5 Photos by Peter Victor

Bionote


Peter Victor is a writer, photographer and poet living in Ellsworth, Maine. He traveled abroad extensively with the United States Merchant Marine from 1979 to 1994. Upon retiring from the Merchant Marine he entered the University of Maine in Orono, Maine where he completed a B.S. in Aquaculture and a B.A. in English. His passions are fly-fishing and wilderness canoe trips. Several times a year he can be found on one of Maine’s remote white water rivers with his camera, fly rod and two sons.

1 Poem by Glen Wilson

That’s not the rain 

It affects us more than we say, 

this darkening artillery water 

building the blank spaces 

between you and me, 

falling on everything, 

seeping sentences 

that ran out of air, 

let silence wet 

new reservoirs, 

for that’s not 

the rain 

that’s 

us, 

      separating       from each other. 

Bionote 

Glen Wilson lives in Portadown, Co Armagh with his wife Rhonda and children Sian and Cain. 

He has been widely published having work in The Honest Ulsterman, Foliate Oak , Iota, Boyne Berries, North West Words, Snapdragon Journal, Blue Max Review, The Screech Owl, Yellow Chair Review, A New Ulster and The Interpreters House amongst others . In 2014 he won the Poetry Space competition and was shortlisted for the Wasafiri New Writing Prize. He was runner up in the Glebe House Harmony Trust poetry competition in 2015 . His work also appeared in the 2015 Making Memories Anthology and in The Stony Thursday Book 2015. 

5 Poems by Ziggy Edwards

Spring

When I die it will be Spring:
before dawn, only the dim 

fluorescent above the stove,
the distant burble of birds. 

I will be alone and calm,
will survey the fading sky 

like a farm boy setting off. 

I say this, knowing well
it might be blood and panic; 

it might be winter. Knowing
it will not be my choice.

Faint Wet Finger

When a tear leaks into my crow's feet
I keep it there, feel air sear
with cold wings the grooves I sow
squint by smile, the way I squint now 

as I cut through the park alone, branches
raindancing blank blue sky. I coax and savor
its ticklish contrail, the way out of breath
means I am breathing hard.

A Child's Riches 

I met a child on the road.
We walked together
in our muddy clothes. 

In his light voice
he asked travelers for money.
Refugees and thieves
pulled coins from their sleeves. 

He spent them all
on a room with two pallets,
and I kept silent. 

The child led me along the warped porch
pulling my arm, but soon ran ahead.
Later I would find him
asleep in the dirt. 

In full dark I stepped from under the eaves
into a sky flooded with pinwheeling stars.

For Jim Henson 

Kermit's voice sounds tinny now
in credit card commercials, and I see you
with ping-pong balls strapped to your hands,
teaching college dropouts how
their fingers are mouths, how sadness is
when you tuck your head and frown
but can't cry tears.

Someday All This

In the break room there is a window:

portrait that bounces and twangs with each step closer

until you stand framed in its ten-story drop,

studying sky’s wool teeth winced with flashing radio needles,

parking lot of frosted cars, brick buildings between.

Pigeons arc tar rooftops like trick decks of cards.

Woman in red ski hat, hands in pockets,

walks under phone lines festooned with snow-filled shoes.

Neck of soda cold between your fingers,

you glance toward laughs: the Weight Watchers clique

looping the hallway a second time. 

[author's note: "Spring" originally appeared in Rune , "Someday All This" first appeared in Barbaric Yawp (it has been revised since publication), and "A Child's Riches" first appeared in The Brentwood Anthology. ]

Bionote

Ziggy Edwards is the proud owner of a loft bed. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she discovers hidden neighborhoods and shortcuts across private property. Ziggy's poems and short stories have appeared (or will appear) in publications including 5 AM , Confluence , Main Street Rag, Illumen , and Dreams & Nightmares . 

2 Poems by Michael Caylo-Baradi

Anchor 

A box of photos sinks
me back to giggles 

lost in sand
building castles 

over and
over again. 

Distance 

is a park playing
hide and seek 

through leaves
and trees 

that branch out
shadows, 

digging stories
in its eyes. 

Bionote 

Michael Caylo-Baradi lives in California. You may find his work in other issues of Poetry Pacific. His work has also appeared in Blue Fifth Review , Blue Print Review , The Common , Eclectica , elimae , Galatea Resurrects , Ink Sweat & Tears , Kartika Review , Local Nomad , MiPOesias , Otoliths , Our Own Voice , poeticdiversity , Poetry Prick of the Spindle , XCP: Streetnotes . Zygote in My Coffee , and elsewhere. He reviews books and literary journals for New Pages. 

5 Poems by Bryan R. Monte

The Curse

Thrown across the bare wood floor
the crumpled, yellow legal paper
half opens against the skirting-board;
a knotted fist
or a rose in autumn. 

The Blessing 

How can I be rising whilst still sitting
with these four hands upon my head?
Afraid I’ll fly right out of this chair
and disturb this twenty-minute, temple prayer. 

The laws of logic and physics reassure me
I can’t be moving, won’t disturb
the words recorded in this room
which, on playback, sound smashed and broken. 

OK, enough, make it stop, I think
unlike a little child
unwilling to be lifted up. 

On Your Way Out 

On your way out
your voice was much clearer
though I never heard a word
three thousand miles away 

Pain gripped my arms, my chest,
shot down my legs and feet
into the floor, my body, a bell
ringing to the centre of the earth. 

The mid-week call was
no surprise, already packed
I told everyone at work
I’d be gone for a week. 

Wings 

Always rooms and beds big enough for both of us
but you have to work and don’t like America
especially the red states, where I was born
or where I’m attending a writing course
in Florida’s January summer weather
as I listen to 70s & 80s songs
from a station in Orlando
on the little clock radio
next to the bed. 

You said I would miss you before I left
and you were right even though
I was still glad to get away
and up in the air where
I felt so much lighter,
off on another
adventure. 

These wings of words and metal
carefully fitted together for
lift and travel have
taken me away
again. 

This Emptiness

Behind the bookcase, pushed aside,
a winding staircase that leads
to three, empty, attic rooms,
two with yellowed articles pasted on walls
the third with a skylight window
where only God looked in. 

The furniture has long been taken away
just as the people who once hid here
the secret flat now hollow and cold
as the chimes from the royal Westerkerk’s
blue, red, gold and white-pearled crowned spire
peal through the wooden floors and beams. 

The teenagers, who shouted outside in the rain
along the Prinsengracht, clicking their rings
against the metal queue bars for half an hour
crowding together for selfies and warmth,
are now much quieter or silent
groping for a place to put this emptiness. 

Bionote

Bryan R. Monte’s poetry has been published in Assaracus, Bay Windows, Friends Journal, Irreantum, and Sunstone and the anthology Gathered: Contemporary Quaker Poets. Recently he has written 20 poems about multiple sclerosis and a collection of memoirs about Steve Abbott, Harry Britt, James Broughton, Jerome Caja, Thom Gunn and Harold Norse. Both collections are in search of a publisher.

3 Poems by JoyAnne O'Donnell

Lake of Peace 

Warm peace flows gently
calling us softly
on the waves of fragile
on the sands soft tile
where I can rest a while
the lakes psalms motion
the twilight's potion
leaving us strong
with arms of lifelong. 

Sun Dial

Yellow light
twinkles everything to gold
ray's on spirit's joy
beaming down on sapphire wings
of ocean sparkle
within our love of vacation
certain to human's migration. 

Restless Daisy

White as love
pure as snow
falling into our arms
of no harms
nature's call to a sun charm. 

Bionote 

JoyAnne published a chapbook of poems titled "Tea Time". JoyAnne loves the art of sharing her poems. 

2 Poems by Amber Forbes

Dear Hunger Pangs, 

This desert body
needs no oasis.
You feed this
lovely barrenness--
emptiest desert
ever seen.
Storms come through,
thunder explosions
rattle this lifeless land.
No creature crawls,
no cacti grow,
no scrub subsists,
no wind shifts sand.
The storms come and go,
the sun exists in darkness. 

Dear hunger pangs, 

This
            body
                        feeds
on
            agony. 

Letter from a Dead Girl 

Dying is not
a feathery bed.
It is not a rest
for the beaten.
Suicide is not
a sin--neither
is it a savior.
Redemption is
nonexistent. 

Who you were
in life, is who
you will be
in death. 

Bionote 

Amber Forbes is a young adult author, and her first book, When Stars Die , was published by AEC Stellar Publishing, Inc. It is now being re-released by Gnome on Pig Productions, and it is part of a trilogy. She has published in The Oddville Press , Sorean: A Gothic Magazine , Sleeve, 2013: A Stellar Collection, and is having more poetry appear in an anthology titled Purple Sparks: Poetry by Survivors of Sexual Violence . As well as being a writer, she is a student and will graduate with a BA in English in March 2016. She is also studying for the American Council on Exercise to become a personal trainer. She currently works as a marketer in Augusta, GA and occasionally takes on projects for editing. You can find out more about her at amberskyeforbes.wordpress.com . 

1 Poem by Linda Woolven

Twilight

When the sky turns slate, 

and grows still and silent, 

and twilight touches with 

its smudge of suggestions. 

And all tones become hints of grey, 

a comfort, 

I am held in the embrace 

of coming night. 

I know the day is done, 

quietly, 

and I am in soft shades and edges. 

A safe womblike place 

as the night approaches 

with its darker intentions. 

Bionote

Linda Woolven has published over 100 poems, including two chapbooks, in numerous journals. She won an award for one of her poems. 

1 Poem by Ted Mc Carthy

MESSIAEN 

It is the empty air 

that knits fragments of birdcall. 

Light breaks in divine discord 

while the wise ear sleeps 

then wakes to the pinhead 

of a bird's happiness. 

Bionote

Ted Mc Carthy lives and teaches in Clones, Ireland. His work has appeared in magazines in Ireland, UK, USA, Canada Austraia and Germany. He has had two collections published,'November Wedding', and 'Beverly Downs'. He is currently working on a third collection, as well as a series of translations. 

3 Poems by Heikki Huotari

HOW TO

When taste buds open in the winter morning of the mouth, the ultraviolets are pollinated
by the scintillating fog of ice, the final resting place of light, so hide your gun behind
a plaster patch (or in the flattened grass beside a moonlit path of broken glass) and when
you need it simply punch a new hole in the wall. 

TOOTH AND SHOE 

When clowns collide the comical atomic particles fly off in all directions and the universe
is largely laughing matter. Guess which shoe the tooth is in, which tooth is in the shoe
and which is tooth and which is shoe and spin your web of ethics. Close your eyes and feel
the dented fender. 

FOCUS

Between me and TV I have seen the two of you and risen from the bed of nails and trod
the trails of glowing coals, some pain receptors reaching for my skin like fingers
for the ice. There is no better light. 

Bionote

Heikki Huotari is a retired professor of mathematics. In a past century, he attended a one-room country school and spent summers on a forest-fire lookout tower. His poems have appeared in several journals, including Poetry Northwest and Crazyhorse. A chapbook is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. 

2 Poems by Stefanie Bennett

THE SPOILS

Those who know when old
Is new again are
The ‘Bareback Riders’
Before
The Age of Quartz.
Who speak ‘if’ spoken
To, yet curse
A purple sage, and
The future
Without
The future’s face... 

SLIDE EFFECTS

... I hang my hat where
The oxygen’s lean
And cows
Come home
In single file.
Where nothing’s
Out to prove
A thing – but
The believing
That’s
Behind
The green gate –. 

Bionote 

Stefanie Bennett has published 18 books of poetry, a Libretto & a novel & has poems appearing in The Provo Canyon Review, The Mind[less] Muse, Shot Glass Journal, The Fib Review, Dead Snakes, The Galway Review & others. She has acted as a publishing editor, tutored in The Institute of Modern Languages at James Cook University & worked with Arts Action for Peace. Of mixed ancestry [Italian/Irish/Paugussett- Shawnee] she was born in Qld., Australia in 1945. Stefanie’s also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her latest poetry book “The Vanishing” is published by Walleah Press (2015) & is available from Walleah Press, Amazon & Fishpond. 

2 Poems by Jonathan Cooper

Vegas

Dry throat, burnt eyes,
he found his way outside
to the shock of open air
the red dusk sky.
Drifting from the hotel’s
hulked mass, he pooled against
the pier of a vast billboard.
A breeze blew
across his cracked
lips and pushed the
city’s neon waves
onto the horizon.
There they broke against
shoals of cloud and
spread themselves out
thin, thin
until they vanished
over the quiet sea
of sand and mountains. 

hospital garden

silence
stretches out 

from an empty bed
through a blank window 

and arched itself over
the small, green, hospital garden. 

Bionote 

Jonathan Cooper's poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in various publications, including The New Plains Review , The Statesman Journal , The Commonline Journal , and Poetry Pacific . He lives with his family in Vancouver, Canada, where he works in the property business.

4 Poems by Marianne Szlyk

Willow at the Public Garden

The willow in winter stands tall,
intent on her audience,
the tourists on benches, the baby strollers,
the squirrels and pigeons,
and grass that is still green.
Like the grass, she promises spring
when others do not. 

In summer, she will still be striking
beside the other, plumper trees,
some that have bloomed,
others whose blooms we ignored.
But there will be too much to look at.
The tourists will be tired and seek
the fuller shade of an oak or maple
to watch the lines for ice cream.
They will shrink, then expand,
then shrink again,
waxing, then waning like the moon,
a heat mirage in a city
that sizzles at eighty degrees.
.
Through the summer and fall,
with patience and intuition,
never really weeping,
the willow will waits for her time
and her audience
to return.

The City in the Morning

Seen from above,
the traffic pulses like blood
through veins and arteries
that thread the city’s body. 

Trees and grass are lungs,
pulling in good air,
pushing out the bad. 

This morning the city sprawls,
heels touching the harbor
while a helicopter hovers
like a mosquito about to land. 

What I Found Among the Reeds on Shady Grove Road 

The reeds conceal
the wetland that remains.
Smooth stalks protect
algae, frogs, birds
and hide
the swallow of water.
The bus labors
through heat and humidity
from early morning to
past exhausted, orange dusk. 

When I walk,
the reeds reveal
a turtle, black nub
on a rain-slicked log
in water the color
of copper
left to the elements. 

The reeds reveal
the wet stench of life,
sour mud, honeysuckle,
sulfur mixed with exhaust,
grease, and perfume.
Birds chirp and pulse
above low traffic.
The bus is electric;
it runs silently today. 

Then I see
behind the reeds:
faded bottles and cans,
the torn,
black bag
blossoming
in the water.

In The Third Year of the Drought 

Drapes across the windows
conceal the landscape outside:
the solitary trees, the metallic sky,
the scuffed hills that were once
pillows for a dead man’s dreams,
back when it rained all winter
and he was a young man
imagining himself old. 

Only the migrants are outside,
riding bicycles on the ash-black road
in the harsh sun and constant drought. 

Inside, a cat toys with cardboard,
imitating the sound of rain on branches
and leaves over the roof,
covering over the sounds
of the bicycles and the men’s Spanish:
trabajo, trabajo, borracho, trabajo. 

Bionote 

Marianne Szlyk is the editor of The Song Is... and a professor of English at Montgomery College. In the fall of 2014, she published her first chapbook with Kind of a Hurricane Press: http:// barometricpressures.blogspot. com/2014/10/listening-to- electric-cambodia-looking.html. Her poems have appeared in a variety of online and print venues, including one of Silver Birch Press’s contests, Long Exposure, Bottlec[r]ap, ken*again, Of/with, bird's thumb, Carcinogenic Poetry, Flutter Poetry Journal, and Black Poppy Review as well as Kind of a Hurricane Press' anthologies from Of Sun and Sand on. She hopes that you will consider sending work to The Song Is.... To explore this blog-zine, see http://thesongis.blogspot. com/ 

2 Poems by Sabahudin Hadžialić

BESMRTNI SNOVI 

… ETERNAL DREAMS 

I call out her name 

at night 

while she is asleep. 

… 

The reflexion of probability 

is out of grasp 

of my mortal soul 

because 

Ariadna 

spun a yarn 

from a molten core. 

… 

My core! 

… 

I call out her name 

at dawn, 

while she is asleep. 

She is strong in her 

restraint 

while she lolls 

on the tombstone 

in the graveyard 

of 

my… 

… 

Destiny. 

BUDUCE SVITANJE 

DAYBREAK SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE 

It is too hot 

to dream 

However… 

It is to cold 

to think 

Bionote 

Published 18 books of poetry and prose (BiH, France, Italy, Switzerland, USA). His poems translated into 20 world languages. Represented in anthology of poetry in World and Balkans. Awarded author. Edited two anthologies (poetry and aphorisms). Info: http://sabihadzi , weebly. com  

5 Poems by Robin Ouzman Hislop

5 Poems Excerpts from World at Large Part 2 Collected Poems in alphabetical order 

(i.) Day of Adam

O great grandmother of Eden *
i don't know
if the sun will rise tomorrow. 

The body is a tomb
soma sema
the Orphics say. 

Only the flow unfolds
folding
the enclosure of a turbulent dream 

Where i wind the shuddering
spectres
of ephemeral yesterdays. 

Bits of drift, flotsam
jetsam
on the sea of time transformed 

To now where sea horses
leave the waves
only to see, only to see. 

* Contentiously the first primate on the Savannah, arguably the original Australopithecus female Eve of Eden from which the Homo Sapient species descends. 

(iii.) East of Eden

The killing machine kills more animals a day
for consumption
than ipso facto, we in a year's killing fields. 

God made in our image, the anonymous
crowd, knotted
through with confections washed up on 

Our coast of humanity, which windows
onto a Zoo
life thrives on deception. A moral mind 

An infallible judgement, where everyone
is dead
every tomb unearthed, then resealed 

Animal, human remains heaped in fields
as tipped
dumps, where even the horizon's clouds 

Are vapid incineration, a house of cards
crumbling, falling
into one another, into the pit that blots us out. 

(v.) Lucky Hat Day. 

A sleepy bulldozer carves out the hillside
a place for tomorrow
what follows on, the jungle, the forest are without
we live in glass gardens
shooting down stars. in spite of the fact
of public hygiene there will be hunting
on Sunday. 

What follows on .... is …. & so on. 

Man cannot live on myth alone
he shall earn his soil somehow, between
the Big Bang, the Big Slam …. there will be -
but not so fast …. for reasons unknown 

All will become, a display
copy after copy, variation after variation, so it goes
on, - so on …. that which follows
on. 

A biological field in outer galactic space
the world is their toilet they shall not want. 

The world is a patchwork quilt
stitched up to the hilt its seams
which we quarter in our dreams
on which our edifice is built 

Where mind is a bobbing float
tugged on a rushing stream
while beneath the skin, bone
a ceiling sky mirrors dream 

Into a discrete assemble
time's arrow smelts in quicksilver
we the emergent, tremble
extended from alpha to omega 

Of man in short, …. of man in brief
what will he think next, after all the thought he's had? 

A computer brain at the end of time
Omega Man. 

Pack, the near infinite
(in – the moment before you munch.)
take a bit of the biscuit
before the Big Crunch
it's an eternal packet
& having all, what's next? 

(vi.) Multiverse. 

Waves that dance
an ocean maze, as we shadows
of white noise, emerge
as mirror images, alike affinities
that converge their symmetries 

though we seem to resemble
they are only an assemble
a pattern parade buried
in mirror graves
forever hidden, to touch. 

Where our stories, that unfold
chance, may never know
their fate, merged
again to veils of time
that bind them to their state. 

viii.) UFO.

Man is a rational animal
                                                                                         *
Not a pretty story
                                                                                         *
All creatures great, small
                                                                                         *
A constructing frontal cortex
                                                                                         *
A few additional variables of empathy
                                                                                         *
Modulation.
                                                                                         *
                                                                                         * 

We've been watching you
                                                                                         *
A long time
                                                                                         *
After the aftermath of our desolation
                                                                                         *
You're our baby
                                                                                         *
Our creation waiting for your extinction
                                                                                         *
                                                                                         * 

Then we'll come
                                                                                         *
We've nowhere else to go
                                                                                         *
& what will our poets do then
                                                                                         *
Mythologize
                                                                                         *
Or a mere fluctuation? 

Bionote

Robin Ouzman Hislop. Co-editor of the 12 year running on line monthly poetry journal Poetry Life and Times & current Editor presently hosted by David Jackson at Poetry Life & Times. He has made many appearances over the last years in the quarterly journals “ Canadian Zen Haiku ”,including “ In the Spotlight Winter 2010 ” & “ Sonnetto Poesia” . Recent publications include “ Voices without Borders Volume 1 ”, “ Cold Mountain Review ”, Appalachian University N Carolina.“ The Poetic Bond ” Other works include a series of Spanish sonnet translations which appear together with his own sonnets in an anthology for sonnets “ Phoenix Arising from the Ashes ” he can also be located at www.hypertexts He is currently resident in Spain engaged in poetry translation project s and the publication of a recently completed volume of poetry titled “World at Large” and further works. 

4 Poems by Sam Rose

Toast

Some days the smell of toast throws me back
five years. Today is one of those days.
Curtains open at 8am. A bad night’s sleep.
The prospect of another waking day with
nothing to do but nap. Anything remotely
stimulating takes too much effort. Waiting
for lunch time and visiting hours to break
up the day. Already wishing the day would end.
The brittle feel of crumbs. Strawberry jam. 

I’m sitting at my desk waiting for the moment
to pass. When the smell evaporates, when
the toast is devoured, I’m back in the room. 

Time Machine 

Life has turned you into a jumper
and not the knitted kind
but the kind of jumper
who jumps at the chance to pick up a knife
or miscount your dosage
and if I had known life was going to turn out this way
I would have told you never to grow up
but what good is a time machine now? 

Photography 

We had no camera so we made frames with our hands,
blinked to fire the shutter and held the picture
with faces squeezed shut,
gone from the world for those moments
as we tried to emblazon the image
onto the insides of our eyelids,
where it would hang for viewing with every blink,
its presence in every dream. 

Morn

Draped in white velvet capes,
rows of ivory trees adorned in flakes,
the treetops mirroring the sky’s soft glow -
a universe lit up peach-pink by a hidden sun. 

Stopping to capture the fleeting image,
I feel the cold of the morning echo
in the raspberry tips of my fingers. 

Bionote 

Sam Rose is a twenty-something writer living in England. By day she works in marketing and by night she writes poetry, studies for her creative writing masters degree, and is the editor of Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine. She lives with her partner and enjoys listening to music and travelling. 

2 Poems by Christopher Kennedy

The tall man is here. 

I see flowers, dripping from his hands; 

that flow towards me. 

Following my song lines, 

it encircles me; 

my slim form explodes, 

like a cat tie-dyed in neon. 

This epiphany, this fractal, 

this stupid, cultured, 

thing called love. 

Madness becomes Normal 

Insanity made me turn 

from the things that I loved - 

sanity became a two-up ring ending in its’ loss – 

mercurial madness swam in the air I breathed 

as the coins spun crazily 

then fell crashing to the floor. 

At last, I awoke – in asylum – 

protected from a world that seemed 

as mad as I once was. 

I gorged on newspapers decrying “terror!” 

on their front pages, 

while I sat in a locked ward 

laughing at their conceit. 

Bionote 

Christopher Kennedy started out as a humble student of Chinese in Western Australia. He became a journalist on local papers, followed by a trip to Sydney where he stayed for fifteen years working for many papers and magazines. Returning to Perth in 2001, he has been writing novels, poetry and plays. He has read his poetry in a number of venues and published a number of small chapbooks. He has also published on the web. 

1 Poem by Marian Romani

Asilomar Songs 

Old ocean hushes hisses, 

its steady breath the rush 

beneath the rise and fall 

of chanting waves, 

of water melodies’ 

perpetual ageless song. 

Faraway waves exhale 

slow-mounting curves, 

near ripples murmur, 

spill on glistening rock, 

linger in the tidepools, 

still, the far curls rise relentless 

to new swells, roll azure 

to white foam, shimmer, 

crash in thunder on still cliffs, 

sweep anew the silent sands. 

Soaring gulls’ piercing calls 

color, syncopate the rhythms, 

and sandy feet step in to dance 

— step sink sift step — 

as human breath deepens, 

flows with the motion of sea. 

Bionote 

Marina Romani has written poetry off and on during much of her adult life, but she began to give real time to her writing only after she retired, now about a decade ago. In those last ten years her poems have appeared in growing numbers in print and on-line literary magazines, among them Homestead Review, Porter Gulch Review, Monterey Poetry Review , and a previous issue of Poetry Pacific. Recently, Marina completed a poem-and-prose memoir of her early childhood in wartime and civil-war China, Child Interwoven: A Russian Girlhood in 1940s Shanghai, which she hopes to bring out in book form in coming months. 

5 Poems by Christy Anna Jones

We Are Doves 

The day I met you
butterflies
sang their songs of
1,000 fluttering wings
Their songs drew
the hummingbirds
who added their
purrs and whirs
which always brings the sparrows
tweeting
and the robins
bobbing along
The day I met you--
flutters, purrs and whirs,
and tweets and bobs--
a symphony in my heart


Mirror 

If I stare long enough will I finally see someone else looking back?
Gazing inward I almost see the me you fell in love with
Staring at the lines on my forehead jagged roadmaps connecting point ‘a’ to point ‘b’ all directions of my life
Sorrow like candle wax hardened in my eyes
If I look in the mirror while walking backward will I see you coming back to me?
I keep stealing glances I am not narcissistic I am merely looking for you
Time and time again all I see is me missing you
The basic truth reflected: I am all I see, I am alone with myself
I smash the mirror and pieces shatter, scatter at my feet, each shard reflects your absence
I stand at the window beneath this lonely sky. When are you coming home?


How Is That My Fault? 

I can rewrite the ending any way I choose. Then ball up the page throw it away. A new ending this time. Maybe this time you won't leave. I can rewrite you anyway I choose. Still you always leave. This white page remains blank. 

Tell me, how is that my fault? 

My distant star your mind is twenty years away dancing with a girl with the sun in her hair and a thousand volcanoes in her eyes. She burned all your future bridges when she glanced in your direction and then looked away. 

Tell me now, where was my fault? 

Sinking 

you’re drowning but I’m the one sinking
you push me under grabbing at my eyes climbing on my hair
your toes in my mouth stealing breath after breath
you were always scared of the water
I knew this
yet when you asked me to go for a midnight swim
to strip our clothes our skin our past our lies
I still said
yes 

I have no one to blame for thinking I could save you
I can’t even save myself 

I sink deeper and deeper
knowing that once I hit bottom
I am free
to shed these layers of wet skin and old lives
to push off the rocky seabed
to soar through the southern sky
with the wild geese making their way home 

Words, Unread 

These are my bones,
        picked by scavengers
        sucked dry by wolf-like hyenas
        with eyes full of lava 

And you,
        you like a vulture
        circling and screeching
        hungry for any morsel remaining 

In time my bones will vanish,
       crumbling dissolving
       swallowed by the earth around me
       as if I were never here 

My heart,
       in the song of the seagulls
       the last vibrato of echo
       will carry my ash to the shore 

One day they will find,
       scattered amongst the seaweed and starfish
       ghosts of my abandoned words
       you discarded so many years ago 

These are the words,
      you’ll never read.
      This is the heart
      you’ll never love. 

Bionote 

Christy Anna Jones loves Game of Thrones , Fritos, Amazon Prime, and the written word. Her work has appeared in various publications including Dali’s Lovechild , Emerge Literary Journal, and Melancholy Hyperbole . Christy lives in Texas, but Georgia will always be on her mind. Visit Christy at christyannajones.com . 

3 Poems by John Tustin

BRANCH 

Branch,
heavy with last night’s
snow,
bending like that.
Dripping,
like sweat, like tears,
waiting
for the sun
to
relieve her, extricate her
gradually
of her burden. 

FALLOW 

Another pair of eyes
To see in mine when I close them
Another set of neurosis
To put next to my own
Another body to reach out for
Another heart to attempt to pull close
Another battle to know her
As she tries to remain unknowable
Another journey to the center
Of another spectacular heartbreak
Another pair of eyes
To look into and imagine knowing what lies within them
Another night alone here
Thinking crazily about harvesting after all these years of tilling
Another and another and another ultimately
Fallow field 

QUARKS 

Your darkness met my darkness
But we made some sparks
Because we merged our night.
Your endless met my hopeless
Charged colliding quarks
And now we have this light.