy Listens to Louis Armstrong" was published by Eyewear in 2015. His band Human Shields released the album "Somebody's Hometown" in 2015 and the EP "Défense de jouer" in 2016.
Undetectable anabolic steroid
maxes your poetic imagination.
Guaranteed immediate publication.
No side effects! Surest way to avoid
rejection slips. Make every urine test
completely clean. Why not be the best?
Write more and better poems in no time.
100 pills for 19.99.
Two Small Snowmen Discuss The Skiing Conditions
"There isn't enough
perfect snow."
"You have to make
a little go
a long way."
"The powder's good,
but much too thin."
"I wish it would
snow again."
"More perfect snow,
and we could ski."
"And we could grow."
Bionote
Andrew Shields lives in Basel, Switzerland. His collection of poems "Thomas Hardy Listens to Louis Armstrong" was published by Eyewear in 2015. His band Human Shields released the album "Somebody's Hometown" in 2015 and the EP "Défense de jouer" in 2016.
1 Poem by Klaudia Rogowicz
We're all spirits
a tribute to Native Australians
Your name's written
in snake's eyes.
I can open my mind
and throw stars to the desert.
I was created while
it was world's future dreaming.
Harvesters've just come to my village.
I can share my time
but soul belongs to Earth Spirits.
Bionote
Klaudia Rogowicz- born 5th April 1987, Polish poet, drama, screen and storywriter. Her poems have been published in many Polish and foreign magazines. Her story Geography lesson has been translated in German and published in Polish-German anthology concerning childhood. She writes both in English and Polish. Her poem in English has been published in Dying Dahlia review, Mojave Heart Review and Cordella . Her interests are: music, art, history, religions, gender and LGBT issues as well as mysticism.
a tribute to Native Australians
Your name's written
in snake's eyes.
I can open my mind
and throw stars to the desert.
I was created while
it was world's future dreaming.
Harvesters've just come to my village.
I can share my time
but soul belongs to Earth Spirits.
Bionote
Klaudia Rogowicz- born 5th April 1987, Polish poet, drama, screen and storywriter. Her poems have been published in many Polish and foreign magazines. Her story Geography lesson has been translated in German and published in Polish-German anthology concerning childhood. She writes both in English and Polish. Her poem in English has been published in Dying Dahlia review, Mojave Heart Review and Cordella . Her interests are: music, art, history, religions, gender and LGBT issues as well as mysticism.
1 Poem by John Maurer
Diagnosis
You are damned with this forever
You have no choice but to learn to dance with the devil on your back
And he has no fucking rhythm; swaying back and forth because he's drunk
This exasperated by me being drunk too
But how can I not be
No one else sees the devil, but they all promise that they believe me, they know someone else who has an invisible devil on their back, so they get it, sometimes they even think they have an invisible devil on their own back they say and then they laugh and you are meant to feel included, they kiss you on the forehead insincerely, yet you are still left feeling like Judas
Bionote
John Maurer is a 24-year-old writer from Pittsburgh that writes fiction, poetry, and everything in-between, but his work always strives to portray that what is true is beautiful. He has been previously published in Claudius Speaks, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Thought Catalog, and dozens of others. @JohnPMaurer (johnpmaurer.com)
You are damned with this forever
You have no choice but to learn to dance with the devil on your back
And he has no fucking rhythm; swaying back and forth because he's drunk
This exasperated by me being drunk too
But how can I not be
No one else sees the devil, but they all promise that they believe me, they know someone else who has an invisible devil on their back, so they get it, sometimes they even think they have an invisible devil on their own back they say and then they laugh and you are meant to feel included, they kiss you on the forehead insincerely, yet you are still left feeling like Judas
Bionote
John Maurer is a 24-year-old writer from Pittsburgh that writes fiction, poetry, and everything in-between, but his work always strives to portray that what is true is beautiful. He has been previously published in Claudius Speaks, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Thought Catalog, and dozens of others. @JohnPMaurer (johnpmaurer.com)
1 Poem by Fizza Abbas
Departure
A tree died out
leaving a branch detached
from the fellow branches
A solitary branch
while facing the sky
smiles and asks for a companion
autumn comes to the rescue!
Bionote
Fizza Abbas is a Freelance Content Writer based in Karachi, Pakistan. She is fond of poetry and music. Her works have been published at many platforms including Indiana Voice Journal and Poetry Pacific.
A tree died out
leaving a branch detached
from the fellow branches
A solitary branch
while facing the sky
smiles and asks for a companion
autumn comes to the rescue!
Bionote
Fizza Abbas is a Freelance Content Writer based in Karachi, Pakistan. She is fond of poetry and music. Her works have been published at many platforms including Indiana Voice Journal and Poetry Pacific.
3 Poems by Valeri Beers
Vampire Girl
Her kiss
is
insistent, intimate & infuriating.
Whining "GIMME"
in your ear.
By
the time
you feel
her
touch,
it's too late.
She
defies Death
again & again.
Bitch.
Summer Poem
Why
did you
leave
so quickly?
Was
it something
I
said?
Why
were you
so
inconsistent
with
your warmth?
Flood
black wetness slowly creeps
places
it
should not
be the
waves
gently lapping
are deceiving
as they
damage
Bionote
Valeri Beers is from Bangor, Maine. She had her first book of poems titled ...details... published by Thomas Hill Publishing. Beers' second book of poetry and haikus titled Scratching The Surface was published by Underground Writing Association in May 2019. She has been writing all her life and is inspired to write by listening to music and needing to remember things. Valeri has been published in a number of print and online literary magazines including Literature Today, The Lit House, The Wicked, Poets of Maine, Qutub Minar Review, Clockwise Rain, Our Day Of Passing and Dandelion in a Vase of Roses. She has links to her poems on her own poetry site:
wordsoftheval2000.wordpress.com. You can also connect with her on Facebook (Valeri Beers) and Twitter(@theval2000). She has been a guest poet on the Power of Poetics and Quintessential Listening: Poetry podcasts with Dr. Michael Anthony Ingram, talking all things poetic and reading her own poems.Valeri also helps take poetic care of Poetry Pasta (www.poetrypasta.wordpress.com), an online poetry page that shows off new poets and their words along with the Facebook Poetry Pasta page.
Her kiss
is
insistent, intimate & infuriating.
Whining "GIMME"
in your ear.
By
the time
you feel
her
touch,
it's too late.
She
defies Death
again & again.
Bitch.
Summer Poem
Why
did you
leave
so quickly?
Was
it something
I
said?
Why
were you
so
inconsistent
with
your warmth?
Flood
black wetness slowly creeps
places
it
should not
be the
waves
gently lapping
are deceiving
as they
damage
Bionote
Valeri Beers is from Bangor, Maine. She had her first book of poems titled ...details... published by Thomas Hill Publishing. Beers' second book of poetry and haikus titled Scratching The Surface was published by Underground Writing Association in May 2019. She has been writing all her life and is inspired to write by listening to music and needing to remember things. Valeri has been published in a number of print and online literary magazines including Literature Today, The Lit House, The Wicked, Poets of Maine, Qutub Minar Review, Clockwise Rain, Our Day Of Passing and Dandelion in a Vase of Roses. She has links to her poems on her own poetry site:
wordsoftheval2000.wordpress.com. You can also connect with her on Facebook (Valeri Beers) and Twitter(@theval2000). She has been a guest poet on the Power of Poetics and Quintessential Listening: Poetry podcasts with Dr. Michael Anthony Ingram, talking all things poetic and reading her own poems.Valeri also helps take poetic care of Poetry Pasta (www.poetrypasta.wordpress.com), an online poetry page that shows off new poets and their words along with the Facebook Poetry Pasta page.
2 Poems by Eric Luthi
Cold Hearth
I came home early to find a fire burning.
But it was not for me.
Triangle
Faded blue jeans
In the wind.
Holes
Where knees used to be.
White t-shirts
And red flannel.
All-American
Clothesline.
Mom folds
and stores them
Away. Hoping
I grow into them.
Glory rests,
gently folded
triangle
on the mantle.
Bionote
Eric Luthi writes plays, short stories and narrative fiction and, on occasion, poetry. He published his first novel, Black Works last October and is working on his second novel.
I came home early to find a fire burning.
But it was not for me.
Triangle
Faded blue jeans
In the wind.
Holes
Where knees used to be.
White t-shirts
And red flannel.
All-American
Clothesline.
Mom folds
and stores them
Away. Hoping
I grow into them.
Glory rests,
gently folded
triangle
on the mantle.
Bionote
Eric Luthi writes plays, short stories and narrative fiction and, on occasion, poetry. He published his first novel, Black Works last October and is working on his second novel.
1 Poem by Mary Ellen Talley
A Window Is a Sea
-Dean Young
She is a window
into which words swirl
in an effortless maze
of decomposition. There’s
no way out
even if she could find
the key to where the sea
meets the glassy pain
of resistance
previously called brittle
now a gelatinous mass
sliding as if the least touch
releases a jellyfish sting.
It is remarkably miniscule
with persistence to grow
given sips of fresh water.
Acidification is definitely
complicating her prognosis,
the miniscule made
a brilliant determining factor
of dumb luck –
or none.
Bionote
Mary Ellen Talley’s poems have recently been published in Raven Chronicles, U City Review and Ekphrastic Review as well as in anthologies, All We Can Hold and Ice Cream Poems. Her poetry has received two Pushcart Nominations.
-Dean Young
She is a window
into which words swirl
in an effortless maze
of decomposition. There’s
no way out
even if she could find
the key to where the sea
meets the glassy pain
of resistance
previously called brittle
now a gelatinous mass
sliding as if the least touch
releases a jellyfish sting.
It is remarkably miniscule
with persistence to grow
given sips of fresh water.
Acidification is definitely
complicating her prognosis,
the miniscule made
a brilliant determining factor
of dumb luck –
or none.
Bionote
Mary Ellen Talley’s poems have recently been published in Raven Chronicles, U City Review and Ekphrastic Review as well as in anthologies, All We Can Hold and Ice Cream Poems. Her poetry has received two Pushcart Nominations.
1 Poem by Carson Pytell
Stars
It is said we are born of stardust,
Elementally at least.
The carbon in us is out there too,
Shining when the sun goes to rest.
And when we die our elements
Head skyward and join the Heavens.
If we're lucky, to be part of a star.
But even there we cannot escape death,
Even stars must collapse and die,
Even if it's after millennia.
But, like our deaths becoming
Food for future light,
The elements of a dead star,
Maybe a little of us,
Scatter and form life anew.
Seems like death, more than the end,
Is the beginning of anything.
Bionote
Carson Pytell is a poet living in a very small town in upstate New York. His work may be found or is forthcoming in such publications as Vita Brevis Press, Literary Yard, Leaves of Ink, Revolution John, Corvus Review, Gideon Poetry Review and Poetry Pacific.
It is said we are born of stardust,
Elementally at least.
The carbon in us is out there too,
Shining when the sun goes to rest.
And when we die our elements
Head skyward and join the Heavens.
If we're lucky, to be part of a star.
But even there we cannot escape death,
Even stars must collapse and die,
Even if it's after millennia.
But, like our deaths becoming
Food for future light,
The elements of a dead star,
Maybe a little of us,
Scatter and form life anew.
Seems like death, more than the end,
Is the beginning of anything.
Bionote
Carson Pytell is a poet living in a very small town in upstate New York. His work may be found or is forthcoming in such publications as Vita Brevis Press, Literary Yard, Leaves of Ink, Revolution John, Corvus Review, Gideon Poetry Review and Poetry Pacific.
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