Contributor: Aaron Poller

- -
It’s 4:08 a.m. I rise
to let the dogs out
and see the first snow
of winter here.

To see what comes
to mind, where I am.
To discover
something.

In just a moment
I will return to bed,
to dream, to sleep
its thousand ways.

The dogs will follow
out of the cold
night. The rest
will have to wait.


- - -
Aaron Poller is a nurse psychotherapist. He lives in Winston-Salem, N.C.
He hopes to publish a book or chapbook of his poems.

Contributor: Joezel Jang

- -
As I stroll halfheartedly
Down the dusty, rough road,
Suddenly, out of nowhere,

Whiffs of Jasmine
Softly drifts in the breeze,
Whispering secrets,

The ones that we never spoke,
Caressing slumbered stories
Under that lonely old oak.

And when I lost track
On the dusty, rough road,
My feet went way back

To the very roots that cradled me,
Where I buried my only heart
Once, under our old oak tree.

I sat and breathed in
The sweetness, coolness of the night,
Aimlessly staring
At thousands of floating lights,

Wishing I were one of them
Spending endless nights,
Watching over you.

But here I am living alone,
Only rekindled by memories
Of that vaguely familiar,

Whiffs of Jasmine
Now, slowly, fading away
And the secrets buried,
For just another day.


- - -
I am a hopeless romantic. I love reminiscing while strolling down the beach, watching & listening to the rhythm of the rain while drinking early morning or late night Lattes.I have always thought that I am quite unique. I write from the heart or at least from my imagination. Until now, I've been in a journey of finding myself as well as my heart in the crossroads of life. For once, hold my hand, walk with me, see through my eyes, and be my heart as I take you to my Neverneverland.

Contributor: Laura Taylor

- -
She wakes; blind,
bare
Can feel the air
brush, whisper on
skin
Can hear…drips
Rain?
Tongue feels tart,
tied

Where..?
Her hair, gone
Hands, fast,
bruised
inside
Tastes…rust.
Rust?
Face numbed

Cold
Unsure
though aware
of the certainty
No game
No hope

She waits


- - -
Laura Taylor is a gobby Northerner with a penchant for upsetting apple carts. She has been writing and performing poetry for two years, and is unable to stop.

Contributor: Art Heifetz

- -
She left him in mid-breath,
Her letters piled up,
Unopened,
On the kitchen table
Her voice still on the machine,
Apologizing for her absence
And imploring the caller
To leave a brief message.

When he traveled to the places
Where they’d met,
The footprints were all worn away,
The old, familiar faces gone.
Their quaint seaside hotel
Now seemed sad and shabby,
The new owners puzzled
Why he’d come
With a photo of a woman
They couldn’t recall.

The secluded cove
Where they’d made love
Was littered with bronze bodies
And watched by tall white condos,
Angled so each unit
Faced the flat green sea.

It was only when he held
His daughter’s infant girl,
And felt her tiny fingers
Searching for a breast,
That he recalled his late wife fully.
Cradling the baby’s sole
In the palm of his hand,
He wondered what footprints
It would make.


- - -
Art Heifetz is an ESL teacher in Richmond, Va with over 50 poems published in 6 countries. Website: polishedbrasspoems.com

Contributor: David Macpherson

- -
My favorite bar to write in was
a strip mall joint, 30 miles out of Boston,
where the local Harley Davison Clubs
congregated and acted royal and forgiving.
In my last-call autobiographies
I have said it was a biker bar,
but that might be too generous.
It was a run down beer mill
where folk drank because it was
the right thing to do.

In the stalls of the Men’s room
coke deals were going down regularly.
Which should be the first indicator
that this was the kind of place
a writer can sit down and do poetry.
Here, minding your own business
was always the song the juke box was playing.

I sat and drank my Newcastle
And wrote on Saturday afternoons,
in a sense of holy purgatory
waiting for absolution or
the next good line to bless me.
I’d take out my school standard composition book
And do the work I never was paid for.
In the six months that I put my time in
I was never greeted or asked how I was doing,
and I wrote things that I am still not ashamed
to call my product.

One afternoon, I vaguely heard
a new guy at the bar talk shit about
the weirdo fairy writing at the back tables.
And the regulars with their vests and attributions
leaned into the guy, and said,
“Shut the fuck up. He’s ours.
Just leave him the fuck alone.”
These men did not even look over at me
as they gave me fair passage.

They let me be to write, which is the best
Any poet can dream for.
I studied my pages, my words
and hoped they were worthy of the tribute.


- - -

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
The lioness is wont
to practice no

hypocrisy, no cant.
The lioness

will topple her objective,
grapple with it till

all palpitation
finally is still.

The lioness then laps,
completely dry,

what unavoidably
may spill.


- - -
Nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes, Donal Mahoney has had work published in a variety of print and electronic publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Some of his earliest work can be found at http://booksonblog12.blogspot.com/

Contributor: Jennifer Adams Teasley

- -
Forever child
playing in the fields
of yesterday’s dreams,
caught in never-ending exuberance.
Still life, yet moving through
memories re-enacting themselves out
in bitter-sweet minds of those
left behind.

Perpetual immaturity
little one captured in tender age,
everlastingly beautiful.
Traversing outside of time,
yet caught in time, statuesque
adolescent darling,
there you remain for keeps.


- - -
I am a forty-something mother, wife, and grandmother. I am a fairly new poet and writer. I have always had a profound love of the written word. This is my very first submission. Taking this step is just thrilling for me!

Contributor: Lisa Phillips Diehl

- -
Your scorched
fingers
burn the
virgins
oil as
Your
frozen eyes
melt
The turtles
skin
Ice crystals
fall
from fiery
blue
branches
disappearing
into icy
breaths


- - -

Contributor: April Salzano

- -
A stroke of karmic justice,
nurse will become patient, victim,
in need of mercy not delivered. I can hope
the medicine that would ease
be diverted to another vein,
delivered in half the milligrams
prescribed, at best, sink water,
at worst. That someone’s lowest point
coincides, aligns cosmically with yours.
Let it be held in a grip
that has started to loosen.


- - -
April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in Poetry Salzburg, Pyrokinection, Convergence, Ascent Aspirations, The Rainbow Rose, The Camel Saloon, The Applicant, Jellyfish Whispers, Deadsnakes, Winemop, and is forthcoming in Inclement, Poetry Quarterly and Decompression.

Contributor: Katrina K Guarascio

- -
I hung your shadow outside my window,
so hopefully you would come to retrieve it.

I was always more your Wendy
than your mermaid.
My scales never stuck to your skin
and my name easily escaped your mind,
leaving me to wonder
if you ever really knew me.

I gave you my thimble too soon,
a clever kiss and nothing more,
too eager for the attention of a new boy.

I was more your Wendy than your fairy friend.
My hands too soft for metal work,
my body too large for just one emotion.

But you,
you were always my Peter.
So cock-sure, congratulating your cleverness,
miss minded and forgetful,
Your attentions waver,
but your affection your loyalty
was as stubborn as a child’s lower lip.

You stayed up all night in front of my door
hand on your dagger, spark in your eye
knowing from the curl of smoke
mischief was about.

But I never asked you to fight my battles.
I never said you had to win me,
I was always yours.
After all, it was the kiss
you left on my chest that saved my life.

I want to be your fierce friend,
your clever cousin,
dance with you on high rocks,
without fear of falling.
Listen to your first laugh
like a child watching soap bubbles pop.
Let that laugh linger
on your breath for eternity,
even if it means leaving you
to your own adventures.

Too many years have passed.
You have forgotten me.
Left me sitting beside
a window in my new dress.

And I,
I have forgotten how to fly.
I became a woman
two days before every other girl.
I no longer listen for your crow.
You have become nothing
more than dust on old toys.
I grew up despite my childish promises.

This woman’s voice no longer knows
how to speak to such a boy.
But I’ll still think of you
in that place between sleeping and awake,
where we still remember dreaming.
Your shadow waits upon window sill
where you can reclaim it
before you return to your wandering island,
trailing my childhood and best intentions
in a shimmering wake.


- - -
Katrina K Guarascio resides in New Mexico where she teaches and writes. She is the author of two chapbooks of poetry, two book length publications and the blogsite Swimming with Elephants.

Contributor: Ben Nardolilli

- -
I embrace the idols of the tribe,
but such statues as I find beautiful,
and which I can hold together,
many statues
from many tribes,
I celebrate tricolors,
and wrap myself in sashes
to cover up the differences
that might be mistaken
for cross-cultural gashes,
ignoring the calls the tribe,
the calls centered on the idols
prayers for their protection
requiring sacrifice of blood,
atonement to ancestors,
I avoid them with the clamor
the marketplace provides
so generously,
I hide in the Babel tent of noise until
such war calls pass,
but before the idols of the market,
all the identities for sell,
I do not bow,
It is the advantage of the age
to be able to run like this,
no heritage under a copyright
no swords to clash for battered books.


- - -
Ben Nardolilli currently lives in Arlington, Virginia. His work has appeared in Perigee Magazine, Red Fez, Danse Macabre, The 22 Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, Elimae, fwriction, THEMA, Pear Noir, The Minetta Review, and Yes Poetry. He has a chapbook Common Symptoms of an Enduring Chill Explained, from Folded Word Press. He blogs at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com and is looking to publish his first novel.

Contributor: A.J. Huffman

- -
Tit titit tit tit tttit
tittering
sound of diminutive tools toiling.
Chest pressing foreign ground.
[Exhale.]
Granulated grip resists. Swith
to softer s t r o k e. Brush
unburies past. Particles,
time-yellowed. Improbability
of bone. Resume picking. Malleable mounds
echoing potential
(for hive or wick)
at the base of this practical[ly anonymous]
cavernous canal.


- - -
A.J. Huffman is a poet and freelance writer in Daytona Beach, Florida. She has previously published six collections of poetry all available on Amazon.com. She has also published her work in numerous national and international literary journals.

Contributor: Amy Pollard

- -
Your tattered dress spoke of a river
Where larks wove songs
Into a willowed tapestry
As the sun dissolved
Primrose pink
Fingernail scrapes
the bark of a tree
In perfect unison
With the rattling of
My heart
I follow your footprints
Until they disappear


- - -
Amy Pollard is a poet, writer and student. Her poetry has appeared in publications such as Emerge Literary Journal, Eunoia Review and The Copperfield Review. In her spare time, she drinks coffee, makes music and watches black-and-white movies.

Contributor: Theresa Milstein

- -
You remove the first roller from my hair.
All night, while I tossed and turned from the
Hard plastic lumps surrounding my head,
I dreamed of waking up as Farah Fawcett
From the TV show Charlie’s Angels.
When I was little, my friend Devra and I
Wore yellow cardigans over our cropped curls,
Imagining we possessed flowing locks.
Now I’m older and can’t pretend.

You promised me straight hair,
Like the kind you used to iron flat in the 1960s.
From those the photos of you, I would never know
You were cursed with the same frizz as me.
I wanted you to iron my hair too.
I worried the rollers were too tiny.
But you said irons are “damaging”,
And my hair is too short for beer-can rollers.

You have plucked half the rollers now.
I swallow the lump of worry.
If it didn’t work, I have to face school this way.
I know my hue is more Jaclyn Smith than Farah Fawcett,
But I can live with that.
Just please let the other kids admire me.

You unravel the last roller.
My hair looks “set,”
Like those frosty-haired grannies after a trip to the “beauty parlor”—
The kind who don’t wash their helmet hair between visits.

You smile.
“It will look different when I brush it out.”
Reality hits me. My hair isn’t long enough to
Resemble Fawcett or Smith, but I’ll take Kate Jackson.
Anything but me.
You brush my hair gingerly. As you face me,
You block my view of the progress.
When you step away, I’m transformed.
I resemble a brunette Pinky, the beauty school dropout,
From the movie Grease. Tears prick my eyes.
I’m going to school in the 1970s with a 1950s bouffant.
What will Buffy, the girl who flips her golden, feathered tresses, say?
If Keith notices me, it won’t be because I’ve transformed into an Angel.

You gaze at me in the mirror, responding to my reflection with pride.
How did I fail to express what I expected?
Why did you think this is what I wanted?
Can’t you see how crushed I feel inside?
What do you see when you see me?

You clip a tiny plastic pink bow barrette just above my bangs.

“All set.”


- - -
Theresa Milstein has several short pieces published in anthologies and journals. While her published works are for adults, she primarily writes for children and is active in the New England chapter of SCBWI (Society for Book Writers and Illustrators). She lives in Arlington, Massachusetts with her husband, two children, a dog-like cat, and a cat-like dog.

Contributor: Paul Tristram

- -
They’re green, slimy and pointy
and you’d choke if you swallowed one.
They rarely wear bandages
and plasters are unheard of
in the amphibian world.
Because they get wet and fall off
especially if they’re bought from Tesco’s.
Which is not really a problem
for their elbows are small,
which is ok,
for they are mostly legs
and tuck their arms in
when leaping from one place to another.
Apart from when cats are chasing them,
then they panic like anything
and start to hyperventilate.
Losing any sense of co-ordination
and hurling themselves in a
most destructive way
while trying to escape the
aforementioned feline.
And getting back to the job at hand
which is of course
protecting their little elbows.


- - -
Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who now lives on the Southern coast of Britain, has poems, short stories and sketches published in many publications around the world, he yearns to tattoo porcelain bridesmaids instead of digging empty graves for innocence at midnight, this too may pass, yet.

Contributor: Barbi Moroz

- -
Three men and I stood on a wooden deck
around midnight. They had cigarettes
to keep warm; I had a thin jacket.
I shivered and listened to them laugh about
a strip-pong game they’d witnessed
the night before. With my hands
deep in the pockets of my jacket, I thought
"These cigarette breaks happen too often."
The cold air wasn’t enough to quell their
need for nicotine.
The night sky was clear,
and an above-ground pool stood
as the centerpiece of the backyard.
With his head tilted toward the sky,
one of them said, “Look at that!”
A perfect circle surrounded a full moon
in the black sky. Though our limbs
were chilled, we tilted our heads back;
stared up into the night sky.
We marveled at the strange ring around
the white moon; tried to determine
its cause. A few minutes passed,
but cold overpowered the mystery.
Twilight Zone episodes echoed in our heads
as we entered the heated house. Despite
what we had imagined, a quick internet search
proved our marvel was only
a sign that a nearby storm was approaching.
Our spectacle was a common halo effect.


- - -
I am junior in college pursuing creative writing. My poetry will soon be published in The Faircloth Review and Misfits' Miscellany.

Contributor: R. Gerry Fabian

- -
If you are an accident of the moment
like something misplaced
that suddenly turns up
or a carnival lucky number
that wins a nondescript prize,
then am I somehow in that same
hemisphere of turbulent chance?
If so,
are we without control
until an inner pulse rate
sounds an alarm of action
Is this a basic survival form
that allows each morning
based on a sensation awakening?
a caliber of blood thrust
to help escape routine patterns
and offer a glance, a smile
a calculated tender word?


- - -
R. Gerry Fabian is a retired English instructor and creative writing teacher. He is the editor of Raw Dog Press. http://rawdogpress.bravesites.com/ He has published in various little and literary magazines since 1970. Currently, he is putting the finishing touches on a poetry manuscript of his published poetry and searching for a publisher.

Contributor: Rick Hartwell

- -
Rudely awakened at dawn,
Teasing another day from life
Continuing to brood like some
Antique oak draped over
A field of wild mustard.

Half-forgotten memories ebb
Withdrawing near the end of season
Late spring days freshen into summer
Still filled with unmet expectations.

Down-slope nearer the stream
Lithe limbs of slender white birches
Framed in the back-door window
Slowly wave at the retreat of winter.

Tender leaf nodes sprout like
Buds of young girls announcing an ache
Of too-fast-approaching womanhood
I continue circling round trying to trap
Forgotten facts of a fragile life.


- - -
Rick Hartwell is a retired middle school (remember, the hormonally-challenged?) English teacher living in Moreno Valley, California. He believes in the succinct, that the small becomes large; and, like the Transcendentalists and William Blake, that the instant contains eternity.

Contributor: Joseph Farley

- -
Blood must not be spilled when the earth needs to be fed,
If the soil will not bring forth green crops, the shedding of blood is appropriate.
Sprinkle three drops in each furrow before and after each seed is planted..

Sanctify the victim before the incision is made.
Do not kill by intent; let all who would nourish the soil give of themselves.
Only choose a victim if no one steps forward.

Choose by lots or by combat.
Let no man or mother gift a child.
Only those who are of age may make the sacrifice.

And send no poets, musicians or wall flowers.
They have eaten so much of themselves
that there is precious little left to feed the gods.


- - -
Joseph Farley edited Axe Factory from 1986 to 2010. His books and chapbooks include Suckers, For the Birds, Longing for the Mother Tongue, Waltz of the Meatballs, and Her Eyes.

Contributor: Art Heifetz

- -
Turn off your iphone.

Come to my world.
Feel the mud ooze up
between your toes
as we cross a soggy meadow.
Learn to tell small lies
that can’t be verified.
Have a chance encounter
with a handsome stranger
in a dimly lit café
reeking of Gauloises.
Expect the unexpected.

Stop texting that u luv me,
I have trouble understanding
the clipped prose of the young.
I want to court you with
a dozen antique phrases
from the time before
my hair thinned out and
turned from chestnut brown
to leaden grey.

If you post this on your wall,
I’m going back to
older women.


- - -
Ex-Peace Corps volunteer and retired insurance agent, currently teaching ESL to refugees and writing poems, with 36 accepted for publication since June in the US, Israel, Australia, France and Argentina.

Contributor: Ben Nardolilli

- -
Nothing, friend, can amaze you,
Sticking to the avenues
And calling the side streets an adventure,
You fail to even burrow
Or mine this town of plain and dark places.

The rain falling is what bothers you most,
You have no way to imitate it,
The thunder goes off in nearby car music,
It pierces your air the same,
You have your lightening in the neon bars.

Everything but the rain you have contained,
A shower is close to it,
But you cannot wash along the avenue,
It falls and you fear drowning,
The wetness makes you think of sinking,

Ask these clouds and the storm to leave,
You will have no rain,
The rainbow is a prize for me to see,
But you cannot enjoy it,
You are stained from coloring in the lines.


- - -
Ben Nardolilli currently lives in Arlington, Virginia. His work has appeared in Perigee Magazine, Red Fez, Danse Macabre, The 22 Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, Elimae, fwriction, THEMA, Pear Noir, The Minetta Review, and Yes Poetry. He has a chapbook Common Symptoms of an Enduring Chill Explained, from Folded Word Press. He blogs at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com and is looking to publish his first novel.

Contributor: A.J. Huffman

- -
Splotched expanse of forested shades. Darkened
veins, hardened with age. Their crossroads, tiny
moments of falter, the changing
rust of seasonal suffocation. Roots
beginning ritual molt.
Hibernation is afoot.


- - -
A.J. Huffman is a poet and freelance writer in Daytona Beach, Florida. She has previously published six collections of poetry all available on Amazon.com. She has also published her work in numerous national and international literary journals.

Contributor: Ron Yazinski

- -
After wild spring winds snapped it at the stump,
The ornamental cherry tree lies across the front yard,
Dead, but blossoming one last time
In its customary frenzy of pink and white.

Behind it, on the front porch of the family home,
Four brothers remember the day a half-century ago
When mom chose it for her new house,
And dad, who hated yard work, planted it.

Then they mention the pictures
Most of their kids had taken in front of this tree
When they stopped to see grandma
On their way to the prom;

Then one pulls out his cell phone
With its photo from last year,
Of mom holding her great grandchild
In front of this same tree.

Finally, there is the estate to be settled.
They agree that the tree will have to be removed
Before the house is put on the market.
And how it’s a shame the neighborhood has deteriorated;

Then silence, as they realize this is the last time
They will ever feel comfortable here;
And the one from New England says
“Just imagine how sweet that wood will smell when it burns.”


- - -
Ron Yazinski is a retired English teacher, who divides his time between Northeastern Pennsylvania, which has all the charm of an underground parking garage, and Winter Garden, Florida.

Contributor: Rick Hartwell

- -
Out of nothing, into nowhere,
Plodding, pushing, panting to move on.

The dynamics of this need to move --
In position, place, veneration --
Are seamless over time.
Individual struggles have
Abrupt beginnings and abrupt ends,
But only as viewed from within;
Viewed from without,
With perspective and
Distance, with disassociation,
There are no apparent seams.

Parts and scenes of individual dramas
Become a vast cacophony of
sound and swirling, perpetual motion --
Plodding, pushing, panting to excel --
To move, but in movement, only standing still.


- - -
Rick Hartwell is a retired middle school (remember, the hormonally-challenged?) English teacher living in Moreno Valley, California. He believes in the succinct, that the small becomes large; and, like the Transcendentalists and William Blake, that the instant contains eternity.

Contributor: Joseph Farley

- -
Don't get excited by your execution.
It and your life before was never really more
than a display to distract your fellow travelers
on this road trip going nowhere;
for that you get a standing ovation.
Now move along my child,
the gallows can't wait longer.
There are many in the show
and you are not the only star.


- - -
Joseph Farley edited Axe Factory from 1986 to 2010. His books and chapbooks include Suckers, For the Birds, Longing for the Mother Tongue, Waltz of the Meatballs, and Her Eyes.

Contributor: William Doreki

- -
The weasel living in my wood-rack
has whitened for winter. Caught
in the sneer of my flashlight,
his snout points west, his tail
points east toward the risen moon.
Mice rustle under the wooden deck.

They smell the musk and hustle
to their holes. I’d photograph
this streamlined carnivore but
already it has sleeked around
the corner of the house to scout
for unwary prey. The silence

of its presence and its absence rhyme.
I could step outside and attempt
to freeze-frame it somewhere
along the rear wall, but the dark,
even moonstruck, repels me.
I’m not much of a carnivore,

compared to this least weasel.
I lack the bright-eyed purpose
Keats saw in animal instinct,
lack the ferocity required
to rip the heart from a carcass
still quivering with surrender

and eat with a clear conscience.
Keats self-devoured both lungs
because nursing his consumptive
brother exposed him fatally.
No true carnivore would risk
its hide for anything but offspring;

so despite his admiration
for single-purpose creatures
Keats lacked the cruel commitment
the nineteenth century asked
of its artists. I could wait
to see the weasel return



with a mouse in its jaws. Maybe
photographing that event
would redeem me; and maybe
the moon, high overhead by then,
would absolve me of timid moments
only omnivores can afford.


- - -
WD lives in NH, teaches at KSC, has published in a bunch of places.

Contributor: Allison Grayhurst

- -
Marked in the morning like a country
finally lost and then
replanted. Or autumn in the hardened
inner walls, wearing down,
preparing for the onslaught of cold.

I am neither in the shadows nor building beauty
like pity that outlasts mercy
and all wounds that curse mercy
in the cradle of its infant power.

Blazing earnestly at first until instructions falter,
glowing faint under duress, until all that is left
to be heard is a mild ‘maybe’. And shapes
without fields or dunes prevail in the un-sunned landscape.

Planets make themselves known by the friction they bestow,
by the damage of their effect and endurance.
I draw out my ecstasy sitting under a table
where there are no footprints save but what small animals make,
adorning with their furry glory
the richness that lies below.

Marked at the closing. Blowing
into a cave. I would give it all to feed again
from your stick, minus myself on the chopping board
of thorough understanding, touch
the throne of your tenderness as I did once.

Once, when my anguish had no restraint,
teeter-tottered on a sawdust precipice with gruelling frenzy,
and I was on my knees
in a donut shop bathroom
as it burst through.

I was purged in the blizzard of my making,
electrified by love that was more than love, bursting.

Swaddling that still-seething anguish with a thousand kisses,
breaching allegiance to patience and remorse,
I was cupped in the golden constellation of your hand, arriving
eclipsed, momentarily
completed


- - -
Allison Grayhurst has had her poetry published in over 115 literary magazines Her book, Somewhere Falling, was published by Beach Holme Publishers She lives in Toronto, Canada. She also sculpts, working in clay.

Contributor: Saria

- -
Every morning with sunrise,
A lot of desires do suffice.
When the rain drops fall,
The chores of life stall.
When the bird chirps on the tree,
Someone prepares morning tea.
When the delivery man throws the newspaper,
It’s the dog that runs to be the saver.
When the milk van comes buzzing,
The sleeping home wakes up humming.
When the night bulbs turn dim,
It’s the day that’s on the brim.
When the kids rush to school,
The grandma waits sitting on the stool.
When all would be served the breakfast,
The servant would be called at last.
When the house turns silent after morning,
the cat starts roaming and purring.
When the sun is overhead,
It is too late to be in the bed.
When the boy finally rises,
There is already too much crisis.
When, realizes he is late for morning,
the mother calls everyone for afternoon dining.


- - -
Saria writes between breaks, a student. Saria appreciates finer things in life. Illustrating different aspects of human nature and life. The poems are meant to enlighten & entertain leaving behind a trail of thoughts.

Contributor: Lindsay N. Burkhard

- -
Rage.
Tanks forge through shattered glass
Goddess of narrow halls
Sing to
the end, Soldiers of Rock, Liberty ground
The Oracle Proclaimed Death:
Soon.
Your feet
Blue and enameled
Slipping off the alter
Sink to bloodied bandages- minds scratched
Soft splinters
break against
Foreign marble
marks forgotten bravery
honor.
Heroes fall to history’s
selective hands.
Stones cast and souls lost in
Waters unknown.
Golden doves pecked your breast

Enlightenment brings whispers
False!
True!
No False!
Spoken lightly
across
still waters.
The Grey-eyed One
Sings quietly along
Explosions and shrill cries-
Melodies in the Afghan Dark
Hushed tones cascade through parched lips
Eyes mercury and smoke
Hold back, O Blind Sergeant
Your adversary awaits
gold depths of the bay
Sleep’s mood
darkened and indulgent
to twilight rotting -
Lions feast on corpses and spit out
Disintegrated bullets and shrapnel
Hollow vessels of the faithful,
Devoured.
So god went up against god.


- - -

Contributor: Art Heifetz

- -
How shall I remember you,
now that your birthday’s
drawing near?

By the timbre of your throaty voice,
your sighs and whispers
floating on
the sultry summer night?

By the scent of fresh croissants
at a copper-urned café,
of steam rising from
wet cobblestones,
of limp jasmine falling
on your moonlit hair?

By the pressure of your palm
as you guide me gracefully
across the polished floor,
the feel of musky skin
sticking to my chest
as we smoke our cigarettes
in post-coital bliss?

Is this what they mean
when they speak of
the afterlife?
Is this what they mean
when they speak of
love undying?


- - -
Ex-Peace Corp volunteer and retired insurance agent currently teaching ESL to refugees and writing poems, 36 of which have been accepted for publication since June in the US, Australia, France, Israel and Argentina.

Contributor: Samantha Seto

- -
Avenues of trees show the path,
poisoned bread and wine.

Past dogwood, cottage hidden in forest,
fog wanders the forest, light filters clouds.

Upon seven mountains, wolves roam land.
Intertwined dogwood on stonewalls,

Lovers flick pennies into the water,
exchange variations of cryptic secrets.

Green-brown leaves imprint in dirt,
sunflowers breathe in steady mists.

We travel into the wild, time nonexistent,
initials forever carved into bark.

Dancing to the sun-gods, summon spirits,
lines of our feet carve the mud.

Dying okra weaves black patterns into earth,
colorful winds paint the sky, reflect on waters.

Our voices cling together -
sing an oath; we’ll never part.


- - -
Samantha Seto is a writer. She has been published in various anthologies including Ceremony, The Screech Owl, Coffee Table Poetry, Carcinogenic Poetry, and Black Magnolias Journal. Samantha studies creative writing.

Contributor: Jay Levon

- -
I watch for you in the clouds,
and in gods breezes
across the tall grass
of this golden meadow.

Sitting in my pick-up truck
drinking un-iced cans of beer
all hot and foamy
with an aluminum aftertaste.

The shotgun on the seat
beside me like a familiar lover,
and in the distance
there is a tease of thunder.

I sit and watch for you,

and I wait.


- - -