Contributor: Paul Tristram

- -
Together in tenderness
married by a kiss.
Floating like a whisper
upon a breeze of bliss.
Born unto the universe
children of the night.
To roam God’s graveyard
spirits hungry for flight.

Beneath a cloak of wishes
I wish for you no more.
As we step away from sanctuary
through the nights velvet door.
I echo you with laughter
I share you with a smile.
Along the road of daydreams
we enjoy every mile.

Transfixed to delirium
addicted to the chase.
with purple wings of wonder
I eject sobriety’s slow pace.
Eager for the adventure
promised within your eyes.
I circle squares of reason
to where your passion lies.

The stars beckon us skywards
normality waves farewell.
As we leave behind the nightmare
of this living hell.
Souls winged and ready
eager to break free.
Civilization’s Changelings
re-shaping our destiny.

Hold on to the dreams
for tonight we fly.
On the tail of the impossible
invincible you and I.
This is no flight of fancy
we’re higher than the sky.
Past the moon milestones
yes, tonight we fly!


- - -
Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems, short stories, sketches and photography 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: JD DeHart

- -
The stage is now bare,
the audience has gone home.
Actors sit there, not sure
which way they are supposed
to go now. The lines have all
faded away. A single naked
bulb hangs over, refusing
to offer them a darkness.
Someone still has a prop, but
no one remembers what it
was used for now.
Then the stage itself is no more.


- - -

Contributor: Adam Levon Brown

- -
Constant discomfort
while changing positions

The cold penetrates all
as you shiver to your very core,
hoping that the sun will rise

Knowing that at any second
someone could scream at you,
telling you to leave or the police
will deal with you

Sleep and food deprivation
makes for a bitter morning
as you wander to the next
spot, hoping it will be
better than the last

The constant threat
of violence is ever on
the mind, as you think
criminal action is the
only way to get through
to the next day

Stared at, mocked,
ridiculed, beaten
You are yesterday's
news and no one is
reading
Pariah of society,
nameless and forgotten

These streets don't cry for us.


- - -
Published Poet & Fiction Author
Student of Life
Cat Lover

Contributor: Gayle Newby

- -
Rowing to the Horn on a spectral silver dawn;
rations in the prow,
blankets to ward off the cold,
necessity prodding him on like a fierce fire brand.
Outer voices vanquished, inner voices stilled.

To get the whorls just so,on a painted ocean shell,
to catch, as in one's hand, the muted shade of a perfect gull
breathing in the gulf until the aching pain retreats.
Lovingly replaced by nature's soothing hand.


- - -
Gayle Newby has been published in Grit Magazine and The Pontotoc Progress Newspaper. Her work is forthcoming in the Spring edition of the Hiram Poetry Review.

Contributor: Russ Cope

- -
I have been made
and fashioned out of old
drapes and spit and polish,

out of daddy's booth leather
and the stuff at the bottom
of whiskey glasses after a
long evening

I have been made from the
matter on the bottom of boots
mingled with the substance
of heaven

I have been made.


- - -
Russ Cope is a writer from West Virginia. He's been in food service, janitorial service, and many other jobs. His poems have appeared on Poetry Super Highway.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
Things reach a certain age,
an age at which
things don't work
the way they once did.

The battery in your car,
the battery in your phone,
the battery in your laptop die
but these can be replaced.

Not so the battery in you.
But today your battery's en fuego
so you tell the wife tonight's the night.
Dinner and a movie first, of course.


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

Contributor: Kushal Poddar

- -
I cease to accept words
for an answer. Someone
says, love you. Show me,
I say. She shows the black hole
and a time capsule. I say,
let me adjust my antigravity.

I know the mathematics of time
I need to turn this yard from white
and grey to a world of fireflies.

From here I see the slap framed in pane
opens his ballooned mouth and liquor
hits the wall causing a bad red stain.

I hate seeing blood, and this-close enough.
Some beast scurries in the bush. A light.
A plane I hear, cannot see, and that
makes it God I pray for hush and
fireflies. More fireflies.


- - -
Kushal Poddar is widely published in several countries, prestigious anthologies, authored ‘The Circus Came To My Island’ (Spare Change Press, Ohio) and “A Place For Your Ghost Animals” (Ripple Effect Publishing, Colorado Springs). The forthcoming book is “The Mood Study Of A Cold Cup."

Contributor: Richard Schnap

- -
I am the outcast
Following the orders
Echoing in my mind

I am the student
Begging the outcast
To please spare my life

I am the mother
Answering the phone call
That freezes my blood

I am the doctor
Fighting tears as I decide
Who will live or die

I am the preacher
Wondering if my words
Do any good at all

And I am the outcast
Watching the coverage
While fingering my gun


- - -
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: J. "Ash" Gamble

- -
We packed our suitcase in the night
but still could not prepare.

We put our house on the market, but
still nothing could help us.

In the upstairs where our children
collected their cars, slept their nights,
then left, we stayed huddled and peeked

below as the level we lived and loved
on filled slowly with grimy water, our
dreams filled with splashing sounds.


- - -
J. “Ash” Gamble is a late in life poet from Florida.

Contributor: Canyon Bates

- -
We are wet and heavy
with the world around us,
which seems to swirl
away. I watch it
wash into a nearby drain,
all that I thought was real
and true, only to be
replaced by an ugly new
thought until the rains
come crashing again.


- - -

Contributor: Brian Baumgarn

- -
His life was once an arbor filled
with ripe and juice-filled grapes.
Rich nectar there for taking he
sought dubious escapes.
Instead of living thoughtfully
he hid and shut the drapes.

The ripe fruits soon fell to the ground
becoming earthen rust.
He lived to spend his hours adrift
on tonics born of lust.
Perhaps to fathom deeper realms,
but his mind turned to dust.

He plumbed the depths until a certain
madness seized his brain.
Frail, unconnected synapses
are all that now remain.
The substances that took him on
his quest to glean and learn,
all claimed a piece of his keen mind
and grant no safe return.

He spends his days in sunlit rooms
the curtains opened wide.
A plush and cushioned high back chair
good people did provide.
From there he greets each morning and
the arbor in the yard.
Grapes grow there filled with juice again,
he pays them no regard.

Lather
Common Verse

**After the song "Lather," by Jefferson Airplane.

- - -
65 year old grandfather working with developmentally disabled men. Writing again after many years. Writing and reading poetry lead to serenity.

Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
The voice of smoke
and fire that whispered
about the parameters
of a tabernacle, calls with
silence. The voice of old
desert dreams and new
refreshing paths is wordless,
worldless, and void.
The voice of smoke sparks
and lights up the solid ink
of darkness, giving me
a few steps at a time.


- - -
JD DeHart is a writer and teacher. His chapbook, The Truth About Snails, is available from RedDashboard.

Contributor: Mark A. Murphy

- -
I

Hard to imagine
the inferiority of one mountain,

one stone set against another,
yet the garage floor

behind the pebbled yard diminishes,
perishes in the suicide

of a great uncle. Years later
in the thinness of time

our children will not fret
or remember

the insolent rut of rope
about the neck.

Chalk it up to experience,
mock

the beguiling father who rolls
another cigarette,

weighing and imposing hate
on the living siblings

who may yet still rise in old Ohio
on beds of ice.


II

So we look to the amethyst
in the yard

that finds its way
into the hands of a seven year old boy.

We who are experts in pain will seek
and cut the palm

in the name of the rose
and white-hot-iron abstinence.

Once there was sunlight
on Lake Austin,

now only amethyst
stands between worldly oblivion,

the broken windows
of the cathedral, and the drunk consciousness

of adulthood. Shatter the pane
with your fist,

open your veins if you insist.
Though we are sick and far beyond

flight, a boy’s gift might yet bring
our histories together.


III

Once I was your 'brave Irish poet,'
pitted against butcher

and daddy-knave
who would ruin you and enslave

the poor girl and the crucified Christ.
Hard to imagine that men

would dare to dice
for His cloak under the eyes of heaven.

Now we leave our humble disguises
behind as we move

from one decade's debacle to another
in betrayal.

O, we know other pilgrims
have trod the path

where family and friends may tread.
Break bread,

drink the blood –
I'm coming with nought

but amethyst, bed-rock, immersed
in the mysteries of heaven-sent sunsets.


IV

Too old in years, our worlds bereft,
no occasion to cry,

none to laugh.
Drink from the black carafe

as if your life depended upon it.
Spy Aidan’s stone

if you will
in the bowed but delighted

hours of a lifetime.
Once more the small hours

chime
with Austin’s unforgettable verse,

and we die a little
in the brittle starlight of night.

So the cruel
and unyielding dead

come to steal the talismanic stone.
Listen to the lament

in this song,
hard to imagine, somewhere, we do belong.


- - -

Contributor: Brandi Reynolds

- -
My heart lists drunkenly
against furious waves
permanent scars carved into its worn timber
clumsy in stormy winds
but it is not worthless
and I am not broken
I lashed it together with hope and sweat and spit
created a ship of battered beauty
I will never abandon it
Instead I find a way to navigate to true north
And become a master pirate


- - -
Brandi Reynolds is part dirtbag trail runner, part poet, part environmental advocate and entirely addicted to Dr. Pepper.

Contributor: Steve Ridpath

- -
There was a king –
a king gazing into the liquid mirror,
wondering who is dear
and how he came to be.

His castle stood far away
from the place he knelt:
the lake of the Celts,
as a symbol of his chains.

The kingdom of his reign –
an expansive domain
meant to salve his pain;
like his heart, a land of waste.

His Queen long since gone
and with her went his soul;
despair only he would know
ruled as two reduced to one.

And so he searched the reflection
for his youth and her grace
but found neither in his face;
tears for the lack of recollection.

There was a king –
a king of strength and joy
just a few years past a boy.
He loved her more than anything.


- - -
I am CPA by trade and an emerging poet who had a muse inside of him for many years, but didn't recognize it. Have published a book entitled "A Walk Through Life: Poems of Virtue"

Contributor: Susan Sweetland Garay

- -
I worry
that all you will
ever see of me
is one huge
mistake.

Like a red stain
on your nice white sofa.

And even if we turn the cushion over
you will still know it’s there
and won’t be able to forget.


- - -

Contributor: Russ Cope

- -
Spear and wings,
victory and kindness,
she is loving to them
as she leads them away

Wise, prudent,
mouth full of blood,
eyes full of conflagration,
the battlefield littered.


- - -
Russ Cope is a writer from West Virginia. He's been in food service, janitorial service, and many other jobs. His poems have appeared on Poetry Super Highway.

Contributor: Adreyo Sen


Last night, I dreamt that the world had your eyes
and thus wherever I went,
I lived in their beautiful mystery,
shaded by the absolution of your smile.

Today, when I woke
to myself and the quiet indifference
of those who pass me by
in the grey corridors in which I live,
I thought I would cry.

But I knew I'd rather have
all to myself
the loving loveliness of your eyes.
Your eyes always were mine.
And seeing the world with your eyes,
I knew to delight.


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

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
In the parlor of my dotage
I have a grand piano where
the ghost of Shostakovich
plays "Chopsticks" every night
while I in my recliner
drink vodka in pajamas
and cheer old Shosty on.

Tonight the concert's interrupted
when Granny in her nightcap
dashes from her bedroom
and shouts in high soprano
"Send old Shosty home.
I need a good night's sleep.
I have Mahjong in the morning."

Through my bullhorn I shout back,
"I won't send old Shosty anywhere
until his concert ends at dawn.
Then I'll put my parka on and saddle up
the horses and take the master home.
Old Shosty swears that global warming
is no problem there at all."


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

Contributor: Samuel Moulton

- -
I was once in an affair
With a despondent physicist
Who specialized in motion study
So she told me calm and coldly

You should lose yourself much less here
Take your next orgasm as
A cliff, rather than horizon—
To be measured, not predicted

And so I climb with fingertips
Crystalized in rotten hazel
Turpentine on my eyelashes
Pine tar smeared across my chest

Bits of sour bark and algae
Dripping from my bloated tongue
I advanced where darkness broods
To stand nude on a precipice

And shout down for affirmation
Behold the sky has fallen twice


- - -
Samuel Moulton is a current resident of New Orleans, Philosophy-student-by-day, poet-by-night and non-believer in the Oxford comma. Backed by Peter Cooley in the power struggle, he was recently appointed head poetry editor of the Tulane Review.

Contributor: Susan Marie

- -
I am
that which
cannot be caged,
tamed, tried,
understood, included,
deluded, or left.

Misunderstood.

I am the fairy-tailed children
asleep beneath blankets
on a cool summers eve,
books in palms,
eyes shut tight,
warding off monsters
in closets
underneath the bed.

The angelic presence
in dreams,
the dark rising depths,
present in the time
between night and day.

I am the bleeding hearts
of artists,
music flowing
like manes
of thoroughbreds.

Strings and violins,
concertos and preludes,
the rise and fall,
of notes,

the voice
of the oppressed,
painting alone,
writing alone,
speaking to the masses
standing in front
of sculptures
in galleries,
half-numb
from having their soul
placed on a public platter,
picked apart
and critiqued.

I am the constellations,
the stars,
the ancient raiment
of the majestic
velvet night,
coaxing solitude,
and creation,
rendering you
sleepless
with desire.

The great God
contemplating existence,
tossing magic
and medicine,
electrified
towards earth,
teaching lessons to the
mere human soul.

I am.
Woman.
Man.
Child.
Mother.
Father.
Brother.
Sister.
I am a lover,
loved,
loving.

I am the volcanic rumblings
of every tired soul,
and every smile
and tear.

I am an argument
and agreement.

The birds that birth
in your
crown chakra.
Their song
is mine.

All creatures,
earth, dirt, silt
gems, stones,
twigs, and trees.

Every root and crevice,
all footholds and paths,
the waving branches
pregnant with leaves.

The falling leaves.
Kamikaze.

Every rock and shell,
the waves and oceans,
all bodies of water,
feathers, flight,
the bees that buzz
around the new bud,
the hand that guides
a sprout from seed.

The secrets the wind
whispers.
The fierce embrace
of winter,
the warmth upon
your face,
heart, body, soul,
and the sweet cool
calming waters
of life.

I am death.
Wild.

I am woman.
Here.
Now.

I am every element.
All emotions,
every fable told
by firelight,

Every word written,
spoken, uttered,
screamed and sighed.

The true Goddess,
the wild soul.

I am that
which cannot
be kept,
nor set free.

I exist
without logic,
in rational conscious
thought,
in esoteric
holy nakedness.

I am the rich man
and beggar,
the king and the jester.

I am the grass,
all species,
and the sky.
Kaleidoscopes
of spectrums.

I am good
versus
evil,
versus
self,
versus
sentience.

I am a conundrum
unto myself,
a human shell
existing
as pure
ether.

I am heaven
and hell
I am the destroyer
and creator
simultaneous.


- - -
Broadcast Journalist, spoken word poet, poet and published author. Her writing has been translated to Hindi, Croatian, Spanish and Dari.

Contributor: Kushal Poddar

- -
My rage heightens.
I post a cross
in my yard and
tie ropes around
its body and arms.

My mind remains
captive there. Hours
and days. Dies.
Resurrects.
And then the cross
becomes decorative.


- - -
Kushal Poddar is widely published in several countries, prestigious anthologies, authored ‘The Circus Came To My Island’ (Spare Change Press, Ohio) and “A Place For Your Ghost Animals” (Ripple Effect Publishing, Colorado Springs). The forthcoming book is “The Mood Study Of A Cold Cup.

Contributor: Steve Ridpath

- -
It’s been said that the angels only visit virtuous youth;
those who wedded wisdom and those who love truth
would be taken from us early and not grow gray and old;
They say the saints are needed by Heaven’s gates of gold.

But pondering the common hopeful assurance of this creed;
there may be something predominant to this assumed need.
The departure can be sudden - or cruel, twisted and protracted -
though loss to those left, there may be purpose in the enacted.

A seed must be buried to later manifest its mighty branches;
The thornbird’s brief appearance does its final song enhance.
the precipitous, vaporizing death - that ruthless thief who steals
and leaves us in ashes - strips us of vanity and bids us to heal.


- - -
I am CPA by trade and an emerging poet who had a muse inside of him for many years, but didn't recognize it. Have published a book entitled "A Walk Through Life: Poems of Virtue"

Contributor: Paul Tristram

- -
She thinks she’s destroyed me
but there’s cocaine on the mirror.
Bags of skunk and pollen
the fridge is full of beer.

She really has it wrong
for I am doing just fine.
I have a lend of barmaids
my drunken evenings shine.

There’s punk rock on the stereo,
new poems upon my floor.
Commitment’s out the window,
promiscuous as a whore.

I’m out every single night
partying away her shame.
She really tried her hardest
she threw me all the blame.

All the shit left with her
I am now completely free.
I’m fucking great and fantastic
the future belongs to me.


- - -
Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems, short stories, sketches and photography 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. Buy his book ‘Poetry From The Nearest Barstool’ at http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1326241036

Contributor: Izzy Noon

- -
Faceless, they gather
and observe,
eyeless they catch
all the details,
mouthless, they pronounce
judgment,
witless, we must serve
our punishment.


- - -

Contributor: Russ Cope

- -
Infused with herbs of nature
and filling the mouth with sour
scent

Mingles with the sweet, the over
powering, to water the soul
and create a new flavor


- - -
Russ Cope is a writer from West Virginia. He's been in food service, janitorial service, and many other jobs. His poems have appeared on Poetry Super Highway.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
Some days my wife has aches
and I have pains.
Other days I have aches
and she has pains.
We tell each other
all about it from our rockers
sipping Earl Grey tea
in tinkling porcelain cups
while watching DVDs
of Lawrence Welk,
the late conductor nonpareil,
who's trying now to get
the Seraphim and Cherubim
to sing "God Bless America."

My wife and I are at an age
where no quick fix exists,
no slow fix either.
Finally I tell her what
neither of us wants to hear:
We'll feel better, Dearie,
not to worry,
once we're dead.
It's the dying
that's a problem but
we're getting there.
Been on the road since birth.
We've paid the tolls.
It's been a trip.


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

Contributor: J. "Ash" Gamble

- -
One minute she's a sweet
lavender smell of flowers
and the next she's a wearing
headache of fury,
One minute she's love
and laughter rolled into
a ball of sexuality
and the next she's a storm
cloud of anger, sparking
at my bare skin


- - -
J. “Ash” Gamble is a late in life poet from Florida.

Contributor: Tempest Brew

- -
I gave him what for,
which here means
I pushed up to the wall
and threatened him within
every inch
but only in the space
of my mind.


- - -

Contributor: Chumki Sharma

- -
Once again
I sleepwalk this night,
wander into the living room
where the ghost of a lover visits me.

Still boyish, a cape on his
forever youthful shoulders.
I try to remember
If he was my long lost uncle,
my lover, my friend, my son?
He sits on my window ledge,
our fingers build a minaret
and lock warmth inside,
and he tells me-
life lasts forever,
love is forever,
before vanishing into the mist.

But who was he?
who am I?
what worlds have I known
before I knew this one?

The antique wall clock
chimes three,
the darkest hour
before dawn.
I set the time
an hour earlier
and stalk loneliness.


- - -
Chumki Sharma is a poet from Calcutta, India. She is widely published and her works have appeared in various publications in many parts of the world. She is also a renowned spoken word performer.

Contributor: Richard Schnap

- -
I see men seeking the trails they once trusted
Only to find them erased by the rain

And I hear voices in search of the songs that inspired them
Only to discover their words make no sense

For the roads of life are not graven in stone
They change for no reason like a shifting wind

That alters the landscape until it becomes foreign
As strange as an old friend becoming someone you don’t know

But this is the burden we learn to carry
A world where all things can be taken away

So that the rivers we travel whose currents seemed sure
Can lead us without warning to black blighted seas


- - -
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.