Contributor: Ajise Vincent

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Poetry is business
for the shade of beauty,
for the erraticism of emotions,
for the errors of language
& the dynamism of verses.
.
Poetry is business
for the slayers of myths,
for the chattels of veterans,
for the (r)age of renaissance
& the charlatans of indifference.


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Ajise Vincent, Nigerian poet who derives utility from the smell of coffee, the erraticism of nature and the dynamism of solitude.

Contributor: Gary Thomas Hubbard

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Awakened late in the night

By a sudden flash of light

Soon to follow a rumbling sound

So damn loud it shook the ground

Watching lights dance across the sky

Children awakened they start to cry

A strange symphony playing in my head

Sounds blended as if by the dead

Something explodes as it hits the ground

Winds that blow the trash around

Just when nature's song reaches a peak

Another lightning bolt makes a vertical streak

I hear raindrops lightly splashing overhead

This late night song plays on as I lay in bed

Then as the rain starts to pound the night

Some animal in the distance howls with fright

Then as suddenly as the storm got its start

All the noise and the light show they do depart

Notes to the night song still linger behind

My search for my slumber I finally find


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Born and raised in Ohio, and now lives in Florida. Married and has two children. Most important he is a Papa. With over a dozen poems on this site and one printed in "Stormcloud Poets second anthology".

Contributor: Bob Eager

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After trip to Smoke Shop
and over the counter
found in a khat plant
back home
tries something else from a bag
skin peels off like scales.

Ingredients: Paint thinner, Gasoline, Codeine
amongst others. . . Tasty mix. . .

A substance from Russia,
mood altering stimulating properties
and consequences;

Pass out in bath tub

And going paranoid,

Side Note- Not to be used together or separately;

Epidemic and an odd thing to witness

In a subtle conclusion,

A Reptile disfunction if you will.


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Bob Eager warns about an epidemic of nasty narcotics the public may not know about, one over the counter and one hidden underneath in the underbelly of society. Bob has been published in Stray Branch, Vision With Voices, Right Hand Pointing and Eskimo Pie.

Contributor: Paul Tristram

- -
‘By Hook or by Crook’ only works
when you are out for revenge
or power hungry to such a degree
that no one else’s feelings matter.
Call me old fashioned…
but that isn’t love.
And as she sits all the way back there,
stuck in the past,
dabbing her vindictive selfishness
with too much dewberry.
Hating and lamenting
the slow grind through another
emotionally empty year.
I pat myself upon the back
and think…lucky escape.
Why the Hell would anyone
want to tie their loving heart to that?


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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 And a split poetry book ‘The Raven And The Vagabond Heart’ with Bethany W Pope at http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1326415204

Contributor: Russ Cope

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He's got a code name,
so does she, they talk in
their own language, which
goes way back to when they
first candlelit met.

She's the Yellow Beetle,
He's the Blue Oak,
and none of it means
anything but memory.


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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: Carl "Papa" Palmer

- -
She gasps, waves her hand as something
is announced on the radio, motions me
to listen as she turns up the volume.

Being in her country, not at all fluent in
her tongue, no trace of comprehension
as I stare between her and the radio dial.

Turning the sound back down, she repeats
distinctly, slowly the same words I heard,
yet still fail to understand their meaning.

She tunes to an English-speaking station,
I hear the report. Paris is under attack. Our
tears speak a language we both understand.


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Carl "Papa" Palmer of Old Mill Road in Ridgeway VA now lives in University Place WA.
He has a 2015 contest winning poem riding buses somewhere in Seattle. Carl is a Pushcart Prize and Micro Award nominee.

Contributor: Don Mager

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Defiant in their clinging dry leaves,
aureoles of Hornbeam trees float in
a coppery glow. Backyard barren
trunks of Sycamores and Oaks and Elms
stand black in their widowed procession
up the hill and out to the wooded
stoic dusk’s afterglow. Spaced apart
in randomness, like ballerinas
frozen in silence on the edge of night’s
curtain fall, the glowing trees—half the
height or less of their mourning sisters—
balance on the toe-point of gold-tinged
stationary time. Neither curtain
nor applause, the dark’s embrace is stealth.


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Don Mager has published poems, chapbooks, books and translations since 1960. He is now retired and lives in Charlotte, NC.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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Old lady on a park bench
hunkered down
babushka and shawl
snow and wind
dancing everywhere
as she waves her cane
and says young man
you and I are in
the same checkout lane
our carts are heaped
with many good things
we can't take with us
I'm ahead of you
and can see a sign
on the register
that says "no cash,
no credit accepted
but everyone pays.
Have a nice day."


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Richard Schnap

- -
The night is falling sooner
As the painted leaves descend
Like pirouetting dancers
In the finale of a ballet

While the serenading swallows
Lift their wings up to the sky
Leaving behind a silence
Broken only by the wind

But as the days diminish
There’s a final spark of light
Like a coda to a symphony
With one last part to play

When I hear the children singing
In the autumn of their youth
And hope that in the years to come
They’ll still remember how


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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: James Robert Rudolph

- -
Warm papoose, turning cold,
cradled baby, cradled body,
slipping past us,
a soft sidestep,
without footfall, trailing off.
My heart drains
to a pale ochre
with the last
of your departing filament.

Furry nuzzle haven,
you are lumpy love,
a rebuke unknowing
to men of schemes,
kneading paws, beatific rhythm.


- - -
James Robert Rudolph is a retired psychologist and teacher having returned to old haunts in northern New Mexico after a busy career in Minneapolis. He is attempting a resurrection of poetry and playwriting interests and finds Santa Fe a rich, if not always willing, muse. Creatively he aspires to the crafting of work that expresses honest experience in beautiful language, complex or simple, as serves the work’s purpose.

Contributor: JD DeHart

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Threads in slime
or beautiful emerald
tapestry, an invitation
to sit on the lily pad

A prince is only
in there if you believe
legends and fairy tales

Otherwise, he's just
the bulbous eye, tadpole
producing, croaking bellow
that keeps you up nights.


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JD DeHart is a writer and teacher. He has recently been nominated for Best of the Net.

Contributor: SB Moore

- -
We will search a long time
and still not find the promise
we thought was here.
The well has run dry, and the
goddess promised us we
would reign.
But that is not now, all we
have now is a glimpse
of what we remember
that we hoped would be.


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Contributor: J.K. Durick

- -
I took it to the shop. If it could be fixed
They would fix it and they did. It’s done.

It’s running, humming along, fixed, mended,
Like new again, doing what it’s supposed to do
Just the way it’s supposed to. It’s well oiled,

Certified, guaranteed, and stamped – like their
Sign says in English and Spanish, and another
Language I didn’t recognize at first.

I thought for a second, just at the end, that they
Were going to shake my hand, almost gentlemanly,
But they didn’t. Instead they handed me a bill;

Each task, each part, each gesture they made was
Itemized -- there was something added for disposal
Of my hazardous waste, a thing they handled discreetly

Without mentioning it aloud. Then they ran my card,
Had me sign three different places on their forms,
Gave me my keys, and then sent me on my way.

They told me where to find it in the lot – they were
Done with me. I was done with them. I was fixed.
They were fixed. We were done – the car could run.

It’s amazing what a morning, some gullible good will,
and a few hundred can get accomplished in our world.


- - -
J. K. Durick is a writing teacher at the Community College of Vermont and an online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Pyrokinection, Record, Yellow Chair Review, Eye on life Magazine, and Haikuniverse.

Contributor: d0ll

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Trembling hand on the door handle
Taps you on the shoulder
Tells you to make up your mind
Teaspoon balances on the table
Tumbling over the edge
Travelling plates try to meet
Tea cups that levitate
Tea’s getting spilled
Take a quick sip
Two taunting eyes across the table
To avoid
Talking is a nightmare
Too hard to choose
Those words to say
Trapped in your
Terrible visions of alternate future
Time left to lose will take
Two different ways
To tear you apart
Timid, tired and destroyed
True instincts hide under the table
Tremendous tea table towers over them up to the sky
Tormented ticking clock
Tries to get away
Time crawling by orders it to stay
Too many variations
To choose the right mistake
Takes so many hours
Till you take a leap
Towards a certain uncertainty
Transcending all anticipations


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DJane, translator, freelance writer, post punk culture & DIY enthusiast

Contributor: J. "Ash" Gamble

- -
She's been getting ready to leave
for years now. Scratching at the door
like a lonely, amorous cat.

She pads along the hall at night,
smothers herself sometimes in her
own memory, and fights me tooth
and nail.

One day, she wandered down the street,
fully nude, and the neighbors had to help
me catch her.

I'm looking, she keeps saying, looking
for him. I have to wonder if I am him.


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

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
You're standing on a window ledge
on the 50th floor of your building.
It's Valentine's Day in Manhattan,
clouds cruising, sun everywhere,

a nice breeze tossing your hair,
the taste of that woman always there.
Do you wonder what happens after
you jump or do you simply not care?

Does God meet you half way down
and say "What a foolish thing to do."
Or does Satan appear and shout
"Here's the Magnus Doofus of my day."

Do you begin to wonder when
you're a foot above the asphalt
whether you'll hear the splat or
do you jump and simply not care?


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Brooke Banister

- -
I’ve been running from you, but now I want to sink into you.
Trap me in your clutches,
Surround me with my madness.
Like hugging the killer-
Not giving up but joining in.
Engulf me old frenemy,
Shrivel up my normality.
Fading into nothing, drowning in my nonsense,
Get lost in your poison
Get off on my sickness.
Come here insanity,
Crash into me.


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I'm Brooke & occasionally creative genius, in my opinion, strikes, then I write. I want someone to love my poems like they would their child.

Contributor: Russ Cope

- -
He's got a bullet
and a trench coat, some
figure from a pulp novel
cover, masquerading
as a real person

I expect the world around
him to go a pale shade
of grey, shadows here
and there, and a glowing
lady of cinemas to dip
low in his arms

but all he does is order
a bagel.


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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: Vivian Belford

- -
Hush tones and sleazy acts
Vague tells and phony tales
Fusty notes and musty jokes
Taunt me with grave doubts

Foreplays on death row
Funny talk and no dates
Submerged in mixed signs
Sadly, no strings attached

Pretense and distance
Tough sights and silly fights
This love is like a smoke
Clogging my will to live

What game plays destiny
Will lies hide these truths?
Please burn this closed book
Titled, breach of trust.


- - -
Vivian Belford is a freelance writer by day and an aspiring actor by night.
She has been writing professionally since 2013. Her Mantra: *Put on some lip gloss, pour yourself a drink, sit back and have a really good laugh!* The world is one big comedy after all! She writes from Abuja Nigeria.

Contributor: James Robert Rudolph

- -
I am a fine limbed tree classically
posing for the seasons sunlight dropping
through me like water shedding from
a mill wheel a chiaroscuro that spots the ground
like a leopard’s coat.

But beneath my bark of deep rivulets swells
a termite ball hollowing out
my woody heart as a sharp tooled whittler, Am I
to become but a dark silhouette
against a changeling sky, a betrayal
to leave me a brittle of sticks?

Or have I brought myself to this, am I my own
scourge? For I scorned my nature played my
instincts cheap a wastrel of my youth whose hull
haunts me as a scold devouring.


- - -
James Robert Rudolph is a retired psychologist and teacher having returned to old haunts in northern New Mexico after a busy career in Minneapolis. He is attempting a resurrection of poetry and playwriting interests and finds Santa Fe a rich, if not always willing, muse. Creatively he aspires to the crafting of work that expresses honest experience in beautiful language, complex or simple, as serves the work’s purpose.

Contributor: Amit Parmessur

- -
If you are a big perch,
I am just a little bird.

If you are real,
I have so many wild dreams.

If you are brown,
I have borrowed rainbow colours.

If you know many songs,
I am yet to learn singing.

If your flowers are always pink
I like all that’s blue.

If your leaves love suicide
my feathers hatch fidelity.

If you are a swing
I’d love to swing a lifetime

and let the big gust
blow on, and on, and on.


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Biography: Born in 1983, Amit Parmessur has appeared in several literary magazines, including Transcendence, Ann Arbor Review, Salt, Black-Listed Magazine, Kalkion and Red Fez. He was nominated for the Pushcart Award and Best of the Web. Hailing from Mauritius he also writes in Creole.

Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
Watch, this moment,
observe the patterns of
passing human life

Listen to the voice
even indecipherable,
aphasia syllables and
heavy, burdened lips

Let ashes fall, dowse
their own flame, stay
back and see
how beings try so hard.


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JD DeHart is a writer and teacher. He has recently been nominated for Best of the Net.

Contributor: Richard Schnap

- -
There are stars
Only few can see
For they wander far
From familiar skies

And there are seas
Only few can sail
For they follow winds
To uncharted shores

And there are seeds
Only few can sow
For they covet earth
With exotic soil

And there are souls
Only few can know
For they invent ways
To speculate too


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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: Robert League

- -
I'm just a dog, crazed
little mongrel with madness
whiskers, begging
at the bottom the table,
hoping for the taste
of some leftover, a fragment
of the meal you are sharing,
share with me, turn to me,
notice how I wag for you,
how I would lie in the floor
and wait for you, notice.


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Contributor: Brooke Banister

- -
When you’re near thoughts dribble down my chin, like honey
It’s a sticky situation, too sweet for a girl like me,
this feeling is distracting.
Would I be pinned a lustful trader? would it be known by every stranger?

With delightful things, unpleasant ones seem so bearable… your loveliness outweighs my silly foolish bothers.
but as expected, sitting honey starts to itch. I can’t sit still with such an urge setting fire to my skin-
Setting fire to my lips,
Spreading quickly to my hips,
Such temptation should be quenched, please pour honey on my hips
Please, Would you? Could you?
…punish me with a kiss

I’m sure you’ve heard that honey never dates,
time is on our side my sweet.
Remaining ageless, your stream of honey flows and
Honey, I promise you are my forever friend.
Honey, you see it streaming? Streaming thickly through my lips
I wish you could dabble your tasty kisses, down past my sticky chin.
Find my pot of honey,
a jar with one name but two meanings (now lost)
And surely then, you’ll win.

You won, you stole my pot of honey
you gobbled up my thick liquid gold, took a dollop of my youth
You’ve left me empty, nothing sweet or golden in me..
Like a busy bee searching for precious pollen, I am making something out of barely nothing.
Never again will I give my full supply, it sinks to quickly when laid on top of such a lie


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I'm Brooke & occasionally creative genius, in my opinion, strikes, then I write. I want someone to love my poems like they would their child.

Contributor: Ginny S. Gillikin

- -
Beautiful wolf,
Furry gray creature,
Oh how I admire you.
Your stunning grace,
Magnificent and lithe physique
Permit you to run through the wilderness,
Unencumbered.
The spirit of your ancestors
Is instilled in you.
Those long-lost relatives
Paved the way for your kind,
Though your future may be in jeopardy.
But you persevere,
Using your instincts and intelligence
To escape those who pursue you.
You appear carefree,
Behaving as though you will live forever.
Your agile wanderings
Amaze anyone who is fortunate enough to
Glimpse that sight.
You glance around,
Alert but not afraid.
Then you saunter back to your den,
Curiously looking back once more.
Inside, your growing pups awaken.
They crawl and jump,
Frolicking in the dark.
Another generation has survived…


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I have a journalism degree and an English minor from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA. I write for my personal enjoyment and have written for publication in NC and VA. I enjoy music, books, photography, travel and museums.

Contributor: J. "Ash" Gamble

- -
Lucille was my purple queen,
with short hair.

Always thought I would prefer
long hair, but her curls made it
worthwhile.

She loved purple and the sounds
of Southern literature and whiskey
sours.

She moved purple, regal purple,
and taught me how to believe in
the sound of my own voice.


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

Contributor: Brian Baumgarn

- -
Friday dawn.
Thick, mist-laden fog.
Clinging. Gliding syrupy
slow over the city
on silent gray feet.
Sunlight.
Stretching its arms and legs.
Rising slowly.
Gathering its golden
potential ni the east.
Bidding night's deep shadows
to rest and sleep.
Brown, cottontail rabbits
nibble a meal of
dew-laden grass.
Robin, sparrow, and finch
trill morning song.
Colorfully unformed sentinels.
standing their post atop
a row of gnarled fence posts.
Hungry, seeking food, yet
singing at their labor.
Cricket symphony.
Ancient etude and aria.
Pure song, flowing
from crescendo to diminuendo.
The sonority of night-song
fading into reminiscence
in the gathering light.
Brief echo and encore. Fini.

July 3/The Dawn
Free Verse

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

Contributor: SB Moore

- -
A circle of illumination
finds me, a ghost, a whisper
of the girl I used to be,
woman now, someone like
water, flowing from one world
to the next, one idea
to another thoughtful idea,
dancing under spotlight.


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