Contributor: Steve Isaak

- -
winter scarred deep:
our autumnal lovetumblings
your gut-true laughter
your off-the-cuff revelations
restructured, re-hued
my perceptions
(still does) –
everything that I imagined to be you
or of you,
dark, kind & light,
marked, marks our miraculous amity
my seasons


- - -
Steve Isaak, a.k.a. Nikki Isaak and Chuck Lovepoe, is the author of several poetry anthologies.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
Mind you, now, my brethren,
the Scriptures never claim
one day all whores will Magdalene
and disbelievers Paul

and you will never find in Scripture
a single verse that claims
one day all thieves will Dismas
outside the castle gate

while financiers Assisi
inside those castle walls,
their sharkskin suits in tatters,
their eyes, their tin cups up.


- - -
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: David Subacchi

- -
These girls have a real spark
Dressed in black they sway
From side to side
Shifting their weight
From one foot to another
As recorded music plays

Their dance leader
Dressed in the same way
And barely older
Alternates from bored
Expressions to giving
Directions I cannot follow

But the girls glow
With delight moving
Backwards and forwards
Side to side
Responding willingly
To each instruction

These girls have a real calm
Suddenly they sit cross legged
On the carpet tiled floor
To discuss their next moves
In lowered voices
Before standing again

And recommencing
Their synchronised
Ecstasy of movement
"You have to strut"
Calls out the leader
And as one, they strut.


- - -
David Subacchi is a full time writer and poet born in Wales of Italian Roots. He is increasingly well published internationally.

Contributor: John Grey

- -
Maybe if my mother and father
had taken a deep breath
or a cold shower
or seen an accountant
who could have spelled out
the dire liabilities,
the shaky assets
in having a child.
If they could have been rational.
Not been passionate
but laughed instead.
Maybe if he'd worked late
or she endured the headache to end all headaches.
They could have even seen a fortune teller,
one who pulled no punches.
Or if only prospective life
came with weights and measures,
or so many bureaucratic forms
that only the most determined
could ever finish filling them out.
It was all too haphazard,
too many parts nonsense
to too few of sanity.
They could have planted a garden.
They'd be eating fresh tomatoes now.
They could have put in a pool.
Imagine cooling down
on the hottest of Summer days.
Listen to them.
Look at them.
She's complaining.
He's drinking.
They are all the reasons not to
but they did.


- - -
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, Mudfish and Spindrift with work upcoming in South Carolina Review, Gargoyle, Sanskrit and Louisiana Literature.

Contributor: R. Lee Ubicwedas

- -
"The pen is mightier than the word."
—Dic Asburee Wel


The pen is at one's dangling finger tips. One picks it up,
and writes where one is at, beside a roll or bowl or cup.
One grasps the barrel carefully. Flushed, one drinks in the ink.
The words come st)r(eaming out. The letters form right at the brink.
One flops down on the seat, and plops, positioning one's pants,
the beauty of the moment struggling to get out and dance.
It is breathtaking. O, penned up, it simply hangs, and bangs
against the clothing that contains the angle it constrains.
Turned over, wondered, sideways, down, the pen is moving now;
its sonnet sits upon the age; its words are whorled round.


- - -
R. LEE UBICWEDAS is a poet interested in everything; his mind is as a fleeting dream that travels all about. His influences include eclecticists, like Aristotle, Vergil and Dante, among others.

Contributor: John Swain

- -
Swimming the river again
with the osprey, my sister,
as a bolt of deer fords the shallow.
The sun of summer light
belies the strength of the currents
turning me on a twisted line.
Delight of the water, her body
wet with mystery
before my giving surrender.
Longing of the formless
takes the shape of the drowned
in a blue confluence.
I want to be let go
freed to the indifferent deep,
knowing all she knows.


- - -
John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Red Paint Hill published his collection, Ring the Sycamore Sky.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
Families come
on Memorial Day
depending on the weather;
otherwise the Fourth of July,
if it’s not too hot.

You can hear them coming,
adults in the rear,
reminiscing and talking,
children who can read
announcing the names
on the stones until they
discover the right one.
Then they shout.

Adults bring flowers,
placing them softly
in front of the stones
near our heads.
Children stick little
flags from parades
in our waistlines.

Some ladies bring towels
and wipe down the stones;
others towelettes to remove
gunk from the lettering.

All mean well and we
appreciate the visit and wish
we could say something.
It’s a thrill to hear voices.
Otherwise it's lawn mowers,
leaf blowers, snow plows
the rest of the year.


- - -
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Scott Thomas Outlar

- -
A woman
telling a
lovesick man
that she’s not right for him
but he’s a great guy
and he’ll certainly find
the right woman
one day
when the time is right
is like
Aquarius
coming down
from the stars
bearing his barrel
and meeting
a man
in the desert
who is dying of thirst
and telling him
he’s a really spiritual guy
and he definitely deserves a drink
but just not from this well
then pointing him
toward the next mirage


- - -
Scott Thomas Outlar flows and fluxes with the ever changing tide of the Tao River, laughing all the while at life's existential nature. His debut chapbook "A Black Wave Cometh" will be released in April 2015 by Dink Press.

Contributor: Steve Isaak

- -
Does your female demon
still possess,
make your hands shake
& your sex dampen
with complex, wrecking desire?

You were stunning,
afterlife beautiful
in spring window light,
your brown eyes laughing,
teasing,
street brass band
soundtracking
our non-coital communion,
closure, forgiveness,
something transcendent
something troubling
in our temporal
womb-like warmth.


- - -
Steve Isaak, a.k.a. Nikki Isaak and Chuck Lovepoe, is the author of several poetry anthologies.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
Five kids, eight years.
And then one day my wife
shouts to me on the tractor
roaring in the field:

“I’ve had enough.”
And like a ballerina,
she rises on one foot, sole
of the other foot firm

against her knee
and with arms overhead
so fingertips kiss,
she smiles,

pirouettes,
and then like a helicopter
lifts into the air,
whirls over the garage

and keeps rising.
I can do nothing now
but curse
and be proud.

As if at the ballet,
I applaud from the tractor
and blink at the inferno
as she hits the sun.


- - -
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Nikhil Nath

- -
I bury a cheque
to buy a carpenter,

watching a carpet
wobble in parenthesis,

imagining a rocket
will fold in my

pencil box full of
escape, written

in crystal clear
marbles, I have

put in the e-mail
of a marriage,

wishing the bride and groom
an unhappy honeymoon.


- - -
Nikhil has been writing poetry for eighteen years. He has been published in various magazine in India, the USA and the UK. Nikhil Nath is his pen name.He lives and works from Kolkata, India. "Write rubbish, but write", said Virginia Woolf. This is Nikhil's maxim for writing.

Contributor: d0ll

- -
My eyes, my nose, my face
Lost in the outerspace
My eyes are absinthe
My face is absinthe
You’re hanging on the wall
You’re resting on my shoulder
No eyeliner left to smudge
The fire’s not burning but it smoulders

Broken is ugly
And ugly is broken
Kisses are out of fashion
Sex is fast and cheap
I am the living amongst the dead
But if I shake them
They will tell me
I’m just looking for attention

I will fall apart
No matter if you watch or not
Can you please hold my hand
Accelerate this chemical reaction
Because we have no time
To wait for days


- - -
Student, post punk Djane and alt model, DIY enthusiast from Slovakia

Contributor: Gary Thomas Hubbard

- -
Mountains always have a top
Valleys go down until they stop
What goes up does come down
Make left turns, get turned around

*

Seasons change to start anew
The sky was orange and now it's blue
Moon comes up, the sun goes down
If it's made of thorns don't wear the crown

*

Love is like the woods on fire
If you add fuel the flames grow higher
I couldn't love you anymore
These are things I know for sure

- - -
I am the father of two and a Papa. I was born and raised in Ohio and now live in Florida. There are several of my poems published on Leaves-of-Ink and I have one poem in the Storm Cloud Poets Anthology 2.

Contributor: Amanda Firefox

- -
"Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore.”
—Ray Bradbury


The rocks fell
The fire came
The ice covered everything

But I survived.
Without you,
I survived.
I thrived.

And you
You who left me
Here
You who left me
With nothing
You–

Didn't.


- - -
Amanda Firefox is a fiery little brunette who spends as much time at the beach as she can manage. She doesn't write much, but when she writes, it's almost always about her favorite subject: boys.

Contributor: Richard Schnap

- -
The sun creeps up
Like an old man
Opening his bloodshot eyes

As the world wakens
Out of dreams borrowed
From someone long dead

Even the birds know it
Their songs inherited
And fused in their hearts

While homeless cats
Watch them and wait
As they have for centuries

For the drama of life
Is a sealed book
Never to be changed

Destined to remain
The same till it reaches
Some end we cannot foresee


- - -
Richard Schnap is a poet, songwriter and collagist living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His poems have most recently appeared locally, nationally and overseas in a variety of print and online publications.

Contributor: Linda M. Crate

- -
ornament me in your praise
let me wear your love
as my jewelry,
clothe ourselves in a never ending
romance;
seven billion people in this world and
my heart is wrapped around you
can't get it to stop—
I know this is illogical but I've never
wanted anything rational,
and every time I look into your eyes
my heart skips a beat;
you and those beautiful eyes
let me be your sunrise and your sunset because
heaven knows you're my sky.


- - -
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. Recently her two chapbooks A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press - June 2013) and Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon - January 2014) were published. Her fantasy novel Blood & Magic is forthcoming from Ravenswood Publishing.

Contributor: Steve Isaak

- -
went devilfever insane
gambled boystupid not wisesatanic
with our golden state hearts
my panicked thoughtless confession
tragic fires spread via wires
traumatized ghosts stumbling
amidst hotblaze rubble
our bayside modern dreammetropolis
1906 rollshake horrific
l.a. punk & east bay terror
haunting brutal loss


- - -
Steve Isaak, a.k.a. Nikki Isaak and Chuck Lovepoe, is the author of several poetry anthologies.

Contributor: Neil Leadbeater

- -
In the hip-joint of Somerset, this ball and socket bay.

The name conjures up shipping, especially when lowered
and lifted up
its surface glistening with sunlit molluscs
dredged up from the deep.

If you follow the tides
you can catch the moment they are on the turn
that brief breathing-while of indecision
when they come so far and go no further
like guests who discover
that it's time to leave
so as not to outstay a welcome

as you do Nautilus, every day,
taking your cue from the moon.


- - -
Neil Leadbeater is an author, poet, essayist and critic living in Edinburgh, Scotland. His latest book is "The Loveliest Vein of Our Lives" (Poetry Space, 2014). His work has been translated into Romanian, Spanish and Swedish.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
They had to operate
remove the one
and from the other
take a nugget.
Later in the hall
they said they got it all.
They said how well
she’d be with rest.
Her first night home,
as we prepared for bed,
she turned to show me.
In my mind the cinema of fleet
but fecund years
ran through another time.


- - -
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Gary Thomas Hubbard

- -
Crumbs of hate spread all around
Trying to clean up what is on the ground

*

Spilling blood as we ask to be forgiven
Cheating other people to make a living
Asking for peace, as we wage war
Can't tell lies from truth, that's for sure

*

Trying to rebuild what we have broken
Missing pieces gathered as a friendly token
Blood stains left outside our door
Can't stand the senseless fighting anymore

*

If peace is what we really need
Pack away your selfishness and the greed
Favors sought with bags of gold
Tongues of evil intent speaking bold

*

Politicians that don't do right
Should come up missing in the night
Take them to a country far away
Tell them that is where they have to stay

*

If you find crumbs of hate on the ground
Pick them up, but don't let them bring you down


- - -
I am the father of two and a Papa. I was born and raised in Ohio and now live in Florida. There are several of my poems published on Leaves-of-Ink and I have one poem in the Storm Cloud Poets Anthology 2.

Contributor: Florence Wanjiku

- -
The human brain is the human body's most mysterious organ.
It learns
It changes
It adapts
It tells us what we see and what we hear.
It let's us feel love.
I think it holds our souls that,
no matter how much research we do,
no one can really say how all that
delicate grey matter inside our skull just works.
And when it's hurt, when the human brain is traumatised,
well,
that's when it gets even more mysterious.


- - -
Thoughts became words, my imagination so surpassed human conceit

Contributor: d0ll

- -
I will let desire
Take control of my mind
Guide my lips and hands
It makes me want to
Devour you in pleasure
And exchange this tickling pain
A body and soul that responds
And understands
I will hold you in my arms
And smile until the end of the day

Soft skin like satin
Your scent gets me higher
My hands slide down
Your smile is infectious
Come here
I want to cuddle you to death
Kisses make the whole room spin around
Our hands are intertwined
Lips of velvet
You are perfection
I close my eyes and
Wish to dissolve in you
And disappear...


- - -
A student, translator, Djane and alternative model from Slovakia with a passion for writing. I like post punk music and diy culture.

Contributor: M. O. Mc

- -
Seen series of an afterlife
when I walked through the catacombs
it was June, scorched
un-nameable animals & dye skirted the walls

I saw how Osiris cut successors’ way
walked a few feet in the dark
towards an Egyptian Syria using
deadly combination of expertise
brutality classically associated with
disturbing recordings of mummy-wrapped,
when I noticed his sister doing the same thing

ISIS taunting distinctive scores of former crowns
official seniors clad like ostrich feathers served resembling
symbolic trained forces that ISIS flails to take, on time

Flashbacks bring me to the tunnels of the tombs
where a fair fight in some areas ensues
—Iraq corps texts retained new Sunni documents—
that’s what it’s like

Predominately meaning, kingdoms
operating with the likes of Horus and Seth
locals may tolerate, history report
relationships like tribes ex-marginalized
by the underworlds

I’m sucked out of the scene when
commotions of Kurdish carting vegetation
an aggressive aero blue rug is thrown
over the threshold as a dust storm floods alarm for an hour,
waiting off the Nile river infrastructure
reminds me of al-U.S. describing love
before missiles

Regional ambitions permanently have prominent Utterances
Osiris once said in my dreams
spells, pushing out my sage marbled eyes that I
affectionately termed trifocals after the one on my forehead
shattered glass

The forecast in 2016:
the pyramid dam will crack open of
concern over video protesting Pharaohs’
rouge evidenced journalist follows the body
addressed after death immortelle

Which president will rescind retaliation?
Revenge doesn’t smell as sweet as cinna-
bar & cloves,
there will only be heaping helpings of airstrike
skinned roots of chicory
that Osiris will use as oil

Beware for the death god blows willingly
with the east African wind traveling in mid-hymn
onyx and juniper berry were gifts of protection
from the gods, situations etched into the walls
are proof, I can prove it

Ritual civilians bazaar like during fifth dynasty
in a country as the old kingdom
where paying camel homage
becomes part of anthology history
was written in electric indigo blood
on the walls, permanently
I read each scene and wept a storybook


- - -
M. O. Mc is the co-founding editor of (Re)Vision: A journal of literary transformation.

Contributor: Adreyo Sen

- -
She stands still on russet fields
and her beauty
is her sadness.
Hard won is the tenderness in her eyes.

Perhaps the fields are hers,
perhaps she only knows them
and is at pause
in her loving labor.

In her print dress, she could be ensconced
in the elegance of a sofa,
or kneeling by the hearth that warms
its surrounding damp.
In either case would children run to her,
seeking the slender lap
that is the joy of dreamless night.

In fact, so still,
it is a child she is remembering,
a child who
in the brash brightness of her youth
ran laughing through summer fields
as if they could never end.

That child's joy
is the woman's grief.


- - -
Adreyo Sen is pursuing her MFA at Southampton College.

Contributor: E.S. Wynn

- -
When the fantasy I was living
Became a nightmare
I fell
I fell through hell
Woke to another dream
Tasted the nectar
Of a sweeter fantasy
A fantasy
All blue eyes and babies.

Picture me
Sitting by the sea
Children run in front of me
And they all look like her
They all look like she
To me.

Picture me
Here in an orchard
There tending bees
Tilling the earth
Leading chickens with feed.

Picture me
Rubbing elbows with the rich
Sharing wine with the elite
Getting by in the bay
Coming home to a smiling wife
Who always has time and kindness
For me.

Picture me
Living such an earthy fantasy
With a woman who could be
Everything my ex-wife could never be:
All blue eyes and babies.

A simple dream,
A wash of colored light in a world
Once so cold and monochrome.

A simple dream
Just me and she
(And our four or three)
Building a home together
Building a practice together
Building a farm together
Building a life of more than just prestige
A life of more than just spending money
A life
All blue eyes and babies.

Picture me
She and me
Among all of the
Mutual friends of we
All those gripped by the fantasy
Who said we looked good, me and she
Who said it must be meant to be.

And picture me--
Me and she,
With a piece of property
By the sea
Established land
For friends and fam
To homestead
To build upon
To farm freely
To make and mold
Into something pure
Into something lasting.

I wanted it
That fantasy.
I wanted that life
All blue eyes and babies.
I ran headfirst into it.
I gave it everything I had in me.

And when she saw what she wanted
Right there, right there
Already open in her hands
She ran.
Instead of seizing it
Instead of keeping me
She ran.

- -

And I went back to my wife
And we worked at fixing each others' broken hearts
And we swore to stay together
(This time, forever.)

But at least for a while
At least for a handful of weeks
I lived toward a life
All blue eyes and babies
A life so perfect
That it could never be.

- -

And now, like some cruel, quiet joke
we are all of us mourning so silently
The death of that blue-eyed fantasy.


- - -
E.S. Wynn is the author of over fifty books in print. During the last decade, he has worked with hundreds of authors and edited thousands of manuscripts for nearly a dozen different magazines. His stories and articles have been published in dozens of journals, e-zines and anthologies. He has taught classes in literature, marketing, math, spirituality, energetic healing and guided meditation. Outside of writing, he has worked as a voice-over artist for several different horror and sci-fi podcasts, albums and ebooks. He has a bachelor’s degree in English and is a proud Freemason.

Contributor: Steve Isaak

- -
I: Ireland’s 32 (San Francisco)

Smoke flowed
around her
as she drank alone,
conversing with an invisible
god
from her cultic-swell youth.

Sympathetic but shy,
bad with words,
I watched her
agitate and suddenly shriek,
run out of the pub
into the chilly night.


II: Eidola (a few years later)

Haunted, she fled,
stumbled:
behind her,
the road – everything – vanished,
deepest umbrage.
‘They will devour us,’
she cried, crazed,
pills exacerbating.


III: open letter to a psych ward ex

you said it was me who burned
our children
our love
our house
yet it was you who wielded the gun,
planted the explosives
splashed the gasoline
and sparked the lighter;
all the while you ranted at those
who didn’t agree with your insanity

relieved, perhaps a little sad
at your institutional absence
I can’t help but see the smoke
of other spans you’re burning
our screaming skin-popping children
numbering among your victims:
always willing to sacrifice others,
rarely yourself.


IV: psych ward (deep end woman)

Can’t tell where I end
and the meds begin,
furious flowshrieks
tugging me under,
tides of silence
drowning out my voice –
don’t care anymore,
weary of versified accusations, angst and ghosts,
stones of chaos, want and regret
pulling me into
my own chilling depths.


- - -
Steve Isaak, a.k.a. Nikki Isaak and Chuck Lovepoe, is the author of several poetry anthologies.

Contributor: Linda M. Crate

- -
fork tongued
serpent
gazed by the silver sigh of the
moon
you tried to tell me you were
a wolf,
but wolves have loyalty;
no, you're a serpent,
deceptive little liar
crowned
with broken moonlight hymns—
you gave me an orange,
and I took a bite;
fell from my own garden like eve
deceived by the serpent
so was I
now I aspire to crush every one of your
brethren under my heel—
I should have known better because even
Hades gave fruit,
but I thought since it wasn't an apple or pomegranate
I was safe;
you were a destruction I could not foresee
perhaps if I had cassandra's sight I could have saved
myself from the lament that was your lust.


- - -
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. Recently her two chapbooks A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press - June 2013) and Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon - January 2014) were published. Her fantasy novel Blood & Magic is forthcoming from Ravenswood Publishing.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
The two mutes we hired
to wheel hot type
are bickering again

Their fingers
quicker than beaks of cocks
tear the air

with perfect curses
tongues never utter
ears never hear


- - -
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Lyla Sommersby

- -
These open skies, this deep, cerulean sea
that wraps these black sand shores
that wraps, crashes
against the dark and glittering flow.

Every inch of sea and sky
reminds me of your eyes
Every inch of old flow pāhoehoe
reminds me of your hair,
the warmth of your touch,
the sweetness of your smile.

Even now,
the wind seems to whisper your name.
Even now,
the whole island seems to wait,
ready to welcome
the man, the god
who brings song to my lips
who brings music to the tips
of fingers
that so sorely miss your touch.


- - -
I am a student in Miami, Florida. Painting is my other love. My first book, Sketches of Someone, is available through Thunderune Publishing.

Contributor: Bobbi Sinha-Morey

- -
I am next to you in skin
and blood, the ladder to
heaven within us, and I
tremble and grasp at the
edges of myself while you
tie a halo round my finger,
a love knot of string. I let
go into you; your words,
the pure essence of light,
a voice that I listen to.
My heart opens itself out
into the wind where sun
rays organize the air,
the true breath of our
spirits existing not in
our thoughts, but in the
motion.


- - -
I am a poet living in the peaceful city of Brookings, Oregon. My poetry can be seen in places such as Orbis, Plainsongs, Open Window Review, Pirene's Fountain, and others. My books of poetry are available at Amazon.com and www.writewordsinc.com.

Contributor: E.S. Wynn

- -
Little dream
Little moment
maybe just silly mind
        being silly

maybe
maybe something more
maybe something
you and me
       can see

maybe something
something like:
the patter of tiny feet
on a garden path.

something like:
the laughter of children
echoing in a hand-built hall.

something like:
the colors, the shapes
of the goods we grew
baked and brewed
ourselves.

something like:
the walls of a house
we raised from the earth
together.


- - -
E.S. Wynn is the author of over fifty books in print. During the last decade, he has worked with hundreds of authors and edited thousands of manuscripts for nearly a dozen different magazines. His stories and articles have been published in dozens of journals, zines and anthologies. He has taught classes in literature, marketing, math, spirituality and guided meditation. Outside of writing, he has worked as a voice-over artist for several different horror and sci-fi podcasts, albums and ebooks.