The Self
"The study of myself is the study
of all I do not know." --Montaigne
What kind of day was it. Clean
the house. Notice the full moon.
Read a sheaf of old poems.
Listen to jazz tunes. Open mail.
Refuse to make of it more
than it was. What is it for,
don't ask. Squirrel or spider
your cares are yours to savor,
enjoy or fear. Tinnitus
of the ear, sinusitis
of the nose, bale contriteness
of the soul. Moriturus.
Consider economy
soul's eponymity.
The opening canopy
panoramic mystery.
Neither joyful nor depressed.
Not the worst and not the best.
I lived, as did my dentist.
To the east and west, the self.
Bionote
Robert Ronnow's most recent poetry collections are New & Selected Poems: 1975-2005 (Barnwood Press, 2007) and Communicating the Bird (Broken Publications, 2012). Visit his web site at www.ronnowpoetry.com.
Sunday, 5 November 2017
2 Poems by David Francis
Drops Falling After a Downpour
Stick my head
out the window
from our hotel room
into the alley
so dark
with a bad smell
and feel
the drops falling
catch one
in my hand
one on
my eyelid
am I
catching
the present
From Empire Diner
Looking up –
there is an anchor-shaped cross
that is a man
arms outstretched on the railing
only the white undershirt
gleams like spot-lit billboard cloth
(the face is obscure
from time to time
disappears and reappears)
and all the ventilation
under the umbrellas
won’t air the claustrophobia
in that room.
Bionote
David Francis has produced six albums of songs, one of poems, and "Always/Far," a chapbook of lyrics and drawings. His film "Village Folksinger" has been screened in the US and the UK. David's
poems and stories have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies. www.davidfrancismusic.com
Stick my head
out the window
from our hotel room
into the alley
so dark
with a bad smell
and feel
the drops falling
catch one
in my hand
one on
my eyelid
am I
catching
the present
From Empire Diner
Looking up –
there is an anchor-shaped cross
that is a man
arms outstretched on the railing
only the white undershirt
gleams like spot-lit billboard cloth
(the face is obscure
from time to time
disappears and reappears)
and all the ventilation
under the umbrellas
won’t air the claustrophobia
in that room.
Bionote
David Francis has produced six albums of songs, one of poems, and "Always/Far," a chapbook of lyrics and drawings. His film "Village Folksinger" has been screened in the US and the UK. David's
poems and stories have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies. www.davidfrancismusic.com
2 Poems by Jim Conwell
I wanted
I wanted her to love me.
I wanted to be her big brother,
sitting there with her in the windswept corridor
just beyond the revolving doors.
That we could be in silent camaraderie,
Beyond words.
Something that time would not change.
But she was travelling in one direction,
And I in another.
It had always been so.
So we put her away.
In a crude, dirty hole in the ground.
Because we have finished with her.
Because we do not like the dead.
Sure, me own father’s house is the same.
This time, it has crossed over some line.
The crack that runs from chimney to ground
has opened up something vital
that will bleed out now from behind the render.
In the downstairs room a wild animal
has smashed the old chair
into pieces. There is now only a sad chaos.
The land will take it back.
Bionote
With an original background in Fine Art, Jim Conwell has worked in mental health for over thirty years. He has had poems published in magazines in the UK, Ireland, Australia and North America and had two poems shortlisted in the Bridport Poetry Prize 2015. He lives in London, England.
I wanted her to love me.
I wanted to be her big brother,
sitting there with her in the windswept corridor
just beyond the revolving doors.
That we could be in silent camaraderie,
Beyond words.
Something that time would not change.
But she was travelling in one direction,
And I in another.
It had always been so.
So we put her away.
In a crude, dirty hole in the ground.
Because we have finished with her.
Because we do not like the dead.
Sure, me own father’s house is the same.
This time, it has crossed over some line.
The crack that runs from chimney to ground
has opened up something vital
that will bleed out now from behind the render.
In the downstairs room a wild animal
has smashed the old chair
into pieces. There is now only a sad chaos.
The land will take it back.
Bionote
With an original background in Fine Art, Jim Conwell has worked in mental health for over thirty years. He has had poems published in magazines in the UK, Ireland, Australia and North America and had two poems shortlisted in the Bridport Poetry Prize 2015. He lives in London, England.
2 Poems by Terry Jude Miller
A Life of Disbelief
what is coming back
over dusk's edge
is the part of you
set adrift years ago
on the sea of disillusionment
it has gathered the barnacles
of broken promises and dandelions
and the curve of the grackle's wing
it returns with regret and grief
stacked high and full
in its hull, like sacks
of seed rice that will
never be planted
long gone are angelic creatures
they sing only once
in each man's life
so you must learn quickly
or not at all
hear the rumble you hope
is thunder, but you know
it's the hooves of a lone rider's horse,
the robed traveler come to collect his due
Insomnia, The Nymphomaniac
insomnia's an insatiable lover
she wants all your time
both waking and sleeping hours
she wants all of you
your mind, your soul,
the bus schedule in your pajama pocket
and just when you close your eyes
and think she's finally had enough
she pries open your lift lid
and whispers "Peek-a-boo"
Bionote
Terry Jude Miller is a poet from Houston, Texas. The recipient of many Poetry Society of Texas poetry awards, a Juried Poet for the 2011 & 2012 Houston Poetry Festivals and winner of the Global Peace Poem competition of the 2012 Tyler Peace Festival, his work has been published in scores of publications including anthologies of the Austin International Poetry Festival and the Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival, the Texas Poetry Calendar, Harbinger Asylum, Postcard Poems and Prose Magazine, Everyday Poets, the University of Houston's Bayou Review, Ancient Paths, Orbis, Stepping Stones Magazine, Furnace Review, Shine Journal, Blue Skies Poetry, Survivor's Review, Live Oak Review, Lamplighter Review, Bijou Poetry Review, Chaffey Review, Foundling Review, Houston Literary Review, Boston Literary Magazine, the Edison Literary Review, and the Birmingham Arts Journal. Miller's books of poetry, are titled: "The Day I Killed Superman", "What If I Find Only Moonlight?", and "The Butterfly Canonical" and can be purchased at barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com. He is a member of the Academy of American Poets, the Poetry Society of Texas, the Gulf Coast Poets Society, and Poets Northwest (Houston). He is the creator of the Texas Poets Podcast. Terry is a retired professor of eMarketing and held an Innovation Fellowship at Kaplan University.
what is coming back
over dusk's edge
is the part of you
set adrift years ago
on the sea of disillusionment
it has gathered the barnacles
of broken promises and dandelions
and the curve of the grackle's wing
it returns with regret and grief
stacked high and full
in its hull, like sacks
of seed rice that will
never be planted
long gone are angelic creatures
they sing only once
in each man's life
so you must learn quickly
or not at all
hear the rumble you hope
is thunder, but you know
it's the hooves of a lone rider's horse,
the robed traveler come to collect his due
Insomnia, The Nymphomaniac
insomnia's an insatiable lover
she wants all your time
both waking and sleeping hours
she wants all of you
your mind, your soul,
the bus schedule in your pajama pocket
and just when you close your eyes
and think she's finally had enough
she pries open your lift lid
and whispers "Peek-a-boo"
Bionote
Terry Jude Miller is a poet from Houston, Texas. The recipient of many Poetry Society of Texas poetry awards, a Juried Poet for the 2011 & 2012 Houston Poetry Festivals and winner of the Global Peace Poem competition of the 2012 Tyler Peace Festival, his work has been published in scores of publications including anthologies of the Austin International Poetry Festival and the Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival, the Texas Poetry Calendar, Harbinger Asylum, Postcard Poems and Prose Magazine, Everyday Poets, the University of Houston's Bayou Review, Ancient Paths, Orbis, Stepping Stones Magazine, Furnace Review, Shine Journal, Blue Skies Poetry, Survivor's Review, Live Oak Review, Lamplighter Review, Bijou Poetry Review, Chaffey Review, Foundling Review, Houston Literary Review, Boston Literary Magazine, the Edison Literary Review, and the Birmingham Arts Journal. Miller's books of poetry, are titled: "The Day I Killed Superman", "What If I Find Only Moonlight?", and "The Butterfly Canonical" and can be purchased at barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com. He is a member of the Academy of American Poets, the Poetry Society of Texas, the Gulf Coast Poets Society, and Poets Northwest (Houston). He is the creator of the Texas Poets Podcast. Terry is a retired professor of eMarketing and held an Innovation Fellowship at Kaplan University.
1 Poem by Joel Schueler
I Lost You Somewhere
Where were you in dreams of the shore?
Where were you in the hours before?
Sitting, writhing, eating away
I lost you somewhere close by,
Or was it me and my heady eye
I searched and searched and searched,
But all along it was surely I
Up above the clouds of lead.
You swam amongst the starry sky
So
Capture me once again
And disperse my heart up high
Bionote
Joel lives in Wiltshire, England. He has a BA (Hons) degree in English Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Twelve works of his have been accepted in ten publications including Atlantean Publishing, The Dawntreader, Poetry Pacific & The Bangalore Review. He is working on his first novel.
Where were you in dreams of the shore?
Where were you in the hours before?
Sitting, writhing, eating away
I lost you somewhere close by,
Or was it me and my heady eye
I searched and searched and searched,
But all along it was surely I
Up above the clouds of lead.
You swam amongst the starry sky
So
Capture me once again
And disperse my heart up high
Bionote
Joel lives in Wiltshire, England. He has a BA (Hons) degree in English Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Twelve works of his have been accepted in ten publications including Atlantean Publishing, The Dawntreader, Poetry Pacific & The Bangalore Review. He is working on his first novel.
3 Poems by John McKernan
MAGICIAN
The old man lifted himself from the chrome wheel chair and stood bravely before the audience. He waved a red bandana in the air, spun around three times, and slid into a pair of hiking boots. We could hear his leather belt mooing beside the scuff marks on the rubber soles. Slowly his wool slacks floated to the floor covering a herd of tiny sheep hooves. We watched the fibers of his white shirt flow like sunlight through the window out onto the cotton fields across the highway. Buttons rolled to the corners of the stage.
“He must have been a nudist” we said as we left the auditorium applauding wildly.
Outside, a dirty parking lot kept ejecting sports cars into the speeding highway
Some of us peered in through the side windows and noticed the magician’s watch dangling from a bird’s nest
It was still ticking and a few light rays kept bouncing off a jumbled pile of medals lying on a practice putting green
SACRED SPOON
A single silver spoon lay untouched
On a coffee table in South Omaha
At my grandmother’s house
Stolen – she claimed – from Edmund Spenser’s
Irish castle before it was torched
Wrapped in flannel
Carried aboard a ship
Bound for Nebraska
Via the Brooklyn Bridge
The ice cream & cookies & cake
Were great at Birthday Parties
But what made her think
We wanted oat meal & old bananas
Which would always taste
Like a rotting potato from Ireland
PRAYER BESIDE A BIG LOTS DUMPSTER
In an alley of garbage bags
Blue & white & black & orange & red & green & brown
A thin man kneeling with gray hair
Wearing a Randy Moss Vikings jersey
Opens a tiny yellow plastic jar
And says out loud Oh
And then louder Holy cow
As he pushes a fistful
Of honey roasted peanuts into his mouth
It's the moonlight and the snow
That holds him in a photograph
His right hand stuffing what's left
Of the peanuts into a large coat pocket
Whispering Snow and Holy snow
The old man lifted himself from the chrome wheel chair and stood bravely before the audience. He waved a red bandana in the air, spun around three times, and slid into a pair of hiking boots. We could hear his leather belt mooing beside the scuff marks on the rubber soles. Slowly his wool slacks floated to the floor covering a herd of tiny sheep hooves. We watched the fibers of his white shirt flow like sunlight through the window out onto the cotton fields across the highway. Buttons rolled to the corners of the stage.
“He must have been a nudist” we said as we left the auditorium applauding wildly.
Outside, a dirty parking lot kept ejecting sports cars into the speeding highway
Some of us peered in through the side windows and noticed the magician’s watch dangling from a bird’s nest
It was still ticking and a few light rays kept bouncing off a jumbled pile of medals lying on a practice putting green
SACRED SPOON
A single silver spoon lay untouched
On a coffee table in South Omaha
At my grandmother’s house
Stolen – she claimed – from Edmund Spenser’s
Irish castle before it was torched
Wrapped in flannel
Carried aboard a ship
Bound for Nebraska
Via the Brooklyn Bridge
The ice cream & cookies & cake
Were great at Birthday Parties
But what made her think
We wanted oat meal & old bananas
Which would always taste
Like a rotting potato from Ireland
PRAYER BESIDE A BIG LOTS DUMPSTER
In an alley of garbage bags
Blue & white & black & orange & red & green & brown
A thin man kneeling with gray hair
Wearing a Randy Moss Vikings jersey
Opens a tiny yellow plastic jar
And says out loud Oh
And then louder Holy cow
As he pushes a fistful
Of honey roasted peanuts into his mouth
It's the moonlight and the snow
That holds him in a photograph
His right hand stuffing what's left
Of the peanuts into a large coat pocket
Whispering Snow and Holy snow
1 Poems by Indunil Madhusankha
An Anthem for a Warlord I
(Published in the March 2016 issue of Scarlet Leaf Review)
Sought refuge in underground bunkers
Nor did you see the sunlight
while groping in the gloom of the underworld
At the fall of sky hugging mansions,
you shrank into earth drilling luxurious bunkers
and fortified them with many a snare
Isn't it due to your fear,
the repulsive fear of death?
Clad in armoured suits,
what was your expectation?
Above all it was the fear
that quivered throughout your body
Despite your exorbitant wealth and excessive power
the fear burned your heart
almost like a rolling fire ball
You draped a chain attached to a capsule of Cyanide
around your Tigers' neck,
just like a noose
to hasten their journey to the
penultimate destination
Yet, never did you wear one
The truth surfaces,
you were afraid of death
that you have bestowed on thousands
without the least sense
Thirsty, you must be,
restlessly running after a mirage in the desert
The fear followed you like a shadow
Perhaps you wished mental relief,
relief from fear,
that you lacked in abundance
Yet, you are late,
too late,
The dead may already be holing your heart!
Bionote
Indunil Madhusankha is currently an undergraduate reading for a BSc Special Degree in Mathematics at the Faculty of Science of the University of Colombo. Even though he is academically involved with the subjects of Mathematics and Statistics, he also pursues a successful career in the field of English language and literature as a budding young researcher, reviewer, poet and content writer. Basically, he explores the miscellaneous complications of the human existence through his poetry by focussing on the burning issues in the contemporary society. Moreover, Indunil’s works have been featured in many international anthologies, magazines and journals.
(Published in the March 2016 issue of Scarlet Leaf Review)
Sought refuge in underground bunkers
Nor did you see the sunlight
while groping in the gloom of the underworld
At the fall of sky hugging mansions,
you shrank into earth drilling luxurious bunkers
and fortified them with many a snare
Isn't it due to your fear,
the repulsive fear of death?
Clad in armoured suits,
what was your expectation?
Above all it was the fear
that quivered throughout your body
Despite your exorbitant wealth and excessive power
the fear burned your heart
almost like a rolling fire ball
You draped a chain attached to a capsule of Cyanide
around your Tigers' neck,
just like a noose
to hasten their journey to the
penultimate destination
Yet, never did you wear one
The truth surfaces,
you were afraid of death
that you have bestowed on thousands
without the least sense
Thirsty, you must be,
restlessly running after a mirage in the desert
The fear followed you like a shadow
Perhaps you wished mental relief,
relief from fear,
that you lacked in abundance
Yet, you are late,
too late,
The dead may already be holing your heart!
Bionote
Indunil Madhusankha is currently an undergraduate reading for a BSc Special Degree in Mathematics at the Faculty of Science of the University of Colombo. Even though he is academically involved with the subjects of Mathematics and Statistics, he also pursues a successful career in the field of English language and literature as a budding young researcher, reviewer, poet and content writer. Basically, he explores the miscellaneous complications of the human existence through his poetry by focussing on the burning issues in the contemporary society. Moreover, Indunil’s works have been featured in many international anthologies, magazines and journals.
1 Poem by Se Woong Ro
Fallen Leaf
don't say,
"you are beautiful!"
i did not want to fall onto the ground.
i wanted to remain in the branch where I belonged to.
in the summer,
i hided the birds' nest with my green clothes
from the predator's invasion.
i protected the nest from rain, wind and storm.
i enjoyed the musical all birds were orchestrating
in the woods.
but i had to accept my fate to fall onto the ground
in autumn.
but i did not want to fall.
Therefore, don't tell me, "You are beautiful!"
Bionote
Se Woong Ro is a poet and essayist. Former president of the Yoon Dong-ju Memorial Group-Washington Chapter, he has authored his first poetry book, The Wayfarer of Kilimanjaro , (in Korean) in 2012.
don't say,
"you are beautiful!"
i did not want to fall onto the ground.
i wanted to remain in the branch where I belonged to.
in the summer,
i hided the birds' nest with my green clothes
from the predator's invasion.
i protected the nest from rain, wind and storm.
i enjoyed the musical all birds were orchestrating
in the woods.
but i had to accept my fate to fall onto the ground
in autumn.
but i did not want to fall.
Therefore, don't tell me, "You are beautiful!"
Bionote
Se Woong Ro is a poet and essayist. Former president of the Yoon Dong-ju Memorial Group-Washington Chapter, he has authored his first poetry book, The Wayfarer of Kilimanjaro , (in Korean) in 2012.
1 Poem by Thomas M. McDade
November
Last November is lost
like a blocked vowel
making a long ago name
unpronounceable .
This year’s version
is another toddler’s
funeral of a month.
Recall shrinks
like a sneaky fuse
string pulling
a toy duck.
In a burning myth
of past I share
stalls of rocking
memory mares
with flaming manes
embellishing
a brief history.
I’m fireproof,
grafted so skillfully
after each white scorch
of each ricocheting
lullaby.
Rising with relics
from the lowest
rattle of remembering
I dream of her alive
and crawling
wise to the whims
of a month
smoldering so
deep in a year.
Bionote
Thomas M. McDade is a former plumbing industry computer programmer / analyst residing in Fredericksburg, VA, previously CT & RI. He is a graduate of Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT.
McDade is twice a U.S. Navy Veteran serving ashore at the Fleet Anti-Air Warfare Training Center and at sea on the USS Mullinnix DD-944 and USS Miller DE/FF 1091.
Last November is lost
like a blocked vowel
making a long ago name
unpronounceable .
This year’s version
is another toddler’s
funeral of a month.
Recall shrinks
like a sneaky fuse
string pulling
a toy duck.
In a burning myth
of past I share
stalls of rocking
memory mares
with flaming manes
embellishing
a brief history.
I’m fireproof,
grafted so skillfully
after each white scorch
of each ricocheting
lullaby.
Rising with relics
from the lowest
rattle of remembering
I dream of her alive
and crawling
wise to the whims
of a month
smoldering so
deep in a year.
Bionote
Thomas M. McDade is a former plumbing industry computer programmer / analyst residing in Fredericksburg, VA, previously CT & RI. He is a graduate of Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT.
McDade is twice a U.S. Navy Veteran serving ashore at the Fleet Anti-Air Warfare Training Center and at sea on the USS Mullinnix DD-944 and USS Miller DE/FF 1091.
2 Poems by Jennifer Lagier
Reaching for Light
Sunrise illuminates puddles
left upon dirt road by yesterday’s rain.
Atop high ground, stacked beehives rest,
await morning light.
A plump dove paces,
scratches among storm detritus,
follows a glittery ribbon,
finds a breakfast of snails.
Fallen oranges soften.
Pummeled wisteria sheds purple tears.
Sodden trees lift freighted limbs
past dark clouds toward brightening sky.
Spring Morning, Low Tide
Pristine sky, resplendent sun, convey
deceptive impression of warmth.
At 46 degrees, huffing breath resembles
hookah clouds, masquerades as white smoke.
Turquoise ocean flings chilly, creamy surf
over jagged stone onto glistening beach.
Yellow oxalis, golden poppies shiver,
encroach upon ceanothus lined trail.
Future storms simmer below bright horizon.
Gamboling dolphins prophesize a good day.
Bionote
Jennifer Lagier has published thirteen books and in literary magazines, taught with California Poets in the Schools, co-edits the Homestead Review, helps coordinate Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Sunday readings. Newest books: Scene of the Crime (Evening Street Press), Harbingers (Blue Light Press), Camille Abroad (FutureCycle Press). Website: jlagier.net Facebook: www.facebook.com/JenniferLagier/
Sunrise illuminates puddles
left upon dirt road by yesterday’s rain.
Atop high ground, stacked beehives rest,
await morning light.
A plump dove paces,
scratches among storm detritus,
follows a glittery ribbon,
finds a breakfast of snails.
Fallen oranges soften.
Pummeled wisteria sheds purple tears.
Sodden trees lift freighted limbs
past dark clouds toward brightening sky.
Spring Morning, Low Tide
Pristine sky, resplendent sun, convey
deceptive impression of warmth.
At 46 degrees, huffing breath resembles
hookah clouds, masquerades as white smoke.
Turquoise ocean flings chilly, creamy surf
over jagged stone onto glistening beach.
Yellow oxalis, golden poppies shiver,
encroach upon ceanothus lined trail.
Future storms simmer below bright horizon.
Gamboling dolphins prophesize a good day.
Bionote
Jennifer Lagier has published thirteen books and in literary magazines, taught with California Poets in the Schools, co-edits the Homestead Review, helps coordinate Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Sunday readings. Newest books: Scene of the Crime (Evening Street Press), Harbingers (Blue Light Press), Camille Abroad (FutureCycle Press). Website: jlagier.net Facebook: www.facebook.com/JenniferLagier/
1 Poem by Allison Grayhurst
How The Sky Came
When I was a grain of sand,
I saw a rainbow robe
the sea - the weather passed
and turned me into
rock.
When I was a rock
dust and tears made a bed
inside of me, until
a mountain I rose.
When I was a mountain,
protecting beasts and people
from the city’s pillaged tongue,
giving them sanction
beneath my hard shawl,
a hand swept down
and destroyed my peace,
turning me into sky:
a castle for the stars.
Bionote
Allison Grayhurst is a member of the League of Canadian Poets. Three of her poems have been nominated for Sundress Publications “Best of the Net” 2015, and she has over 1000 poems published in more than 410 international journals and anthologies. Her book Somewhere Falling was published by Beach Holme Publishers, a Porcepic Book, in Vancouver in 1995. Since then she has published twelve other books of poetry and seven collections with Edge Unlimited Publishing. Prior to the publication of Somewhere Falling she had a poetry book published, Common Dream, and four chapbooks published by The Plowman. Her poetry chapbook The River is Blind was published by Ottawa publisher above/ground press December 2012. In 2014 her chapbook Surrogate Dharma was published by Kind of a Hurricane Press, Barometric Pressures Author Series. In 2015, her book No Raft – No Ocean was published by Scars Publications. More recently, her book Make the Wind was published in 2016 by Scars Publications. As well, her book Trial and Witness – selected poems, was published in 2016 by Creative Talents Unleashed (CTU Publishing Group). She is a vegan. She lives in Toronto with her family. She also sculpts, working with clay; www.allisongrayhurst.com
When I was a grain of sand,
I saw a rainbow robe
the sea - the weather passed
and turned me into
rock.
When I was a rock
dust and tears made a bed
inside of me, until
a mountain I rose.
When I was a mountain,
protecting beasts and people
from the city’s pillaged tongue,
giving them sanction
beneath my hard shawl,
a hand swept down
and destroyed my peace,
turning me into sky:
a castle for the stars.
Bionote
Allison Grayhurst is a member of the League of Canadian Poets. Three of her poems have been nominated for Sundress Publications “Best of the Net” 2015, and she has over 1000 poems published in more than 410 international journals and anthologies. Her book Somewhere Falling was published by Beach Holme Publishers, a Porcepic Book, in Vancouver in 1995. Since then she has published twelve other books of poetry and seven collections with Edge Unlimited Publishing. Prior to the publication of Somewhere Falling she had a poetry book published, Common Dream, and four chapbooks published by The Plowman. Her poetry chapbook The River is Blind was published by Ottawa publisher above/ground press December 2012. In 2014 her chapbook Surrogate Dharma was published by Kind of a Hurricane Press, Barometric Pressures Author Series. In 2015, her book No Raft – No Ocean was published by Scars Publications. More recently, her book Make the Wind was published in 2016 by Scars Publications. As well, her book Trial and Witness – selected poems, was published in 2016 by Creative Talents Unleashed (CTU Publishing Group). She is a vegan. She lives in Toronto with her family. She also sculpts, working with clay; www.allisongrayhurst.com
4 Poems by Anthony Watkins
Seven-Thirty Sunset
As grandmother and toddler turn to home,
the Hispanic boy with gold necklace
runs through a back yard
and the Haitian girl tosses
a worn brown basketball to her nephews
life flows out onto the narrow
streets of Lake Worth
in the hot yellow air
turns colors
black in silhouette.
An almost chill rustles uncut palms
and thrusts paper wrappers
against sagging chain-link fences
nine o’clock sunset
is still two months away
but the thin old man
steps into the street and closes
the door on his Chevy
glad to be home
before dark.
The Broken Samovar
The broken samovar
drips water
the charcoal hisses
but tea is made,
says the market man.
So, it is,
the rulers,
though mostly rotten
rule anyway,
the shop keeper
pays bribes
not taxes,
wonders which is lower.
The merchant
and magistrate
drink tea
while his wife
carves goat
for the korma.
The son plays
on the floor,
a metal matchbox
bomber flies
in his hand
he says
“look at me,
I am America!!!”
The Red Chair
So much undone,
always,
I settle into
my wingback.
I try not to recall
the tax bill, dishes,
inspections,
editing, and still I
think of
responsibility for
dead parents.
I tire trying
not to think,
knowing I will
not succeed, organizing,
doing, nor not thinking
forty-two things
I should do.
Sick, I settle,
she finds something
easy to watch
I find relief in
parents passing
what doesn’t get
done remains.
I am
not dying
today.
Quantum Mechanics
Tiny two cell machines,
attended by tiny two cell guys
in greasy overalls and one cell
Mario Bros style caps
Ruggedly handsome,
with one cell arms attached
and faces like
well organized amoebas
Over in the corner a geeky scientist
argues with a red headed mathematician
about string theory
and the time space continuum
And the little Quantum mechanics backs
the fine tuned two cellers up
and drive off between them
so small they never notice.
Bionote
Anthony Watkins of Greenacres, Florida, says of himself, "As one of the most public lives ever lived by a private citizen, there is little that isn't already available at Facebook, Goodreads, or Betterthanstarbucks.org and countless other places. Poet, writer, construction worker, salesman, truck driver, climber into the attics of total strangers, father and husband, and all around one of the luckiest men on the planet."
As grandmother and toddler turn to home,
the Hispanic boy with gold necklace
runs through a back yard
and the Haitian girl tosses
a worn brown basketball to her nephews
life flows out onto the narrow
streets of Lake Worth
in the hot yellow air
turns colors
black in silhouette.
An almost chill rustles uncut palms
and thrusts paper wrappers
against sagging chain-link fences
nine o’clock sunset
is still two months away
but the thin old man
steps into the street and closes
the door on his Chevy
glad to be home
before dark.
The Broken Samovar
The broken samovar
drips water
the charcoal hisses
but tea is made,
says the market man.
So, it is,
the rulers,
though mostly rotten
rule anyway,
the shop keeper
pays bribes
not taxes,
wonders which is lower.
The merchant
and magistrate
drink tea
while his wife
carves goat
for the korma.
The son plays
on the floor,
a metal matchbox
bomber flies
in his hand
he says
“look at me,
I am America!!!”
The Red Chair
So much undone,
always,
I settle into
my wingback.
I try not to recall
the tax bill, dishes,
inspections,
editing, and still I
think of
responsibility for
dead parents.
I tire trying
not to think,
knowing I will
not succeed, organizing,
doing, nor not thinking
forty-two things
I should do.
Sick, I settle,
she finds something
easy to watch
I find relief in
parents passing
what doesn’t get
done remains.
I am
not dying
today.
Quantum Mechanics
Tiny two cell machines,
attended by tiny two cell guys
in greasy overalls and one cell
Mario Bros style caps
Ruggedly handsome,
with one cell arms attached
and faces like
well organized amoebas
Over in the corner a geeky scientist
argues with a red headed mathematician
about string theory
and the time space continuum
And the little Quantum mechanics backs
the fine tuned two cellers up
and drive off between them
so small they never notice.
Bionote
Anthony Watkins of Greenacres, Florida, says of himself, "As one of the most public lives ever lived by a private citizen, there is little that isn't already available at Facebook, Goodreads, or Betterthanstarbucks.org and countless other places. Poet, writer, construction worker, salesman, truck driver, climber into the attics of total strangers, father and husband, and all around one of the luckiest men on the planet."
2 Poems by Fred Alsberg
Self-portrait at Sixty-five
Mental notes
flutter like confetti
down a chasm
made from facing rows
of stone and glass.
What once had importance
now descends in flurries
onto giant apparitions
anchored by cables
thin as thread.
Marching tunes,
only vaguely motivational,
are barely audible,
as if coming from headphones
set upon a desk.
The shrill whistle
that trills no louder
than an insect
leads a formation
of red and gold
through pointillistic bits of paper.
Caught in a blizzard,
a black car carefully follows them,
tiny figures within waving.
All the day’s details
swirl about--
they blur at first,
then vanish in a crowd.
Circa 21st Century
At the intersection
of sci-fi and anthropology
traffic comes and goes,
much like the mind’s crosswinds.
Small blinking-red beacons
warn planes and copters from the tops of towers,
a wasp wades at the edge
of a pool of melted ice cream.
Somewhere between the unforeseeable
and all we tow in hindsight,
there’s this infinitely rich moment
to metabolize.
Bionote
Fred Alsberg has published poems in Greensboro Review, Louisiana Review, Southeast Review, Rhino, and Oklahoma Today. He has performed his poems accompanied by electric piano.
Mental notes
flutter like confetti
down a chasm
made from facing rows
of stone and glass.
What once had importance
now descends in flurries
onto giant apparitions
anchored by cables
thin as thread.
Marching tunes,
only vaguely motivational,
are barely audible,
as if coming from headphones
set upon a desk.
The shrill whistle
that trills no louder
than an insect
leads a formation
of red and gold
through pointillistic bits of paper.
Caught in a blizzard,
a black car carefully follows them,
tiny figures within waving.
All the day’s details
swirl about--
they blur at first,
then vanish in a crowd.
Circa 21st Century
At the intersection
of sci-fi and anthropology
traffic comes and goes,
much like the mind’s crosswinds.
Small blinking-red beacons
warn planes and copters from the tops of towers,
a wasp wades at the edge
of a pool of melted ice cream.
Somewhere between the unforeseeable
and all we tow in hindsight,
there’s this infinitely rich moment
to metabolize.
Bionote
Fred Alsberg has published poems in Greensboro Review, Louisiana Review, Southeast Review, Rhino, and Oklahoma Today. He has performed his poems accompanied by electric piano.
5 Haiku by Denny E. Marshall
Five Haiku
tree on forest floor
lays on pillow of green moss
soft bed of brown leaves
flower bud opens
slowly with green toothless jaw
tongue showers color
financial planners
florida college teams call
investigators
starless sunset drops
like melting butter dripped on
layered berry stacks
clear sky
one cloud
loneliness
Bionote
Denny E. Marshall has had art, poetry, and fiction published. One recent credit for poetry is Bewildering Stories #681. See more at www.dennymarshall.com
tree on forest floor
lays on pillow of green moss
soft bed of brown leaves
flower bud opens
slowly with green toothless jaw
tongue showers color
financial planners
florida college teams call
investigators
starless sunset drops
like melting butter dripped on
layered berry stacks
clear sky
one cloud
loneliness
Bionote
Denny E. Marshall has had art, poetry, and fiction published. One recent credit for poetry is Bewildering Stories #681. See more at www.dennymarshall.com
3 Poems by Clifford Saunders
MIRROR MAN
A mirror with nothing
in it burns with magic
on its wall in a Quincy bedroom.
Moody, a man hangs it
in his garden and ponders
its biggest steam plume yet.
Without warning, the wind
blows ashes at his feet
as he burns like a phoenix.
Wait’ll he sees his last sky!
REALITY CHECK (ICING THE FALSE PROPHET)
You tell me you’re the Second Coming,
the one they call “The Chosen.”
I tell you I can walk on water
(but only when it’s frozen).
Why do you think you’re so high and mighty?
Stop kidding yourself and come clean.
If you’re the fucking Chosen One,
my name is Bruce Springsteen!
ESCAPE FROM THE STREET
Street of mine, you can find me in the forest
when you’re ready for your sweet factory of dirt.
I’ll meet you in my sleep. But now I must
follow the shepherd of bees into the woods
as a new grandson would follow his bliss.
You want me, my street, but I’m at a loss
without the glory of rivers and electric blue skies.
You need me, but I plan on enjoying a quiet life
among the stars and old barns. I am saying
goodbye to you. Farewell, my long strand
of misfortune, my worthy adversary. I’m in the garden
of the sky and floating free. Catch me if you dare.
Bionote
Cliff Saunders has an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Arizona. He's published poems in over 150 literary journals, most recently in Connecticut River Review, Five 2 One, Avatar Review, Three Line Poetry, and Whale Road Review. He lives in Myrtle Beach, where he works as a freelance writer.
A mirror with nothing
in it burns with magic
on its wall in a Quincy bedroom.
Moody, a man hangs it
in his garden and ponders
its biggest steam plume yet.
Without warning, the wind
blows ashes at his feet
as he burns like a phoenix.
Wait’ll he sees his last sky!
REALITY CHECK (ICING THE FALSE PROPHET)
You tell me you’re the Second Coming,
the one they call “The Chosen.”
I tell you I can walk on water
(but only when it’s frozen).
Why do you think you’re so high and mighty?
Stop kidding yourself and come clean.
If you’re the fucking Chosen One,
my name is Bruce Springsteen!
ESCAPE FROM THE STREET
Street of mine, you can find me in the forest
when you’re ready for your sweet factory of dirt.
I’ll meet you in my sleep. But now I must
follow the shepherd of bees into the woods
as a new grandson would follow his bliss.
You want me, my street, but I’m at a loss
without the glory of rivers and electric blue skies.
You need me, but I plan on enjoying a quiet life
among the stars and old barns. I am saying
goodbye to you. Farewell, my long strand
of misfortune, my worthy adversary. I’m in the garden
of the sky and floating free. Catch me if you dare.
Bionote
Cliff Saunders has an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Arizona. He's published poems in over 150 literary journals, most recently in Connecticut River Review, Five 2 One, Avatar Review, Three Line Poetry, and Whale Road Review. He lives in Myrtle Beach, where he works as a freelance writer.
4 Poems by Martin Malone
from The Unreturning...
10. The majority illusion
Don’t wander off to chew berries with the enemy and stay within your primate group. When the world is not enough, just pack up your troubles and do your bit for the augmented reality of this, the narrow trench of a new taxonomy. It is, after all, what everyone thinks, the need self-evident in the hashtag bunker of Northcliffe’s Times. The long uneven lines roam impatiently towards their fancied majority, wordless, distracted and lost or about to be. Bayonet pokermen go to your glory remembering that the best lines hold. Just walk towards the foe, who is no longer there you have our word. The basic training ought to suffice, for which your General has an app.
15. Emilienne
Can’t sing a note, not even the Marseillaise – oh, I’ll give it a go when occasion demands – but I did have the X-Factor they were looking for. Once the press got hold of it I was an overnight sensation: the ‘Heroine of Loos’, a new Joan of Arc. Golden salons, cocked hats, bemedalled generals and the public square, as their ballyhoo broke over me. At seventeen I was that month’s face-of-the-war, mounting the ‘Staircase of Heroes’ to the Panthéon, blazing my comet of a season. Sold an exclusive to Le Petit Parisien and got locked in some chateau to homespin thoughts for the nation. My reason for telling you? I’m not even writing this.
17. Commuter
He insists we go outside so that he can show us the moon, our two-year old pointing at his man made of cheese. By the slice of light from the half-open door I look at you; feel the gentle suck of warm air from the grate, a sudden welter of regret tugging at my lungs. God knows, our mood about the house has made such moments few and far between. Moon, moon! he says, as if the word holds the heft of all things. A child’s finger marks the way skyward to this moment and now all roads lead to France. When I slip away at dawn, the thatch is humming with early frost, the downs roll their green path to the sea and all my Tipperaries stretch before me, unreachable, beyond.
36. Match-Stats
Let’s go back to the maths and their anomalous facts. Like a one-nil win with just 10% possession, it’s our guilty liberal secret that, of the 2,226 poets published in the Great War for Civilisation, most of them were up more for the former and the nation than the hassle of reflecting on a Christian education. So, the Richmond 16 are a negligible blip, one of those recurring zeroes packed off to Dyce where they’re forced to break rocks, or are borrowed for the name of a choral ensemble touring their poppy show around the cathedrals. Perplexingly, 88.2% of socialists got cowed into taking part, a stat that, today, gives revisionist fuel for 100% shit like this.
Bionote
Born in County Durham, Martin Malone now lives in Scotland. He has published two poetry collections: The Waiting Hillside (Templar, 2011) and Cur (Shoestring, 2015). His third, Great War-related collection, The Unreturning will be published in 2018. An Honorary Research Fellow in Creative Writing at Aberdeen University, he has recently finished a PhD in poetry at Sheffield University and edits The Interpreter's House poetry journal.
10. The majority illusion
Don’t wander off to chew berries with the enemy and stay within your primate group. When the world is not enough, just pack up your troubles and do your bit for the augmented reality of this, the narrow trench of a new taxonomy. It is, after all, what everyone thinks, the need self-evident in the hashtag bunker of Northcliffe’s Times. The long uneven lines roam impatiently towards their fancied majority, wordless, distracted and lost or about to be. Bayonet pokermen go to your glory remembering that the best lines hold. Just walk towards the foe, who is no longer there you have our word. The basic training ought to suffice, for which your General has an app.
15. Emilienne
Can’t sing a note, not even the Marseillaise – oh, I’ll give it a go when occasion demands – but I did have the X-Factor they were looking for. Once the press got hold of it I was an overnight sensation: the ‘Heroine of Loos’, a new Joan of Arc. Golden salons, cocked hats, bemedalled generals and the public square, as their ballyhoo broke over me. At seventeen I was that month’s face-of-the-war, mounting the ‘Staircase of Heroes’ to the Panthéon, blazing my comet of a season. Sold an exclusive to Le Petit Parisien and got locked in some chateau to homespin thoughts for the nation. My reason for telling you? I’m not even writing this.
17. Commuter
He insists we go outside so that he can show us the moon, our two-year old pointing at his man made of cheese. By the slice of light from the half-open door I look at you; feel the gentle suck of warm air from the grate, a sudden welter of regret tugging at my lungs. God knows, our mood about the house has made such moments few and far between. Moon, moon! he says, as if the word holds the heft of all things. A child’s finger marks the way skyward to this moment and now all roads lead to France. When I slip away at dawn, the thatch is humming with early frost, the downs roll their green path to the sea and all my Tipperaries stretch before me, unreachable, beyond.
36. Match-Stats
Let’s go back to the maths and their anomalous facts. Like a one-nil win with just 10% possession, it’s our guilty liberal secret that, of the 2,226 poets published in the Great War for Civilisation, most of them were up more for the former and the nation than the hassle of reflecting on a Christian education. So, the Richmond 16 are a negligible blip, one of those recurring zeroes packed off to Dyce where they’re forced to break rocks, or are borrowed for the name of a choral ensemble touring their poppy show around the cathedrals. Perplexingly, 88.2% of socialists got cowed into taking part, a stat that, today, gives revisionist fuel for 100% shit like this.
Bionote
Born in County Durham, Martin Malone now lives in Scotland. He has published two poetry collections: The Waiting Hillside (Templar, 2011) and Cur (Shoestring, 2015). His third, Great War-related collection, The Unreturning will be published in 2018. An Honorary Research Fellow in Creative Writing at Aberdeen University, he has recently finished a PhD in poetry at Sheffield University and edits The Interpreter's House poetry journal.
2 Poems by Cornelia PĂUN HEINZEL
TIME
Every moment has its own meaning, significance,
For me, for you, for him.
In every moment there is an action important
For me, for you, for him.
Time is always crucial,
For me, for you, for him.
Any moment can forewer change your life, mine, his,
Today, tomorrow, after tomorrow, forever.
For a brief moment, you can be a king,
Over me, over you, over him,
In a moment, you can lose,
Everything, a little or nothing …
IDEALISTIC / IDEALIST
You always tell me: you are incredibly idealistic
when you love all people equally, trees and flowers, animals,
without concealing them with the cloak of inequality,
when you are admiring what it is worthy of praises,
without the worm of jealousy eating you whole,
when you do not harm anybody
and the waves of evil do not immerse you,
when you understand every being,
even if you, for this fact, are enigmatic,
when you help anyone from the kindness of your heart
without expecting something in return,
when you consider money have no value
and the wisps of greed never daze you,
when you always forgive
without the boulder of vengeance shattering you in pieces,
when you introduce yourself to people the way you truly are,
without performing on the stage of life as a perfect actor,
when you truly are faithful
without the arrows of evil, greed and deception piercing you…
Bionote
Ph. D. Cornelia Păun Heinzel debuted as a writer in the review "Asymetria" France and as poet in "AGERO Stuttgart" Germany, as collaborator of the magazine and Press Agencies' ACES OF ROMANIA "NURNBERG. She is a member of Press TRANSATLANTIC, of Union Hispanomondial of Writers and POETAS DEL MUNDO, writer and collaborator to reviews of USA, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Malaysia, France, Germany, India, Spain, Italia, Venezuela, Colombia, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, Mexico, El Salvador, Peru, Albania, Australia, Portugal, Trinidad, Tobago, Denmark, Mauritius, Romanian, is Editor of ANTHOLOGIA MULTILINGUA.
She is present in the Famous Encyclopedia “Best Poems” , the “Anthology poets of the world”, în “L’ANTHOLOGIE DES POèTES FRANCOPHONES FRANCE”, in ANTOLOGIA DE POESIA POETAS DEL MUNDO "POETAS SIGLO XXI", Antologia Universal de Poesia "Arte Poetica", Antologia de la poesia espanola, Anthology UNIVERSAL ROMANIAN CONTEMPORARY POETRY - Anthology of Contemporary Short Story Romanians everywhere, Anthology of writers of the world. She has published poems in French, German, Italian, Arabic, Turkish and other... PAUN Cornelia is professor engineer with the scientific title of Doctor of Industrial Robots 1998, the Bucharest Polytechnic University, Master in Educational Management and Evaluation, Faculty of Psychology, University of Bucharest, in 2002, Master in Teaching Subjects Philological Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest, licensed of Philology, Romanian Language and Literature - French Language and Literature, Faculty of Letters, University of Brasov, Diplomat mechanical engineer, specializing in Technology of Machine Construction, Faculty of TCM, Brasov University, with ten, receiving double distribution in higher education and research, a field in which he worked until today and electrical engineer, specializing in Transport, Polytechnic University of Bucharest. In 2007-2013 he was trained experts of the Ministry of Education in Educational Management. He completed three graduate courses and in 2012-2013 received a grant to Germany, MUNCHEN GOETHE INSTITUTE in the area of specialization – MULTIMEDIA FüRERSCHEIN DaF- Das Internet als Quelle FÜR Materialien und Projekte . He has published six books and over 200 articles - published in the country and abroad.
Every moment has its own meaning, significance,
For me, for you, for him.
In every moment there is an action important
For me, for you, for him.
Time is always crucial,
For me, for you, for him.
Any moment can forewer change your life, mine, his,
Today, tomorrow, after tomorrow, forever.
For a brief moment, you can be a king,
Over me, over you, over him,
In a moment, you can lose,
Everything, a little or nothing …
IDEALISTIC / IDEALIST
You always tell me: you are incredibly idealistic
when you love all people equally, trees and flowers, animals,
without concealing them with the cloak of inequality,
when you are admiring what it is worthy of praises,
without the worm of jealousy eating you whole,
when you do not harm anybody
and the waves of evil do not immerse you,
when you understand every being,
even if you, for this fact, are enigmatic,
when you help anyone from the kindness of your heart
without expecting something in return,
when you consider money have no value
and the wisps of greed never daze you,
when you always forgive
without the boulder of vengeance shattering you in pieces,
when you introduce yourself to people the way you truly are,
without performing on the stage of life as a perfect actor,
when you truly are faithful
without the arrows of evil, greed and deception piercing you…
Bionote
Ph. D. Cornelia Păun Heinzel debuted as a writer in the review "Asymetria" France and as poet in "AGERO Stuttgart" Germany, as collaborator of the magazine and Press Agencies' ACES OF ROMANIA "NURNBERG. She is a member of Press TRANSATLANTIC, of Union Hispanomondial of Writers and POETAS DEL MUNDO, writer and collaborator to reviews of USA, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Malaysia, France, Germany, India, Spain, Italia, Venezuela, Colombia, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, Mexico, El Salvador, Peru, Albania, Australia, Portugal, Trinidad, Tobago, Denmark, Mauritius, Romanian, is Editor of ANTHOLOGIA MULTILINGUA.
She is present in the Famous Encyclopedia “Best Poems” , the “Anthology poets of the world”, în “L’ANTHOLOGIE DES POèTES FRANCOPHONES FRANCE”, in ANTOLOGIA DE POESIA POETAS DEL MUNDO "POETAS SIGLO XXI", Antologia Universal de Poesia "Arte Poetica", Antologia de la poesia espanola, Anthology UNIVERSAL ROMANIAN CONTEMPORARY POETRY - Anthology of Contemporary Short Story Romanians everywhere, Anthology of writers of the world. She has published poems in French, German, Italian, Arabic, Turkish and other... PAUN Cornelia is professor engineer with the scientific title of Doctor of Industrial Robots 1998, the Bucharest Polytechnic University, Master in Educational Management and Evaluation, Faculty of Psychology, University of Bucharest, in 2002, Master in Teaching Subjects Philological Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest, licensed of Philology, Romanian Language and Literature - French Language and Literature, Faculty of Letters, University of Brasov, Diplomat mechanical engineer, specializing in Technology of Machine Construction, Faculty of TCM, Brasov University, with ten, receiving double distribution in higher education and research, a field in which he worked until today and electrical engineer, specializing in Transport, Polytechnic University of Bucharest. In 2007-2013 he was trained experts of the Ministry of Education in Educational Management. He completed three graduate courses and in 2012-2013 received a grant to Germany, MUNCHEN GOETHE INSTITUTE in the area of specialization – MULTIMEDIA FüRERSCHEIN DaF- Das Internet als Quelle FÜR Materialien und Projekte . He has published six books and over 200 articles - published in the country and abroad.
4 Tanka and 1 Poem by Sergio A. Ortiz
Four Tanka
autumn
comes with a price…
the world caves in on itself,
yet at the river's edge
a heron lifts in flight
nothing to be afraid of
even when the night changes —
broken
coming and going, I climb
the ruins of my life
tumbling
through winter
she knew she didn't fit...
a doll's life trapped
inside a young man’s body
there's nothing here
but speech, words we fill
the dark with—
hoping for a rescue party
knotted in the lines
You were Born in Winter
you brought
the murmur of a memory
and little feet
as small as a snowflake
in January
how will life be
when it unfolds in your hands,
a fish squirming
to return to water,
or a ship ready to sail?
Bionote:
Sergio A. Ortiz is the founding editor of Undertow Tanka Review. He is a two time Pushcart nominee, a four time Best of the Web nominee, and a 2016 Best of the Net nominee. His poems have been published in hundreds Journals and Anthologies. He is currently working on his first full length collection of poems, Elephant Graveyard .
autumn
comes with a price…
the world caves in on itself,
yet at the river's edge
a heron lifts in flight
nothing to be afraid of
even when the night changes —
broken
coming and going, I climb
the ruins of my life
tumbling
through winter
she knew she didn't fit...
a doll's life trapped
inside a young man’s body
there's nothing here
but speech, words we fill
the dark with—
hoping for a rescue party
knotted in the lines
You were Born in Winter
you brought
the murmur of a memory
and little feet
as small as a snowflake
in January
how will life be
when it unfolds in your hands,
a fish squirming
to return to water,
or a ship ready to sail?
Bionote:
Sergio A. Ortiz is the founding editor of Undertow Tanka Review. He is a two time Pushcart nominee, a four time Best of the Web nominee, and a 2016 Best of the Net nominee. His poems have been published in hundreds Journals and Anthologies. He is currently working on his first full length collection of poems, Elephant Graveyard .
2 Poems by Jennifer Boyd
Politics, God, and Science
During breakfast, a grin
Saving up for change,
but seldom paying.
Teeth bared like train tracks,
a holler or whisper.
What am I?
Beethoven told his wife:
Sing me a song. I may be
deaf but I can still play ___.
Musicians and pilgrims
worship at the same altar.
Explorers come to me
to hear me divulge
the earth’s secrets.
I am indecisive and We
pray together,
not saying anything
What am I?
Directions to Jackson Square II
I was dishonest again.
When the subway approached, its warmth
shrill, pigeons croaked. We hoped to be unsung heroines
as pigeons took flight and
I vowed to be more like the lonely stranger across
the platform. He sang not in
minor but in prayers.
Perhaps he was an artist. He might have been
anything. But he did not write poems
under cellophane steps. He fanned
his blank canvas as the pigeons
watched. Holes filled my lungs as
he seized another empty space. He stole
God’s own words.
Bionote
Jennifer Boyd is a sixteen-year-old from Boston, Massachusetts. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Onism Journal, an emerging literary and arts publication targeted to youth in the Greater Boston Area. Jennifer is additionally a blog contributor at The Huffington Post and UNICEF's Voices of Youth. Her poetry has been published in multiple literary journals, including The Critical Pass Review, New Plains Review, Glass Kite Anthology, and Tower Journal. Jennifer's work has also been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, Smith College, Hollins University, and Princeton University.
During breakfast, a grin
Saving up for change,
but seldom paying.
Teeth bared like train tracks,
a holler or whisper.
What am I?
Beethoven told his wife:
Sing me a song. I may be
deaf but I can still play ___.
Musicians and pilgrims
worship at the same altar.
Explorers come to me
to hear me divulge
the earth’s secrets.
I am indecisive and We
pray together,
not saying anything
What am I?
Directions to Jackson Square II
I was dishonest again.
When the subway approached, its warmth
shrill, pigeons croaked. We hoped to be unsung heroines
as pigeons took flight and
I vowed to be more like the lonely stranger across
the platform. He sang not in
minor but in prayers.
Perhaps he was an artist. He might have been
anything. But he did not write poems
under cellophane steps. He fanned
his blank canvas as the pigeons
watched. Holes filled my lungs as
he seized another empty space. He stole
God’s own words.
Bionote
Jennifer Boyd is a sixteen-year-old from Boston, Massachusetts. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Onism Journal, an emerging literary and arts publication targeted to youth in the Greater Boston Area. Jennifer is additionally a blog contributor at The Huffington Post and UNICEF's Voices of Youth. Her poetry has been published in multiple literary journals, including The Critical Pass Review, New Plains Review, Glass Kite Anthology, and Tower Journal. Jennifer's work has also been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, Smith College, Hollins University, and Princeton University.
3 Poems by Maureen Eppstein
A Photographer’s Eye
It pauses for small things:
in Santa Fe, an ant
negotiates a door frame
where layers of peeled paint
take turquoise deeper.
A pueblo nearby, for its annual ritual
calls for turquoise newly mined.
Old stones can crumble if hoarded,
discolor if worn.
Their value is in their transience.
Returning from the Food Bank
What seems profligate in Nature—
fruits and nuts tossed lightly to the ground—
is an economy of sharing:
plants and creatures, browsers,
munchers in the interwoven web
all giving and receiving.
So it is, returning from the Food Bank
lighter by several pounds—
green beans, red tomatoes,
stems of rainbow chard—
I hear the conversation
of the firs that line the road.
A Semblance of Normal
Bittersweetness of blue skies
these winter days
without rain.
A young friend fights cancer
by reading stories
to his sons.
Hold your breath, tiptoe
lest the storm
clouds wake.
But what of summer:
will there be drought then
and tears?
Bionote
Maureen Eppstein has three poetry collections: Earthward (Finishing Line Press), Rogue Wave at Glass Beach (March Street Press) and Quickening (March Street Press). Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Aesthetica, Basalt, Calyx, Ginosko, Poecology, Sand Hill Review, and Written River, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Originally from Aotearoa/New Zealand, she now lives on the Mendocino Coast of California. Her website is www.maureen-eppstein.com.
It pauses for small things:
in Santa Fe, an ant
negotiates a door frame
where layers of peeled paint
take turquoise deeper.
A pueblo nearby, for its annual ritual
calls for turquoise newly mined.
Old stones can crumble if hoarded,
discolor if worn.
Their value is in their transience.
Returning from the Food Bank
What seems profligate in Nature—
fruits and nuts tossed lightly to the ground—
is an economy of sharing:
plants and creatures, browsers,
munchers in the interwoven web
all giving and receiving.
So it is, returning from the Food Bank
lighter by several pounds—
green beans, red tomatoes,
stems of rainbow chard—
I hear the conversation
of the firs that line the road.
A Semblance of Normal
Bittersweetness of blue skies
these winter days
without rain.
A young friend fights cancer
by reading stories
to his sons.
Hold your breath, tiptoe
lest the storm
clouds wake.
But what of summer:
will there be drought then
and tears?
Bionote
Maureen Eppstein has three poetry collections: Earthward (Finishing Line Press), Rogue Wave at Glass Beach (March Street Press) and Quickening (March Street Press). Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Aesthetica, Basalt, Calyx, Ginosko, Poecology, Sand Hill Review, and Written River, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Originally from Aotearoa/New Zealand, she now lives on the Mendocino Coast of California. Her website is www.maureen-eppstein.com.
3 Poems by Karl W. Carter, Jr.
SUMMER DANCE
Lucy dances in the back yard with her eyes closed
and her arms held out from her sides
turning round and round
While she remembers hop-scotch played on
hot summer side walks
Going bare-foot through the grass in the rain
And the day mama bought
her some ribbon
for her hair
How it was that spring when her mother cooked greens
And she would sit on the steps
and watch the boys
play ball in the street
Lucy dances and remembers
when her brother came back
From the war that wasn’t his
How he kept crying all night and staring
off into space
And wonders why------mama keeps taking in the wash
SPACES
Between the shadow and the light
Between dusk and sunset
Spaces shimmer in the afternoon sun
Dust motes dance at childhoods door
Love rests between the eves
And your song is always there
A half step between the notes
A tear between the rain drops
To fill the emptiness that
Remains between us
A memory of loves lingering melody
BY DEFINITION
For Darrel & Shawnee Anderson- &- the Dancer
I am a thief of words
A kleptomaniac of phrases
A mugger of old dreams
A hearsay robber
A diction hijacker
A verbal stick up kid
A language predator
A pick-pocket of leftover thoughts
A verse scrounger
A dialect porch climber
A defalcator of nuance
A alocution bandit
I am a poet-a thief of words
steal this if you can
Bionote
Karl W. Carter, Jr. resides in Alexandria, Va. His poetry appears in numerous anthologies and Poetry Reviews/Quarterlies including: Three Poems (Broadside Press, 1972). Understanding the New Black Poetry (William Morrow, 1973); Synergy D.C. Anthology (Energy Black South Press, 1978); The Poet Upstairs: (1979); Drum Voices Review: Chicken Bones- A Journal 2005; Drum Voices Review 2012; Words of Protest, Words of Freedom, (Duke University Press 2012). Delaware Poetry Review (2013);Beltway Poetry Quarterly.(2014); Broadkill Review Vol.8 No.4 (2014); Beltway Poetry Quarterly Best of the Net Nominee #3(2014);Poet Lore Vol. 109, No. 3/4 (2014); About Place Journal, Vol.II, Issue IV (2014); Poetry Pacific, Spring Issue (5/5/2015); Journal of Hip Hop Studies Vol.3., Issue-1(2016). Delaware Poetry Review Volume 8 No.1(2017). He has also published a book of Poetry Southern Road and Selected Poems (2014).
Lucy dances in the back yard with her eyes closed
and her arms held out from her sides
turning round and round
While she remembers hop-scotch played on
hot summer side walks
Going bare-foot through the grass in the rain
And the day mama bought
her some ribbon
for her hair
How it was that spring when her mother cooked greens
And she would sit on the steps
and watch the boys
play ball in the street
Lucy dances and remembers
when her brother came back
From the war that wasn’t his
How he kept crying all night and staring
off into space
And wonders why------mama keeps taking in the wash
SPACES
Between the shadow and the light
Between dusk and sunset
Spaces shimmer in the afternoon sun
Dust motes dance at childhoods door
Love rests between the eves
And your song is always there
A half step between the notes
A tear between the rain drops
To fill the emptiness that
Remains between us
A memory of loves lingering melody
BY DEFINITION
For Darrel & Shawnee Anderson- &- the Dancer
I am a thief of words
A kleptomaniac of phrases
A mugger of old dreams
A hearsay robber
A diction hijacker
A verbal stick up kid
A language predator
A pick-pocket of leftover thoughts
A verse scrounger
A dialect porch climber
A defalcator of nuance
A alocution bandit
I am a poet-a thief of words
steal this if you can
Bionote
Karl W. Carter, Jr. resides in Alexandria, Va. His poetry appears in numerous anthologies and Poetry Reviews/Quarterlies including: Three Poems (Broadside Press, 1972). Understanding the New Black Poetry (William Morrow, 1973); Synergy D.C. Anthology (Energy Black South Press, 1978); The Poet Upstairs: (1979); Drum Voices Review: Chicken Bones- A Journal 2005; Drum Voices Review 2012; Words of Protest, Words of Freedom, (Duke University Press 2012). Delaware Poetry Review (2013);Beltway Poetry Quarterly.(2014); Broadkill Review Vol.8 No.4 (2014); Beltway Poetry Quarterly Best of the Net Nominee #3(2014);Poet Lore Vol. 109, No. 3/4 (2014); About Place Journal, Vol.II, Issue IV (2014); Poetry Pacific, Spring Issue (5/5/2015); Journal of Hip Hop Studies Vol.3., Issue-1(2016). Delaware Poetry Review Volume 8 No.1(2017). He has also published a book of Poetry Southern Road and Selected Poems (2014).
1 Poem by Peter Magliocco
the skeleton keys of long dead martyrs
you can sit in the night listening to trees
sing of otherworldly laments
while someone x-rays your head
to trace the fossilization of desire
putting memory on the back burner
& cook the essence of yesterday
while Poe's pendulum slices across
your guitar strings tremoring
echo of the sky's bleeding sound
waves for the resurrection of Rock
rolling thunder over the goth masses
while I dismember the body politic
with a switchblade's caustic reason
for all these cults have no meaning
without your cool fingers playing on
the skeleton keys of long dead martyrs
so the resounding forgotten winds
will accompany the immemorial flight
of desert ravens hungering to silence
your born again Rock god's last song
Bionote
Peter Magliocco writes from Las Vegas, Nevada, where he occasionally edits the lit-zine ART:MAG. His new ebook novel is The Burgher of Virtual Eden available in all the usual places.
you can sit in the night listening to trees
sing of otherworldly laments
while someone x-rays your head
to trace the fossilization of desire
putting memory on the back burner
& cook the essence of yesterday
while Poe's pendulum slices across
your guitar strings tremoring
echo of the sky's bleeding sound
waves for the resurrection of Rock
rolling thunder over the goth masses
while I dismember the body politic
with a switchblade's caustic reason
for all these cults have no meaning
without your cool fingers playing on
the skeleton keys of long dead martyrs
so the resounding forgotten winds
will accompany the immemorial flight
of desert ravens hungering to silence
your born again Rock god's last song
Bionote
Peter Magliocco writes from Las Vegas, Nevada, where he occasionally edits the lit-zine ART:MAG. His new ebook novel is The Burgher of Virtual Eden available in all the usual places.
2 Poems by Prerna Bakshi
Forgotten
(First appeared in Wilderness House Literary Review)
With no lullabies to sing,
no stories to tell,
no songs remembered,
I rock the cradle gently,
hoping it will stop you from crying,
but you continue to cry.
I lift you up,
bring you back down again,
kiss you on your cheek and then back up again.
I do this several times,
hoping it will stop you from crying,
but you continue to cry.
I try to feed you.
Pat your tummy.
Talk to you.
Play with you.
But none of this works,
as you continue to cry,
you continue to cry, cry, cry, cry, cry,
until Amma speaks to you
in your tongue – the mother tongue.
Refugees and names
(First appeared in Up the Staircase Quarterly)
When you’re a child of a refugee,
one of the first lessons you learn in school
is that your name – no longer
belongs to you.
That it will be hounded, shamed and replaced
with a brand new name, given
by members of the host country
with their rubber-stamp on it.
That it will be stripped of
all of its meaning, all of its history.
That it will be molded until
all the a’s turn into u’s;
until all the tones
become flat;
until the host country’s language
becomes the first and only language of the child.
His first day at school
in his new found host country,
my father gets scolded
by the Hindi teacher,
my grandparents get blamed
for not naming him correctly,
get mocked for not knowing
Hindi well enough.
No such thing as Taran, the teacher remarked,
the correct word is Tarun – meaning young. Now repeat after me.
He was to remain Tarun,
from this point on.
In Punjabi, my father’s native tongue,
Taran means savior, that’s what my grandparents thought he was,
when they made it to the other side of the border
alive, during the Partition.
My grandma was then
pregnant with my father.
My father survived
but his name didn’t.
Bionote
Prerna Bakshi is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of Burnt Rotis, With Love, which was long-listed for the 2015 Erbacce - Press Poetry Award in the UK and cited as one of the ‘9 Poetry Collections That Will Change The Way You See The World’ by Bustle Magazine in the US. Her work has been published widely, most recently in Chiron Review, Red Wedge Magazine, TRIVIA: Voices of Feminism and Prachya Review: Literature & Art Without Borders. More here: http://prernabakshi.strikingly.com/
(First appeared in Wilderness House Literary Review)
With no lullabies to sing,
no stories to tell,
no songs remembered,
I rock the cradle gently,
hoping it will stop you from crying,
but you continue to cry.
I lift you up,
bring you back down again,
kiss you on your cheek and then back up again.
I do this several times,
hoping it will stop you from crying,
but you continue to cry.
I try to feed you.
Pat your tummy.
Talk to you.
Play with you.
But none of this works,
as you continue to cry,
you continue to cry, cry, cry, cry, cry,
until Amma speaks to you
in your tongue – the mother tongue.
Refugees and names
(First appeared in Up the Staircase Quarterly)
When you’re a child of a refugee,
one of the first lessons you learn in school
is that your name – no longer
belongs to you.
That it will be hounded, shamed and replaced
with a brand new name, given
by members of the host country
with their rubber-stamp on it.
That it will be stripped of
all of its meaning, all of its history.
That it will be molded until
all the a’s turn into u’s;
until all the tones
become flat;
until the host country’s language
becomes the first and only language of the child.
His first day at school
in his new found host country,
my father gets scolded
by the Hindi teacher,
my grandparents get blamed
for not naming him correctly,
get mocked for not knowing
Hindi well enough.
No such thing as Taran, the teacher remarked,
the correct word is Tarun – meaning young. Now repeat after me.
He was to remain Tarun,
from this point on.
In Punjabi, my father’s native tongue,
Taran means savior, that’s what my grandparents thought he was,
when they made it to the other side of the border
alive, during the Partition.
My grandma was then
pregnant with my father.
My father survived
but his name didn’t.
Bionote
Prerna Bakshi is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of Burnt Rotis, With Love, which was long-listed for the 2015 Erbacce - Press Poetry Award in the UK and cited as one of the ‘9 Poetry Collections That Will Change The Way You See The World’ by Bustle Magazine in the US. Her work has been published widely, most recently in Chiron Review, Red Wedge Magazine, TRIVIA: Voices of Feminism and Prachya Review: Literature & Art Without Borders. More here: http://prernabakshi.strikingly.com/
4 Poems by Thomas Zimmerman
To Namremmiz Samoht
The mythic mumbo jumbo you’re a sucker
for—the vagina dentata in Dracula,
all those trees that haunt Macbeth, the long
black bag you drag, the one the Jungians say
you stuffed with troubles till your thirties and
will spend your gray life emptying—what
if it’s all real? At least as real as Shostakovich
on the stereo right now, as coffee
almost gone, as Percy’s turds you bagged
this morning in the park, as last night’s visitation—
no other way to say it—woman’s hand
around your sleep-stiff cock, whispered words
“Our shadows stain the earth,” the shudder when
it dawned on you that time will wash it all away.
American Myth
The smell of lilac yesterday,
the smell of rain today.
And death-tones on the stereo:
Charles Ives and Philip Glass,
the haunted generations.
Wife not here.
Third beer in front of me.
Familiar tropes. I think about
the women that I’ve known
and what they’ve done and what
they still might do. Vain hopes!
Keep going, say my ghosts,
and I’m adrift in space,
the world is bobbing like a piece
of fruit, and I—
damned blessèd fool—I eat it.
The Other Zimmerman
for Bob Dylan
I’m drinking porter in the kitchen, Blonde
on Blonde still playing soft. My wife is gone,
the dogs are zonked, and I am trying to
create. I sip. There’s bitterness without
much body: true with beer or marriage. Dawn
lies hours away, and I am lying through
my teeth. There’ll be no poem tonight, just doubt
that gloms on to my Thomas, sacred bond
that chafes yet whets. The music? Well, it woos:
a country band behind Rimbaud, the best
thing rock has ever offered. Darkness sifts
its richness through the pines, my mind and chest
expand, relax. And now my spirit lifts.
Sound corny? No more than the singer’s blues.
Deconstructing Friday Night
A single-malt, the wind that smells of rain,
and Mahler’s Ninth just playing soft behind
me: God could pop up, like a website ad.
Or even that old cornball, Satan, horns
and pitchfork, cloven hooves and sulfur farts.
Philosophers are right, that evil is
banal. Just like my waking dream of life:
existence thinned to food and sex and sleep.
An animality I crave. To crawl
and writhe and rave, like something from a Blake
engraving. No. Somewhere in me a guide,
a puling whelp of conscience, grabs the wheel
to swerve us clear before we hit the tree.
O better angel, you bedevil me.
Bionote
Thomas Zimmerman teaches English, directs the Writing Center, and edits The Big Windows Review at Washtenaw Community College, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His poems have appeared recently in Brickplight, Blood and Bourbon, and Tipton Poetry Journal. Tom's website: https://thomaszimmerman.wordpress.com/
The mythic mumbo jumbo you’re a sucker
for—the vagina dentata in Dracula,
all those trees that haunt Macbeth, the long
black bag you drag, the one the Jungians say
you stuffed with troubles till your thirties and
will spend your gray life emptying—what
if it’s all real? At least as real as Shostakovich
on the stereo right now, as coffee
almost gone, as Percy’s turds you bagged
this morning in the park, as last night’s visitation—
no other way to say it—woman’s hand
around your sleep-stiff cock, whispered words
“Our shadows stain the earth,” the shudder when
it dawned on you that time will wash it all away.
American Myth
The smell of lilac yesterday,
the smell of rain today.
And death-tones on the stereo:
Charles Ives and Philip Glass,
the haunted generations.
Wife not here.
Third beer in front of me.
Familiar tropes. I think about
the women that I’ve known
and what they’ve done and what
they still might do. Vain hopes!
Keep going, say my ghosts,
and I’m adrift in space,
the world is bobbing like a piece
of fruit, and I—
damned blessèd fool—I eat it.
The Other Zimmerman
for Bob Dylan
I’m drinking porter in the kitchen, Blonde
on Blonde still playing soft. My wife is gone,
the dogs are zonked, and I am trying to
create. I sip. There’s bitterness without
much body: true with beer or marriage. Dawn
lies hours away, and I am lying through
my teeth. There’ll be no poem tonight, just doubt
that gloms on to my Thomas, sacred bond
that chafes yet whets. The music? Well, it woos:
a country band behind Rimbaud, the best
thing rock has ever offered. Darkness sifts
its richness through the pines, my mind and chest
expand, relax. And now my spirit lifts.
Sound corny? No more than the singer’s blues.
Deconstructing Friday Night
A single-malt, the wind that smells of rain,
and Mahler’s Ninth just playing soft behind
me: God could pop up, like a website ad.
Or even that old cornball, Satan, horns
and pitchfork, cloven hooves and sulfur farts.
Philosophers are right, that evil is
banal. Just like my waking dream of life:
existence thinned to food and sex and sleep.
An animality I crave. To crawl
and writhe and rave, like something from a Blake
engraving. No. Somewhere in me a guide,
a puling whelp of conscience, grabs the wheel
to swerve us clear before we hit the tree.
O better angel, you bedevil me.
Bionote
Thomas Zimmerman teaches English, directs the Writing Center, and edits The Big Windows Review at Washtenaw Community College, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His poems have appeared recently in Brickplight, Blood and Bourbon, and Tipton Poetry Journal. Tom's website: https://thomaszimmerman.wordpress.com/
2 Poems by Nancy Anne Miller
Seahorse
No need for wings or legs
in the buoyant tide of the ocean.
Like the f hole in a cello
where the music seeps through.
Miscellaneous notes in the waves
symphony. Shaped like a pick I
used to clean Lacquer’s hooves,
removed earth from the iron
shoe so he could soar higher
when sweat poured down
his back salty as the ocean’s
surf, smelling of the undersea.
.
Olivetti
If I could line letters up
like soldiers, the way they
are assembled in my Olivetti
typewriter with white shiny
cadet hats I would. If I could
neaten the process of writing,
make it precise, orderly,
ceremonial I would. Silver
rungs rise up, salute
each letter as they
march onto the page. If
I could make my writing
not skip a beat and turn
back to form a new line
of thought at the sound
of a bell while I throw
the carrier back. A private
switching her gun from
her left to right shoulder,
I would, if I could.
Bionote
Nancy Anne Miller is a Bermudian poet who has published five poetry collections: Somersault (Guernica Editions), Immigrant’s Autumn (Aldrich Press), Because There Was No Sea (Anaphora Literary Press), Water Logged (Aldrich Press), and Star Map (FutureCycle Press). Island Bound Mail is forthcoming in 2017 (Aldrich Press). She teaches poetry workshops in Bermuda.
No need for wings or legs
in the buoyant tide of the ocean.
Like the f hole in a cello
where the music seeps through.
Miscellaneous notes in the waves
symphony. Shaped like a pick I
used to clean Lacquer’s hooves,
removed earth from the iron
shoe so he could soar higher
when sweat poured down
his back salty as the ocean’s
surf, smelling of the undersea.
.
Olivetti
If I could line letters up
like soldiers, the way they
are assembled in my Olivetti
typewriter with white shiny
cadet hats I would. If I could
neaten the process of writing,
make it precise, orderly,
ceremonial I would. Silver
rungs rise up, salute
each letter as they
march onto the page. If
I could make my writing
not skip a beat and turn
back to form a new line
of thought at the sound
of a bell while I throw
the carrier back. A private
switching her gun from
her left to right shoulder,
I would, if I could.
Bionote
Nancy Anne Miller is a Bermudian poet who has published five poetry collections: Somersault (Guernica Editions), Immigrant’s Autumn (Aldrich Press), Because There Was No Sea (Anaphora Literary Press), Water Logged (Aldrich Press), and Star Map (FutureCycle Press). Island Bound Mail is forthcoming in 2017 (Aldrich Press). She teaches poetry workshops in Bermuda.
2 Poems by Linda M. Crate
flowers of the galaxy
koi fish
swimming in the pond
beneath the colorful
singing tulips
it makes me wonder if
we aren't all just fish
swimming beneath the galaxy's garden
of dying flowers?
i want to say no,
but sunsets are so colorful;
i cannot help but think them flowers
trembling in the sea of the sky.
sad song of the moon
pale painted white moon
a face of tragic pain
savage beauty
folded in the petals of her pain,
small yet large enough to command
the oceans and demand respect
from wolves and man;
i wonder if she trusts a single soul
or if her wounded heart
has grown thorns and thistles to protect itself
from love that could tear more wounds
into her soul.
Bionote
Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has three published chapbooks A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press - June 2013), Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon - January 2014), and If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications, August 2016). Her fantasy novel Blood & Magic was published in March 2015. The second novel of this series Dragons & Magic was published in October 2015. The third of the seven book series Centaurs & Magic was published November 2016. Her novel Corvids & Magic was published March 2017. Her novel Phoenix Tears is forthcoming.
koi fish
swimming in the pond
beneath the colorful
singing tulips
it makes me wonder if
we aren't all just fish
swimming beneath the galaxy's garden
of dying flowers?
i want to say no,
but sunsets are so colorful;
i cannot help but think them flowers
trembling in the sea of the sky.
sad song of the moon
pale painted white moon
a face of tragic pain
savage beauty
folded in the petals of her pain,
small yet large enough to command
the oceans and demand respect
from wolves and man;
i wonder if she trusts a single soul
or if her wounded heart
has grown thorns and thistles to protect itself
from love that could tear more wounds
into her soul.
Bionote
Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has three published chapbooks A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press - June 2013), Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon - January 2014), and If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications, August 2016). Her fantasy novel Blood & Magic was published in March 2015. The second novel of this series Dragons & Magic was published in October 2015. The third of the seven book series Centaurs & Magic was published November 2016. Her novel Corvids & Magic was published March 2017. Her novel Phoenix Tears is forthcoming.
2 Poems by Catherine M. Moscatt
Silence
My mind is a machine that cannot rest
A tool that always overheats
Constantly whirring
Constantly humming
Like a house on the corner
Of two busy streets
There’s never quiet
Never peace
I see it
But it’s out of reach
Confusion, noise, it’s all I know
A flower buried by the snow
I’m suffocated
Asphyxiated
My mind is dark and complicated
I dream of better things to come
A place my troubled thoughts can run
A mind not damaged by such violence
I dream one day that I’ll find silence
Promises
You promised me a garden
Where the flowers never die
You told me if I trusted you
Then together we could fly
But at my feet are wilted flowers
Battered by the weather
And I see no wings upon my back
No, not a single feather
You promised me a kingdom
You told me I could be the queen
We’d live together in a castle
Where true love would reign supreme
But there’s been a revolution
And I now am locked away
My voice is like your love for me
Growing weaker every day
Now I know that every word you said
Was not to be believed
Your words were only hollow shells
From the time they were conceived
Because you carved a knife from my own trust
And then you cut me open
I learned that promises of love
Are better left unspoken
Bionote
Catherine is a 20 year old counseling and human services major. Besides poetry, she enjoys playing basketball, listening to loud music and watching terrible horror movies. Her poetry has been published several magazines including Sick Lit Magazine, Phree Write Magazine and Muse- An International Poetry Journal.
My mind is a machine that cannot rest
A tool that always overheats
Constantly whirring
Constantly humming
Like a house on the corner
Of two busy streets
There’s never quiet
Never peace
I see it
But it’s out of reach
Confusion, noise, it’s all I know
A flower buried by the snow
I’m suffocated
Asphyxiated
My mind is dark and complicated
I dream of better things to come
A place my troubled thoughts can run
A mind not damaged by such violence
I dream one day that I’ll find silence
Promises
You promised me a garden
Where the flowers never die
You told me if I trusted you
Then together we could fly
But at my feet are wilted flowers
Battered by the weather
And I see no wings upon my back
No, not a single feather
You promised me a kingdom
You told me I could be the queen
We’d live together in a castle
Where true love would reign supreme
But there’s been a revolution
And I now am locked away
My voice is like your love for me
Growing weaker every day
Now I know that every word you said
Was not to be believed
Your words were only hollow shells
From the time they were conceived
Because you carved a knife from my own trust
And then you cut me open
I learned that promises of love
Are better left unspoken
Bionote
Catherine is a 20 year old counseling and human services major. Besides poetry, she enjoys playing basketball, listening to loud music and watching terrible horror movies. Her poetry has been published several magazines including Sick Lit Magazine, Phree Write Magazine and Muse- An International Poetry Journal.
1 Poem by Kelly Lydick
Poem
After Alice Notley’s “Poem”
A finger is a kind of tool
the men bending his in the shed
is thinking: I wonder, are there
any giraffes in the zoo that can’t reach tree leaves?
Bionote
Kelly Lydick received her B.A. in Writing and Literature from Burlington College, and her M.A. in Writing and Consciousness from the New College of California, San Francisco (now at CIIS). Her writing has appeared in Guernica, The Rumpus, Drunken Boat, Switched-on Gutenberg, Mission at Tenth, Thema, Tarpaulin Sky, and many others.
Additional articles have appeared in Natural Awakenings, Java, Western Art Collector, Santa Fean, and True Blue Spirit magazines, as well as on the home page of ElephantJournal.com. Her work has also been featured on NPR’s The Writers’ Block. She is the author of the chapbook We Once Were, and the experimental, Mastering the Dream. She is a member of the co-founding editorial board of Immanence Journal.
Kelly holds certifications as a Meditation Facilitator, Reiki Master, Crystal Reiki Master, Past Life Healer, Animal Reiki Master, and Gateway Dreaming™ Coach. She teaches writing and metaphysical workshops, and offers private consultations through her company Waking the Dream. Her signature workshop, Writing the Dream Time, has been featured at Burlington College, ASU’s Piper Center for Creative Writing, and others.
She holds professional memberships with the International Association for the Study of Dreams, where she has presented her work on dream studies, the Academy of American Poets, and the Arizona Authors Association. You can learn more about her work at www.kellylydick.com.
After Alice Notley’s “Poem”
A finger is a kind of tool
the men bending his in the shed
is thinking: I wonder, are there
any giraffes in the zoo that can’t reach tree leaves?
Bionote
Kelly Lydick received her B.A. in Writing and Literature from Burlington College, and her M.A. in Writing and Consciousness from the New College of California, San Francisco (now at CIIS). Her writing has appeared in Guernica, The Rumpus, Drunken Boat, Switched-on Gutenberg, Mission at Tenth, Thema, Tarpaulin Sky, and many others.
Additional articles have appeared in Natural Awakenings, Java, Western Art Collector, Santa Fean, and True Blue Spirit magazines, as well as on the home page of ElephantJournal.com. Her work has also been featured on NPR’s The Writers’ Block. She is the author of the chapbook We Once Were, and the experimental, Mastering the Dream. She is a member of the co-founding editorial board of Immanence Journal.
Kelly holds certifications as a Meditation Facilitator, Reiki Master, Crystal Reiki Master, Past Life Healer, Animal Reiki Master, and Gateway Dreaming™ Coach. She teaches writing and metaphysical workshops, and offers private consultations through her company Waking the Dream. Her signature workshop, Writing the Dream Time, has been featured at Burlington College, ASU’s Piper Center for Creative Writing, and others.
She holds professional memberships with the International Association for the Study of Dreams, where she has presented her work on dream studies, the Academy of American Poets, and the Arizona Authors Association. You can learn more about her work at www.kellylydick.com.
1 Poem and 7 Photos by Jennifer Powers
A Thousand Miles
highway wind against fingertips
tractor trailers on interstate 80
tornadoes across the plains
a stranger at a rest stop
gas station coffee
chrome orange detours
solitaire on the hood of a car
cherry slushee at midnight
overnight floods
lonely motel pools plastic chairs cement
the freeway—white—with moonlight
t-shirts and jeans and chucks
petty and springsteen on the radio
obama on breakfast nook t.v.
security abandoned to the city, lust
to come on the avenue
the cowboy bars
with tattooed roughnecks
pounding
jack daniels
my back slamming stall doors
hungry tongues of ash and Guinness
hikers move across deserts mountains dunes
coffee shops & pot brownies & flip flops
thompson & kerouac & ginsberg
the rockies with their snow and light
bighorn sheep
boulder drowns the east coast
in wet snow by the blue light of dusk
hen eggs and pepper bacon
the ache the fruition the dream
i’m here and i’m not here
the hurt the love the goodbye
i fall to my knees at your kitchen sink
it is what i need
how painful you are
how painful
you are
Bionote
Jenn Powers is a writer and photographer from New England. She has work published or forthcoming in Hayden's Ferry Review, The Pinch, Jabberwock Review, Don't Talk To Me About Love, Talking Writing, Calyx, and Zingara Poetry Review. Please visit www.jennpowers..com.
Artist's Statement
In this crop of photos I enjoyed capturing the softer tones of objects and encounters of the every day world. I contrasted this ordinariness with what simmers beneath: the chemical and biological constructions of existence by using digital manipulation. What is color and light? What is reflection? I amplified these spectrums by color, tone, and texture. A puddle, a spigot, a door are simple objects to the naked eye, but in reality, are complex compositions. They deserve to be seen. They deserve to shine.
Sleepwalking
Electromagnetic
Quicksilver
Spring Frost
Acid Rain
 |
| Neon-Crop: Windows Photo Viewer |
 |
| Neon_Crop: Windows Photo Viewer |
2 Poems by Katarina Balazsova
DEAD END
We seem to be in the same
black hole of which edge
has something like asphalt
flowing in hot
Forget these lines
in case I'm generating
a dead end,
but I'm anyways
terminally ill with lust
so I can write what
I normally don't
leaving any decorations
out of the text
such as daffodils painted
in pale lemon with colour
and water which, once thick
with ash, will smother the fire
with careful avoidance
of spilling over the rim
(previously published in Accent Aspirations Magazine's Friday's Poems)
BARREN REGION
after the night
ocean reveals itself
sunken into its bed
and consciousness.
reversed like mountains upside down,
with exposed bits and fragments
it now forms a landscape
in a negative space.
it makes you want to
go there and walk it,
forgetting the purpose
of present state.
why this coding
and conditioning?
this shall be the last
ever written down—
the last documentation
of dream that will not last,
like the ocean-print
in the barren region.
Bionote
Katarina Balazsova, a native Slovakian born into Hungarian family, moved to Vancouver, Canada in 2004 in search of true identity. She came out of the closet as a Poet and now thrives on writing in her second language. Her poetry is published in Ascent Aspirations Magazine, Crap Orgasm and recently in Sustenance: Writers from BC and Beyond on the Subject of Food.
We seem to be in the same
black hole of which edge
has something like asphalt
flowing in hot
Forget these lines
in case I'm generating
a dead end,
but I'm anyways
terminally ill with lust
so I can write what
I normally don't
leaving any decorations
out of the text
such as daffodils painted
in pale lemon with colour
and water which, once thick
with ash, will smother the fire
with careful avoidance
of spilling over the rim
(previously published in Accent Aspirations Magazine's Friday's Poems)
BARREN REGION
after the night
ocean reveals itself
sunken into its bed
and consciousness.
reversed like mountains upside down,
with exposed bits and fragments
it now forms a landscape
in a negative space.
it makes you want to
go there and walk it,
forgetting the purpose
of present state.
why this coding
and conditioning?
this shall be the last
ever written down—
the last documentation
of dream that will not last,
like the ocean-print
in the barren region.
Bionote
Katarina Balazsova, a native Slovakian born into Hungarian family, moved to Vancouver, Canada in 2004 in search of true identity. She came out of the closet as a Poet and now thrives on writing in her second language. Her poetry is published in Ascent Aspirations Magazine, Crap Orgasm and recently in Sustenance: Writers from BC and Beyond on the Subject of Food.
2 Poems by Chimezie Ihekuna
The Making of self in the light of the tree (i)
I’m Rooted in Self-discovery
I’m Stemming out in Self-realization
I’m Branching forth in Self-Dynamism
I’m Leaving in the process of Self-completion
I’m Flowering in Self-propagation
I’m Fruiting in Self-Productivity
The Making of self in the light of the tree (ii)
Grounding myself to the soil of firm belief
Planting my sub-conscious to the root of truth
Stemming my conscious to the length of longevity
Branching my super-conscious with the illumination of change
Fruiting my higher self to the energies of the cosmos...
Bionote
Mr. Ben, as he is called, is a poet, playwright, an internationally published and a represented author, speaker and voice-over artist whose agenda is to see to the betterment of people through his creativity. See more of his works at www.amazon.com/author/mrben,
I’m Rooted in Self-discovery
I’m Stemming out in Self-realization
I’m Branching forth in Self-Dynamism
I’m Leaving in the process of Self-completion
I’m Flowering in Self-propagation
I’m Fruiting in Self-Productivity
The Making of self in the light of the tree (ii)
Grounding myself to the soil of firm belief
Planting my sub-conscious to the root of truth
Stemming my conscious to the length of longevity
Branching my super-conscious with the illumination of change
Fruiting my higher self to the energies of the cosmos...
Bionote
Mr. Ben, as he is called, is a poet, playwright, an internationally published and a represented author, speaker and voice-over artist whose agenda is to see to the betterment of people through his creativity. See more of his works at www.amazon.com/author/mrben,
2 Poems by Mark G. Pennington
The filth and the rag brine
The mirror looked like it had been up all night.
A sunken, netted and pilfered salmon
Marked by the severity
Of the fisherman’s net.
Blood dances like shadow assassins.
Inflated, pink skull.
The room dropped to its knees.
A man can bruise in many ways.
Eyes tired as mothers of gin
And drivers with bad road directions.
The gut of brokenness.
Overture in songbird elegy:
Reminder of the dead broken heart.
You are always alone,
Strange days
August side effects;
Ruminating on shellac,
The beautiful Demoiselle,
Found among fast flowing waters:
Calopteryx Virgo,
In the flesh.
Erect in blanket white,
Shoulders alone;
Camellia in late winter,
Meek,
In dishabille.
Bionote
Mark G. Pennington was born 1985 and lives and writes in UK. Previous publications are under the name J. Rose in magazines such as Dear Sir, The Journal UK, Broken Wine, Clockwise Cat and others. Rose has also published a first book in 2012, titled Lithium Clockwork.
The mirror looked like it had been up all night.
A sunken, netted and pilfered salmon
Marked by the severity
Of the fisherman’s net.
Blood dances like shadow assassins.
Inflated, pink skull.
The room dropped to its knees.
A man can bruise in many ways.
Eyes tired as mothers of gin
And drivers with bad road directions.
The gut of brokenness.
Overture in songbird elegy:
Reminder of the dead broken heart.
You are always alone,
Strange days
August side effects;
Ruminating on shellac,
The beautiful Demoiselle,
Found among fast flowing waters:
Calopteryx Virgo,
In the flesh.
Erect in blanket white,
Shoulders alone;
Camellia in late winter,
Meek,
In dishabille.
Bionote
Mark G. Pennington was born 1985 and lives and writes in UK. Previous publications are under the name J. Rose in magazines such as Dear Sir, The Journal UK, Broken Wine, Clockwise Cat and others. Rose has also published a first book in 2012, titled Lithium Clockwork.
1 Poem by Avril Meallem and Shernaz Wadia
Avril and Shernaz together developed the innovative genre of collaborative poetry writing that they called “Tapestry Poetry”. They published their first collection of “Tapestry” poems in 2012 are now in the process of publishing a second volume. They have won several 1st prizes and honorable mentions for their “Tapestry” poems on the “Your Space – Muse India” e−journal. Information on this genre can be found at :http://tapestrypoetry.webs.com/
Born to Fly
Oh, to be a bird!
To soar and glide with the wind,
the whole sky my stage.
But I was not created with wings.
My mission is bound to this earth,
to love and care for it,
to take my place in the history of mankind
and only in my dreams
to experience the joy flight.
Avril
Mama, Papa, if brother is your prince
Am I not your precious princess?
Then clip not my wings, cage me not
The ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ of conditioning
Those ‘musts’ and ‘must-nots’...
Don’t stunt my growth. Don’t let me wilt.
Leave me not to be trampled underfoot,
Just be the guiding force under my wings
Gracefully, gratefully, to my dreams I will soar.
Shernaz
Born to Fly – Tapestry
Mama, Papa, if brother is your prince
then am I not your precious princess?
Am I not created with wings too?
Must I experience the joy of flight
only in my dreams?
The ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ of conditioning−
those ‘musts’ and ‘must-nots’
bind me to this earth,
stunt my growth and make me wilt.
Why clip my wings and cage me?
Why can’t I rise and glide with the wind,
the whole sky to be my stage?
Please leave me not to be trampled underfoot.
Love and care for me that I may
take my place in the history of mankind.
Just be the guiding force under my wings,
and gratefully, gracefully, to my dreams I will soar...
Oh, to be a bird!
Avril & Shernaz
Bionotes
Avril Meallem was born and educated in London. She studied physiotherapy and other complementary therapies and worked with children with special needs and in an adult brain injury unit. On retirement she immigrated to Israel with her husband and now lives in Jerusalem. She has a deep connection to her Jewish religion and aspires to live by its basic tenet of ‘Love your fellow as yourself’ and to see the good in all people. Her poems have appeared in various literary journals and anthologies in Israel, USA and India. She has also published two collections of her poems: ‘Dancing with the Wind’ and “Come Sit with Me by the River”
Shernaz Wadia is a retired primary school teacher, and lives in Pune, India. She was educated in St. Joseph’s High School, Valsad and Wadia College, Pune. A Zoroastrian, she follows the basic tenets of her religion — Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds. She is a peace-loving home maker, who firmly believes in live and let live. Her articles, short stories and poems have been widely published in web journals and anthologies. She has also published “Whispers of the Soul”, a collection of some of her poems. She is a columnist for the web journal “Different Truths”.
Born to Fly
Oh, to be a bird!
To soar and glide with the wind,
the whole sky my stage.
But I was not created with wings.
My mission is bound to this earth,
to love and care for it,
to take my place in the history of mankind
and only in my dreams
to experience the joy flight.
Avril
Mama, Papa, if brother is your prince
Am I not your precious princess?
Then clip not my wings, cage me not
The ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ of conditioning
Those ‘musts’ and ‘must-nots’...
Don’t stunt my growth. Don’t let me wilt.
Leave me not to be trampled underfoot,
Just be the guiding force under my wings
Gracefully, gratefully, to my dreams I will soar.
Shernaz
Born to Fly – Tapestry
Mama, Papa, if brother is your prince
then am I not your precious princess?
Am I not created with wings too?
Must I experience the joy of flight
only in my dreams?
The ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ of conditioning−
those ‘musts’ and ‘must-nots’
bind me to this earth,
stunt my growth and make me wilt.
Why clip my wings and cage me?
Why can’t I rise and glide with the wind,
the whole sky to be my stage?
Please leave me not to be trampled underfoot.
Love and care for me that I may
take my place in the history of mankind.
Just be the guiding force under my wings,
and gratefully, gracefully, to my dreams I will soar...
Oh, to be a bird!
Avril & Shernaz
Bionotes
Avril Meallem was born and educated in London. She studied physiotherapy and other complementary therapies and worked with children with special needs and in an adult brain injury unit. On retirement she immigrated to Israel with her husband and now lives in Jerusalem. She has a deep connection to her Jewish religion and aspires to live by its basic tenet of ‘Love your fellow as yourself’ and to see the good in all people. Her poems have appeared in various literary journals and anthologies in Israel, USA and India. She has also published two collections of her poems: ‘Dancing with the Wind’ and “Come Sit with Me by the River”
Shernaz Wadia is a retired primary school teacher, and lives in Pune, India. She was educated in St. Joseph’s High School, Valsad and Wadia College, Pune. A Zoroastrian, she follows the basic tenets of her religion — Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds. She is a peace-loving home maker, who firmly believes in live and let live. Her articles, short stories and poems have been widely published in web journals and anthologies. She has also published “Whispers of the Soul”, a collection of some of her poems. She is a columnist for the web journal “Different Truths”.
3 Poems by Eric Robert Nolan
This Windy Morning
The gales cry,
their sounds rise,
so strangely like
the wailing of children.
The gales
have ripped a rift in purgatory.
Along the low hill’s haze
and indistinct palette of grays,
the thinning slate shapes
are either columns of rain,
or a quorum of waifish wraiths.
Condemned but inculpable
are those little figures —
long ago natives maybe — in an ironic,
insufficient sacrament:
this obscuring rain’s
parody of baptism.
If that faultless chorus
should never see heaven,
they will ever be wind without end
their lamentations ever
shrill within rare
arriving spring downpours.
Always will the squall
imprison their calls.
You and I should refrain
any temptation to breach
these palisades of rain —
lest we be greeted by each
ironed-colored countenance:
the sorrowing slim nickel
of an infant’s visage,
little boys’ graying faces,
the silvering eyes of the girls.
Redbud Leaves
Falling early, in July,
are perforated tapered spades,
or the honeycombed arrows of hearts —
beetle-bitten redbud leaves.
Delaware Sheets
Sharon lies,
a sylph amid the sheets
in our room in the hills,
drawn up around her –
are waves of fabric.
Her warmth is the same
as that of green hills:
gentle, blessed by the sun,
fertile with promise.
Her dark eyes
are as thickets.
Bionote
Eric Robert Nolan’s debut novel is the postapocalyptic science fiction story, “The Dogs Don’t Bark In Brooklyn Any More.” It was published by Dagda Publishing in 2013, and is available at Amazon.com both in paperback and for Kindle. Eric’s poetry and short stories have been featured by Dagda Publishing, Every Day Poets, Every Day Fiction, Illumen, Under The Bed, Dead Beats Literary Blog, Microfiction Monday Magazine, Dead Snakes, The Bright Light Cafe, Aphelion, Tales of the Zombie War,The Bees Are Dead, Haikuniverse, Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine, The International War Veterans’ Poetry Archive, and elsewhere.
The gales cry,
their sounds rise,
so strangely like
the wailing of children.
The gales
have ripped a rift in purgatory.
Along the low hill’s haze
and indistinct palette of grays,
the thinning slate shapes
are either columns of rain,
or a quorum of waifish wraiths.
Condemned but inculpable
are those little figures —
long ago natives maybe — in an ironic,
insufficient sacrament:
this obscuring rain’s
parody of baptism.
If that faultless chorus
should never see heaven,
they will ever be wind without end
their lamentations ever
shrill within rare
arriving spring downpours.
Always will the squall
imprison their calls.
You and I should refrain
any temptation to breach
these palisades of rain —
lest we be greeted by each
ironed-colored countenance:
the sorrowing slim nickel
of an infant’s visage,
little boys’ graying faces,
the silvering eyes of the girls.
Redbud Leaves
Falling early, in July,
are perforated tapered spades,
or the honeycombed arrows of hearts —
beetle-bitten redbud leaves.
Delaware Sheets
Sharon lies,
a sylph amid the sheets
in our room in the hills,
drawn up around her –
are waves of fabric.
Her warmth is the same
as that of green hills:
gentle, blessed by the sun,
fertile with promise.
Her dark eyes
are as thickets.
Bionote
Eric Robert Nolan’s debut novel is the postapocalyptic science fiction story, “The Dogs Don’t Bark In Brooklyn Any More.” It was published by Dagda Publishing in 2013, and is available at Amazon.com both in paperback and for Kindle. Eric’s poetry and short stories have been featured by Dagda Publishing, Every Day Poets, Every Day Fiction, Illumen, Under The Bed, Dead Beats Literary Blog, Microfiction Monday Magazine, Dead Snakes, The Bright Light Cafe, Aphelion, Tales of the Zombie War,The Bees Are Dead, Haikuniverse, Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine, The International War Veterans’ Poetry Archive, and elsewhere.
3 Poems by Deborah DeNicola
Tableau
On my mother’s patio above the canal
I saw a marriage in the clouds. Not only loose doves,
but small animals feeding each other like Adam’s hand
clasped to the Lord’s in the Sistine sky. I watched
from the terrace. I saw the man-cloud and the woman
up high surrender and touch. An angel buoyed
between them like the reverend who witnesses
the vows. I was witness. I saw the Jerusalem palms
loft into the firmament, creation’s first
foreground. Then an aisle of pageantry down
which the clouds stepped and met,
one towards the other. Male and Female
He made them in the rose carpet of twilight
while, completely oblivious,
the rock ‘n’ roll boats putted by.
Yoga Stardust
Does the light serve as breath? How do the meshed
colors of sky move inside to pump plumes
through my lungs? My vinyasas
on porcelain tile, a small chill tightens
my hands, and I want The Higher Nothingness,
the Nothing in perfect balance with the fans
rasping across from each other. Around me,
the dust of stars I am composed of
resists the air-conditioned space. I open
the Patio doors, I am golden in this blue
moon gloaming like the stars mirrored back
from the canal. I am my atoms’ patterned gleam,
the poinciana’s scarlet orbs, each molecule in that pile
of muscle shells. I am the fallen palm next to
the drying towel. A lizard skitters down the stucco wall,
crosses my plasma-painted toe, thinks it a hot rock
to lie on. But I rise to warrior, gently wobble him
off, small pearl of peace, curled like his tail,
chi in my upturned palm.
Transparent Man
He taught himself how to make colors transparent.
Make the roof of the sky and its blue go away.
Birds taught him how to braid words encrypted as nests.
And I learned how to survive in the forest with only
a tarp and plastic utensils. He taught me bad magic,
his tall fingers tendrilled my throat, and I choked out
the very big questions he’d later knot in my hair.
Only the fires could trace him, each like a Siamese sign
or a semaphore, embers astray in translation, smoky
remnant of notes we had sung. And the villagers swore
he could square circles through different dimensions.
Sometimes even now when night sifts through my hair,
I shrink into shadow, feel for him there with my tongue.
Bionote
Deborah DeNicola’s most recent book is Original Human, was recently published by Word Tech Communications in 2010. She edited the anthology Orpheus & Company; Contemporary Poems on Greek Mythology, from The University Press of New England. Previous poetry books include Where Divinity Begins from Alice James Books, and three chapbooks. Her memoir, The Future that Brought Her Here was published by Nicholas-Hays/Ibis Press in 2009 and reached #1 in psychology books on Amazon.com Among other awards Deborah has received a National Endowment Fellowship in poetry. She won The Packingtown Review’s Analytical Essay Award in 2008 and the Carol Bly Short Story Award in 2013. Her web site is: www.intuitivegateways.com.
On my mother’s patio above the canal
I saw a marriage in the clouds. Not only loose doves,
but small animals feeding each other like Adam’s hand
clasped to the Lord’s in the Sistine sky. I watched
from the terrace. I saw the man-cloud and the woman
up high surrender and touch. An angel buoyed
between them like the reverend who witnesses
the vows. I was witness. I saw the Jerusalem palms
loft into the firmament, creation’s first
foreground. Then an aisle of pageantry down
which the clouds stepped and met,
one towards the other. Male and Female
He made them in the rose carpet of twilight
while, completely oblivious,
the rock ‘n’ roll boats putted by.
Yoga Stardust
Does the light serve as breath? How do the meshed
colors of sky move inside to pump plumes
through my lungs? My vinyasas
on porcelain tile, a small chill tightens
my hands, and I want The Higher Nothingness,
the Nothing in perfect balance with the fans
rasping across from each other. Around me,
the dust of stars I am composed of
resists the air-conditioned space. I open
the Patio doors, I am golden in this blue
moon gloaming like the stars mirrored back
from the canal. I am my atoms’ patterned gleam,
the poinciana’s scarlet orbs, each molecule in that pile
of muscle shells. I am the fallen palm next to
the drying towel. A lizard skitters down the stucco wall,
crosses my plasma-painted toe, thinks it a hot rock
to lie on. But I rise to warrior, gently wobble him
off, small pearl of peace, curled like his tail,
chi in my upturned palm.
Transparent Man
He taught himself how to make colors transparent.
Make the roof of the sky and its blue go away.
Birds taught him how to braid words encrypted as nests.
And I learned how to survive in the forest with only
a tarp and plastic utensils. He taught me bad magic,
his tall fingers tendrilled my throat, and I choked out
the very big questions he’d later knot in my hair.
Only the fires could trace him, each like a Siamese sign
or a semaphore, embers astray in translation, smoky
remnant of notes we had sung. And the villagers swore
he could square circles through different dimensions.
Sometimes even now when night sifts through my hair,
I shrink into shadow, feel for him there with my tongue.
Bionote
Deborah DeNicola’s most recent book is Original Human, was recently published by Word Tech Communications in 2010. She edited the anthology Orpheus & Company; Contemporary Poems on Greek Mythology, from The University Press of New England. Previous poetry books include Where Divinity Begins from Alice James Books, and three chapbooks. Her memoir, The Future that Brought Her Here was published by Nicholas-Hays/Ibis Press in 2009 and reached #1 in psychology books on Amazon.com Among other awards Deborah has received a National Endowment Fellowship in poetry. She won The Packingtown Review’s Analytical Essay Award in 2008 and the Carol Bly Short Story Award in 2013. Her web site is: www.intuitivegateways.com.
2 Poems by Michael E. Stone
Bird Arrows
Sparrows wheel in formation of
small, sleek flyers keeping
more or less to an arrow head
of birds, of wings, moving.
Towards evening their twisting
avian corkscrews seek a perch.
They decorate old tv antennas and
roof edges with lumps and rows of bird.
At dawn the wheel turns again.
The Voice
I shut my eyes.
Hypnagogic
half-visions — half-dreams.
closer to sleep
than to waking, and
clearly
I heard your voice
calling my name
in the very tone
you always used.
Just once.
Your voice,
three years gone,
rang in my ears.
Unlike in my dreams.
It sounded real.
I waited to hear it again,
Silence.
Bionote
Michael Stone was born in England in 1938. His family moved to Australia in 1941, where he received his schooling, up to the completion of his BA (Hons.) degree in 1960. He is retired from teaching at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has lived in Jerusalem since 1966. He has published poems in numerous literary journals and ezines as well as translations of medieval Armenian poetry. His poetry has also been anthologized in a number of collections. Two books of his work have been published -- Selected Poems (2010) and Orange Light (2016) both by Cyclamens and Swords Press. A poetic translation of Adamgirk', a medieval Armenian epic about Adam and Eve in 6,000 lines, appeared with Oxford University Press in 2007. Some of his poems have been translated into Armenian and Italian.
Sparrows wheel in formation of
small, sleek flyers keeping
more or less to an arrow head
of birds, of wings, moving.
Towards evening their twisting
avian corkscrews seek a perch.
They decorate old tv antennas and
roof edges with lumps and rows of bird.
At dawn the wheel turns again.
The Voice
I shut my eyes.
Hypnagogic
half-visions — half-dreams.
closer to sleep
than to waking, and
clearly
I heard your voice
calling my name
in the very tone
you always used.
Just once.
Your voice,
three years gone,
rang in my ears.
Unlike in my dreams.
It sounded real.
I waited to hear it again,
Silence.
Bionote
Michael Stone was born in England in 1938. His family moved to Australia in 1941, where he received his schooling, up to the completion of his BA (Hons.) degree in 1960. He is retired from teaching at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has lived in Jerusalem since 1966. He has published poems in numerous literary journals and ezines as well as translations of medieval Armenian poetry. His poetry has also been anthologized in a number of collections. Two books of his work have been published -- Selected Poems (2010) and Orange Light (2016) both by Cyclamens and Swords Press. A poetic translation of Adamgirk', a medieval Armenian epic about Adam and Eve in 6,000 lines, appeared with Oxford University Press in 2007. Some of his poems have been translated into Armenian and Italian.
1 Poem by Megan DiBello
Do sluts have confidence?
When summer is about to unbutton my shirt
I think of winter never wanting to make love to me
I think of the time where more clothes = hide more skin
I tell him you wear clothing 30% of the time and are naked
Now in a classroom, in sleep, in shower
70% of the time
Summer allergies to cotton, silk, and wool
I use about an inch of my knuckle to move my eyeball against my lid
Summer hasn’t taught me how to wear my eyes naked
Sometimes the skin is all we see
When summer is about to unbutton my shirt
I think of winter never wanting to make love to me
I think of the time where more clothes = hide more skin
I tell him you wear clothing 30% of the time and are naked
Now in a classroom, in sleep, in shower
70% of the time
Summer allergies to cotton, silk, and wool
I use about an inch of my knuckle to move my eyeball against my lid
Summer hasn’t taught me how to wear my eyes naked
Sometimes the skin is all we see
3 Poems by Brian J. Koester
Dead Moth
cicadas' calls glitter
more silver than the moon
when you go
part of me tears away
when you come back
the rejoining graft
will it take?
a dead moth
with only its wings left
the eyes on them
could not close
MH 17[*]
a canal green
in the last shred
of summer under
arches of trees
where the bells
still toll the names
everyone here
was joined with them
now drifts with them
on the breeze
[*] MH17 was the Malaysia Airlines flight out of Amsterdam bound for Kuala Lumpur, that was shot down over Ukraine 17 July 2014. The Dutch say MH17 the way Americans say 9/11.
Rattlesnake
If music is a language,
and a rattle makes music,
then a rattlesnake is a musician
and can talk, and that's what this one did
when my friends refused to follow, off road,
somewhere on a grand desolation
of rock and brush on Navajo land,
through a kind of tune so visceral, so primal
we both, as a warning, a threat from a hundred
feet away, sudden like thunder, loud like water,
knew an enemy like the sun knows the horizon,
without divine edict in this forsaken garden,
knew what it was saying as it flowed away
with a grace already ancient
before we came down from the trees,
with a soft roll like a snare drum and slipped
out of sight and its final word stopped me
as if by remote control, a burst that left me frozen
as if a flourish of iced lightning were striking home.
Bionote
Brian J Koester has recently earned his MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in "Louisiana Literature Journal", "The Ghazal Page", "HeartWood", and "Peacock Journal". He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts and has been a freelance cellist.
cicadas' calls glitter
more silver than the moon
when you go
part of me tears away
when you come back
the rejoining graft
will it take?
a dead moth
with only its wings left
the eyes on them
could not close
MH 17[*]
a canal green
in the last shred
of summer under
arches of trees
where the bells
still toll the names
everyone here
was joined with them
now drifts with them
on the breeze
[*] MH17 was the Malaysia Airlines flight out of Amsterdam bound for Kuala Lumpur, that was shot down over Ukraine 17 July 2014. The Dutch say MH17 the way Americans say 9/11.
Rattlesnake
If music is a language,
and a rattle makes music,
then a rattlesnake is a musician
and can talk, and that's what this one did
when my friends refused to follow, off road,
somewhere on a grand desolation
of rock and brush on Navajo land,
through a kind of tune so visceral, so primal
we both, as a warning, a threat from a hundred
feet away, sudden like thunder, loud like water,
knew an enemy like the sun knows the horizon,
without divine edict in this forsaken garden,
knew what it was saying as it flowed away
with a grace already ancient
before we came down from the trees,
with a soft roll like a snare drum and slipped
out of sight and its final word stopped me
as if by remote control, a burst that left me frozen
as if a flourish of iced lightning were striking home.
Bionote
Brian J Koester has recently earned his MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in "Louisiana Literature Journal", "The Ghazal Page", "HeartWood", and "Peacock Journal". He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts and has been a freelance cellist.
1 Poem by R. T. Castleberry
TRACING THE SIN (TO THE SOURCE)
Lamp light obscures
winter’s burn on barren trees.
I change the mistake,
clear my conscience,
roll into a renter’s bed--
twisted rags of blanket, sweated sheet,
pillows pounded flat.
I curl in morning quarters, conscious,
keys in hand.
A rasp of morning radio
tumbles me to my feet.
I ache until the daily burst
of Red Bull and B12.
Binders of protest metaphor, misadventure,
mid-week’s work of half-typed pages,
pile like shavings for a fire.
I cannot be still. I refuse to quiet.
The chase of chance and choice
calls over the drag of carillon bells,
the orphan’s ambulance siren.
Bionote
R.T. Castleberry is a widely published poet and social critic. He was a co-founder of the Flying Dutchman Writers Troupe, co-editor/publisher of the poetry magazine Curbside Review, an assistant editor for Lily Poetry Review and Ardent. He was a 2015 Pushcart Prize nominee. His work has appeared in Roanoke Review, Poetry Pacific, Iodine Poetry Journal, Blue Collar Review and many others. His chapbook, Arriving At The Riverside, was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2010. An e-book, Dialogue and Appetite, was published by Right Hand Pointing in May, 2011. He lives and writes in Houston, Texas.
Lamp light obscures
winter’s burn on barren trees.
I change the mistake,
clear my conscience,
roll into a renter’s bed--
twisted rags of blanket, sweated sheet,
pillows pounded flat.
I curl in morning quarters, conscious,
keys in hand.
A rasp of morning radio
tumbles me to my feet.
I ache until the daily burst
of Red Bull and B12.
Binders of protest metaphor, misadventure,
mid-week’s work of half-typed pages,
pile like shavings for a fire.
I cannot be still. I refuse to quiet.
The chase of chance and choice
calls over the drag of carillon bells,
the orphan’s ambulance siren.
Bionote
R.T. Castleberry is a widely published poet and social critic. He was a co-founder of the Flying Dutchman Writers Troupe, co-editor/publisher of the poetry magazine Curbside Review, an assistant editor for Lily Poetry Review and Ardent. He was a 2015 Pushcart Prize nominee. His work has appeared in Roanoke Review, Poetry Pacific, Iodine Poetry Journal, Blue Collar Review and many others. His chapbook, Arriving At The Riverside, was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2010. An e-book, Dialogue and Appetite, was published by Right Hand Pointing in May, 2011. He lives and writes in Houston, Texas.
2 Poems by Paul Doty
Pouring a Steaming Wife
“On my death bed, you’ll tell the Doctor, just make her
a cup of tea.” Having faith in tea is having faith in intuition,
easy to overdo but indisputably an exit strategy of necessity.
The idiosyncrasies of intimate partners endear until they
don’t, by that time two lives are either an alchemy that
for all its pungency has cured loneliness or it’s a recipe
tried and forsaken. Steeping inside an ironstone teapot
with the lid on I have faith that her lips moving plump
and insistent will save me kisses and utterances when tea
turns sharp, boiled life is allotted time, it cools. Night
boiling metal kettle reincarnation we smell like onions
from kissing through tears but cheap tea return sex has
table tea cups out and bathrobes on and late night public
radio interviewing young John Donne who thinks
“nakednesse” explains everything thanks to sunrise’s
busy old fool. Doffed pajamas don’t figure out humility
but moonlight using all the houses windows as nightlights
lays bare the cure for idle desperation which is quiet
desperation cooing and crying for good health to extend
the days of not quite figuring each other out.
Studebaker Epithalamium
Start the Studebaker. Defunct car company metaphors wind their way over poetry with evermore destinations,
Studebaker a demigod elongated out of art deco aesthetics promptly onto Eisenhower's sprawled imagination.
A car to be a domestic thing so praising Studebaker means praising marriage, that chariot of brine and future—
chariot fueled by tears not gasoline, Studebaker household, home, and highway had I a Provincial Wagon
with wood on the sides to repair, and parts, and a wrench that glowed moon beams with each turn love would
burn to the socket. Failing that—house, hearth, and automobile, axle and abundance, the familiar earth
under tire rolling slowly to a stop so to marry, marry the person with all night luminous dashboard eyes,
to the ignition of the marriage bed and automobiles converted from everything to Augustinian chastity.
Lust is the side view mirrors on any marriage, but the odometer compiled figures wide-eyed wonder
from high beams and the years go on, the wheels turn, and while there is no assurance that accelerating
turbo-charges longevity, it might turn over.
Bionote
Paul Doty is a Reference Librarian at St. Lawrence University. He resides in Canton New York with his wife and youngest daughter. Paul has published before in _Poetry Pacific_, and has also published poems in the _Mississippi Review_, _Cortland Review_, _Shot Glass_, and _The Rootdrinker_.
“On my death bed, you’ll tell the Doctor, just make her
a cup of tea.” Having faith in tea is having faith in intuition,
easy to overdo but indisputably an exit strategy of necessity.
The idiosyncrasies of intimate partners endear until they
don’t, by that time two lives are either an alchemy that
for all its pungency has cured loneliness or it’s a recipe
tried and forsaken. Steeping inside an ironstone teapot
with the lid on I have faith that her lips moving plump
and insistent will save me kisses and utterances when tea
turns sharp, boiled life is allotted time, it cools. Night
boiling metal kettle reincarnation we smell like onions
from kissing through tears but cheap tea return sex has
table tea cups out and bathrobes on and late night public
radio interviewing young John Donne who thinks
“nakednesse” explains everything thanks to sunrise’s
busy old fool. Doffed pajamas don’t figure out humility
but moonlight using all the houses windows as nightlights
lays bare the cure for idle desperation which is quiet
desperation cooing and crying for good health to extend
the days of not quite figuring each other out.
Studebaker Epithalamium
Start the Studebaker. Defunct car company metaphors wind their way over poetry with evermore destinations,
Studebaker a demigod elongated out of art deco aesthetics promptly onto Eisenhower's sprawled imagination.
A car to be a domestic thing so praising Studebaker means praising marriage, that chariot of brine and future—
chariot fueled by tears not gasoline, Studebaker household, home, and highway had I a Provincial Wagon
with wood on the sides to repair, and parts, and a wrench that glowed moon beams with each turn love would
burn to the socket. Failing that—house, hearth, and automobile, axle and abundance, the familiar earth
under tire rolling slowly to a stop so to marry, marry the person with all night luminous dashboard eyes,
to the ignition of the marriage bed and automobiles converted from everything to Augustinian chastity.
Lust is the side view mirrors on any marriage, but the odometer compiled figures wide-eyed wonder
from high beams and the years go on, the wheels turn, and while there is no assurance that accelerating
turbo-charges longevity, it might turn over.
Bionote
Paul Doty is a Reference Librarian at St. Lawrence University. He resides in Canton New York with his wife and youngest daughter. Paul has published before in _Poetry Pacific_, and has also published poems in the _Mississippi Review_, _Cortland Review_, _Shot Glass_, and _The Rootdrinker_.
1 Poem by Buff Whitman-Bradley
As vertical as possible
I place my feet with care in such a world
– William Stafford
I have fallen twice recently,
Once onto the rocks
In a creek I was crossing
And once on a steep stairway
Outside a friend's house.
Neither time was I injured
But it did hurt my heart
To be reminded once again
That my arthritic joints and I
Have entered the age
Of falling-down-ness
Which in my spryer moments
Still seems years and miles away.
I know I've got to remember
To lift my feet higher
On my strolls and hikes
And gaddings about town
And always to use a good walking stick.
I also know
That even high-stepping and the stoutest of staffs
Won't prevent the Big Fall that looms
In the unknowable future,
My one final tumble
Into oblivion's infinite elevator shaft.
But until that happens
I'll do my best
To remain as vertical as possible –
Be mindful of terrain
Wear sturdy shoes
And place my feet with care.
Bionote
Buff Whitman-Bradley's poetry has appeared in many print and online journals, including Atlanta Review, Bryant Literary Review, Concho River Review, Crannog, december, Hawai'i Review, Pinyon, Rockhurst Review, Solstice, Third Wednesday, Watershed Review, and others. He has published several collections of poems, most recently, Cancer Cantata, poems written during his treatment for cancer in 2016. His interviews with soldiers who refused to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan became the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War. He lives in northern California with his wife Cynthia.
I place my feet with care in such a world
– William Stafford
I have fallen twice recently,
Once onto the rocks
In a creek I was crossing
And once on a steep stairway
Outside a friend's house.
Neither time was I injured
But it did hurt my heart
To be reminded once again
That my arthritic joints and I
Have entered the age
Of falling-down-ness
Which in my spryer moments
Still seems years and miles away.
I know I've got to remember
To lift my feet higher
On my strolls and hikes
And gaddings about town
And always to use a good walking stick.
I also know
That even high-stepping and the stoutest of staffs
Won't prevent the Big Fall that looms
In the unknowable future,
My one final tumble
Into oblivion's infinite elevator shaft.
But until that happens
I'll do my best
To remain as vertical as possible –
Be mindful of terrain
Wear sturdy shoes
And place my feet with care.
Bionote
Buff Whitman-Bradley's poetry has appeared in many print and online journals, including Atlanta Review, Bryant Literary Review, Concho River Review, Crannog, december, Hawai'i Review, Pinyon, Rockhurst Review, Solstice, Third Wednesday, Watershed Review, and others. He has published several collections of poems, most recently, Cancer Cantata, poems written during his treatment for cancer in 2016. His interviews with soldiers who refused to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan became the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War. He lives in northern California with his wife Cynthia.
1 Poem by Scott Laudati
my first night back
we were far apart once
but you can hear my heart now
in this chest,
and your hair used to itch
my skin if you didn’t tuck it back
but you’ll never hear about it again
because i left you once
and i learned
to miss everything,
coffee at sunset
and all night sirens up and down
amsterdam
while the pitbulls howled at
newspapers blowing by like
white rabbits taunting them
in the night.
and the coffee fades while the rum kicks
in and all those sounds fade to the periphery
like a television on in someone
else's apartment.
and your hair crawls across my chest
like the tiny arms of a friendly spider.
you always knew what you had
but it took me a little longer.
there’s no escape in my forever now
our bones can grow soft in peace.
and that future we always talked about
can’t come soon enough
Bionote
Scott Laudati lives in New York City with his turtle, Tango. He is the author of books Play The Devil (novel) and Hawaiian Shirts In The Electric Chair (poems). Visit him on instagram @scottlaudati
we were far apart once
but you can hear my heart now
in this chest,
and your hair used to itch
my skin if you didn’t tuck it back
but you’ll never hear about it again
because i left you once
and i learned
to miss everything,
coffee at sunset
and all night sirens up and down
amsterdam
while the pitbulls howled at
newspapers blowing by like
white rabbits taunting them
in the night.
and the coffee fades while the rum kicks
in and all those sounds fade to the periphery
like a television on in someone
else's apartment.
and your hair crawls across my chest
like the tiny arms of a friendly spider.
you always knew what you had
but it took me a little longer.
there’s no escape in my forever now
our bones can grow soft in peace.
and that future we always talked about
can’t come soon enough
Bionote
Scott Laudati lives in New York City with his turtle, Tango. He is the author of books Play The Devil (novel) and Hawaiian Shirts In The Electric Chair (poems). Visit him on instagram @scottlaudati
1 Poem by Pearse Murray
Today’s Report
An iceberg, blazing blue, slides
through a folded Greenland fjord.
An Arctic Tern tears by,
its travails are set in wing.
A hooded seal molts as it
mauls a silvered body bare.
Iceberg, bird and mammal face
another day of work and closer to their end –
over a blabescent sea, all-phasing.
a daily melt of undercurrents on earth –
innocent as we.
Bionote
He has published poems in a wide variety of journals, anthologies and on-line media; he has placed amd short-listed in a number of poetry contests; a native of Dublin, graduate of UCD and lives in Albany, New York.
An iceberg, blazing blue, slides
through a folded Greenland fjord.
An Arctic Tern tears by,
its travails are set in wing.
A hooded seal molts as it
mauls a silvered body bare.
Iceberg, bird and mammal face
another day of work and closer to their end –
over a blabescent sea, all-phasing.
a daily melt of undercurrents on earth –
innocent as we.
Bionote
He has published poems in a wide variety of journals, anthologies and on-line media; he has placed amd short-listed in a number of poetry contests; a native of Dublin, graduate of UCD and lives in Albany, New York.
1 Poem by Andrew Hubbard
The Supplicant
I know what a house is.
It’s warmth and safety and food.
This house smelled kind.
I’d been lost so long
I couldn’t remember anything else
And hungry so long my legs shook.
Somewhere I cut my paw
And there was blood on every footprint.
I don’t remember how I climbed
Onto their porch, but I did.
I laid down and decided
I wasn’t leaving, even if I died.
I couldn’t go any farther anyway.
When they found me
They made surprised noises.
She smelled gentle,
Him, I wasn’t sure.
She brought me a big bowl of food
And held my head up.
I ate it lying down.
She brought me another bowl
And I ate that too.
They made more surprised noises.
I was very tired.
He picked me up and carried me inside,
Now he smelled just fine.
When I woke up
There was a big, warm cover over me
And she was putting sharp smells
On my paw. It hurt a little.
Then she wrapped it in soft cloths.
I was still very tired
But I smelled something without a name
And sensed it all the way through—
I was home.
Bionote
Andrew Hubbard was born and raised in a coastal Maine fishing village. He earned degrees in English and Creative Writing from Dartmouth College and Columbia University, respectively.
For most of his career he has worked as Director of Training for major financial institutions, creating and delivering Sales, Management, and Technical training for user groups of up to 4,000.
He has had four prose books published, and his fifth and sixth books, collections of poetry, were published in 2014 and 2016 by Interactive Press.
He is a casual student of cooking and wine, a former martial arts instructor and competitive weight lifter, a collector of edged weapons, and a licensed handgun instructor. He lives in rural Indiana with his family, two Siberian Huskies, and a demon cat.
I know what a house is.
It’s warmth and safety and food.
This house smelled kind.
I’d been lost so long
I couldn’t remember anything else
And hungry so long my legs shook.
Somewhere I cut my paw
And there was blood on every footprint.
I don’t remember how I climbed
Onto their porch, but I did.
I laid down and decided
I wasn’t leaving, even if I died.
I couldn’t go any farther anyway.
When they found me
They made surprised noises.
She smelled gentle,
Him, I wasn’t sure.
She brought me a big bowl of food
And held my head up.
I ate it lying down.
She brought me another bowl
And I ate that too.
They made more surprised noises.
I was very tired.
He picked me up and carried me inside,
Now he smelled just fine.
When I woke up
There was a big, warm cover over me
And she was putting sharp smells
On my paw. It hurt a little.
Then she wrapped it in soft cloths.
I was still very tired
But I smelled something without a name
And sensed it all the way through—
I was home.
Bionote
Andrew Hubbard was born and raised in a coastal Maine fishing village. He earned degrees in English and Creative Writing from Dartmouth College and Columbia University, respectively.
For most of his career he has worked as Director of Training for major financial institutions, creating and delivering Sales, Management, and Technical training for user groups of up to 4,000.
He has had four prose books published, and his fifth and sixth books, collections of poetry, were published in 2014 and 2016 by Interactive Press.
He is a casual student of cooking and wine, a former martial arts instructor and competitive weight lifter, a collector of edged weapons, and a licensed handgun instructor. He lives in rural Indiana with his family, two Siberian Huskies, and a demon cat.
Friday, 5 May 2017
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)