“How do I get to Elm?”

by Joseph Hargraves

A thin, black-haired, blue-eyed
girl stopped me on
High and Main Streets.
She asked me “How
Do I get to Elm?” Because I say
whatever pops into my mind
I told her I once stabbed
a guy on Elm because he
called me a “faggot.”
I explained how easily
the knife entered
up under his rib-cage.
She asked: “How
do I get to Elm?
I told her I would
exchange good directions
for her phone number.
She wrote “Becky: 327-9553.”
When I got home
I dialed knowing
she gave me the number
to Luigi’s Pizza Parlor.
The phone rang and
a sweet voice said:
“Hi Joe, this is Becky
I was hoping you’d call.”

Always remember:
People are unpredictable.

Deadwood

by Summer Qabazard

I’m scared of this dark
in blood cells
in space
in skulls
felt it flutter
nightly

I’ve seen the base of it
its taproot
wire bone
stone gray

trunk grows
around grave

I grow a foot
imprint
hold it to the ground
I’ve known it struggle
pathetic wing-pinned
flailing, flapping

smoke snakes in breaths
turning tones of ash
of such force, a storm

even in darkness
want shadows
shadows

I have to
scream
now.

Gum Chewing Not Allowed

by Annmarie Lockhart

I don't like gum chewingyou said
Yeah, well I don't like
being overlookedI replied

We pondered these
limitations, wondered
what they meant

I will make you feel safeyou said
Yes, and I will make
you feel strongI replied

And so negotiations began
and preliminary terms
were struck

I added
a monitoring clause
that wouldn't pass review

and the unseasonable storm
wound down, sunshine through snow
flakes, light, heat, bed, bear

and I wondered why any woman
would ever consent to a man
who didn't love her hair

The Cart Pusher at Wal-Mart

For my brother
by Zach Fishel

Struggling with
frozen gates and people who drive
while texting,
he pushes on.
Making due in the sleet,
hail,
downpours of misery in the small
town that only
equals dead end opportunities
except he
doesn’t get the benefits of
the Postal Service.
He gives a damn,
making sure people aren’t
trashing the lot
with their fast food wrappers
and commodities,
he doesn’t know hot water
tanks or gas bills
that exceed warmth.
He gives a damn,
like a priest celibately struggling
through a whorehouse.
One day when
he leaves that town,
he will take his work ethic
with him,
and nobody can take that
away as the carts
pile up
in parking spots like corners
of never
cleaned houses.

The Dissatisfied Mirror

by Glenn Cooper

A mirror grew dissatisfied with its human.
Another mirror said, a man cannot help his own reflection.
That may be so, the dissatisfied mirror said, but nor can I help the desire for something more.
If you break your human you will endure seven years bad luck.
Who said anything about breaking him?
It’s in your tone.
I think the silent treatment should more than suffice …

The Reason That Drunks Dont Recycle

by Jenny Catlin

Humiliation, morning seven am embarrassment.
The clanking of cans
chirping clank, too many bottles compete for space.
Hang dog slide down the fire escape. gotta wait. for the right moment
No neighbors in the hall
smiling maintenance guy. judgment eyes
party in a one room apartment, 105 no ones invited!
Clink clang click…nothing good ever comes in or goes out in a black bag.
Porn and booze and bodies.
Space out the symphony with folded pizza boxes.
Sunday morning functioning, the church bells of shame
But Wednesday, that’s another thing entirely.
Rock paper scissors, who gets the job? Three days a week of pile up and stock up
Gotta go.
Gotta go down all five flights no matter how careful the tip toe
The side step
Still the shame-siren wails in the parking lot
Neighbor’s pit bull head cock. No chicken bones, or other forbidden goodies.
No food for days, just bang-smash the bottles and cans…I can identify the brand
the sound of opening, parlor trick in a parlor-less walk up…but still.
the old woman who swims the dumpster for these lost fortunes
one more guilty verdict for her jackpot.
Think about global warming, the trash island.
Guilty gap mouthed purple plastic is giving me the eye again,
While I feed it’s too full neighbor up with all that broken music.

A Story

by Holly Day

once upon a time
we were in love
and then we weren’t
time has turned my hair gray
and my skin gray
and my eyes blind.
I wonder how he’s aged.
I hear the dirt moving
far above my head
the shovel draws close.
pebbles fall on my face as
metal bites into wood.
I have composed
so many love letters
down here, in my head
started conversations
mumbled explanations
but I can’t say a word that he can hear.
I see his face in the opening
framed in moonlight and wet earth
if I could feel
I’d feel him pull the ring from my finger
the skin sliding off the bone with
the cold metal
if I could speak
I’d ask him about the new girlfriend
ask him
if she’s prettier than me.

Halfway to Naked

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Among hobbledehoys, some simple friends seem more adept at dressage
Than do slatternly peers with obdurate, chthonic tendencies.
Those others, who also perform the rites, remain all but larky.
Hardihood lacks sufficiency to face down persons engaged accordingly.

Consider that carnal factotums, after a time, disintegrate to dust.
Similarly, blackboots, selectively mute, can be found risen to grandeur,
Or otherwise assigned to mirandole princes devoid of ugly-minded gaffers.
When such peerage shakes, the world rushes to videotape their trembling.

As for the rest of us, we homunculi, no amount of alacrity gets us
Beyond halfway to naked; it’s a shamefaced truth that minions
Decenter their superiors time and again out of need, nefarious intent notwithstanding.
If only, liberties were equitably spread, we might better our lots, rejoice, rebel.

My Dead Come Down

by Art Holcomb

In the early hours,
my dead come down
from the alder tree behind my house
and drink from my swimming pool

cautious hands dip
scoop by scoop,
eyes on me,
as I stand on the other side
of my patio door.

I sip my coffee
and slowly crack the door open
just a bit,

     just a little bit.

They (suddenly) do not move.

And I quietly, through the crack,
steal a breath of
our common fortune

I hold that breath;

     it’s heady

and they,
having had their fill,
retreat back through the landscaping,

to vanish

electric coil glow like taillights
as we both make for the dawn.

Rotation Alley

by John Pursch

Hark, our feelers are coaxed into auction shorts and quaffed donuts, mesmerized by plenitudes, and chuckled at by savage hair nets. Modern man goes loyal at the sight of ankle jobs, sacrificing clay pots, reindeer, coulisse, ear-wax, real teeth, nostrils, snake pits, surface bangs, bludgeoned mice, fields of treats, and buzzing cattle; all for a hook, a menagerie of diamond numbers, a gleaner of the loosened chaste. A bowl of minnows cans peaches in a celluloid basement, swirls to centrifuge a meager rat, and irrigates a bunion, half complete. Cobblers crown a chortling monkey preened for stays of restitution, reinforce a Day-Glo hindrance, and titillate the moribund sexologist. Climbing on a cyborg, armatures finned with ballast, we answer merry lipids, defenestrate a bobbin, and circulate nude lacquer chips.

Eating an Orange

by Jessica Otto

I pick up the orange of the kitchen counter
and cut into it with a haphazard, serrated blade
crusted with peanut butter sleeping in the sink
next to a greasy tilapia spine that found
its final resting place in my coffee mug.

Inside the orange is something like the pulse that
floats beneath your heart murmur.  The juice
stings a paper cut when I try to dig out a seed that
is not the pearl I was expecting from this thing that
is not an oyster.  And eat it anyway.

Fuck You, Fuck Me

by Cynthia Ruth Lewis

I'm almost glad I gave my heart to you, asshole;

I'm almost glad you took me for a ride—

you really opened my eyes

I already had a bad attitude

when it came to men

but I took a chance on you

because you seemed so damned sincere,

but you ended up being

the worst one of them all

You stole what little faith I had left

and hung it out to dry

but I can't rightly say I hate you—

I hate myself more

for even falling for your shit

for giving you a chance

for stupidly thinking "maybe this time"....

for being hungry enough

to swallow your fucking bait

but it taught me a lesson;

one I won't easily forget

damn you

for stripping away my last shred of hope

damn me

for being foolish enough

to grab onto the frayed end of that fucking rope

Gently Flows the Rhine

by Paul Hellweg

Beauty intimidates, and
ego’s desire yields nothing.
My body in Room Nine, Joshua Tree Inn,
my timid soul needs to check in too.
Lavender bedspread, mirrored dresser,
floral drapes, paisley pillows,
room once used for nude photo shoots,
home of the singing Lorelei and
exuberant female sexuality,
unapologetic, undaunted.
Mermaids, Sirens, Lorelei
lure men to their fabled doom,
favoring those who fear the female,
murmuring rock, lurking rock.
Women have the incubus, men the succubus,
equal-opportunity demons,
both genders with something to fear,
intimidation, timidity, restraint,
limitations to lose ourselves in,
barring entrance to that Room Nine
where reality awaits the dream.

Hide and Seek

by Savannah Stuitje

Love is not to be found in the backseat of a car
A circle of moonlight on a glossy front lawn
A musty basement spangled with cobwebs
In a nook, a cranny, a crawlspace
A library, a movie theatre slick with pop corn grease
Love is not shoved up against a wall
Wrists held down, breasts pushed up
Like a paid actress with goods for sampling
A housewife with a plate of finger sandwiches, pigs in a blanket
It is not stroked down its stomach like a purebred dog
Trembling into submission by a firm hand
Or groped through a flimsy dress
Love cannot be gripped by the thighs, made to ride like a cowgirl
Love does not rake its hands down your back
It is not made to moan and thrash
Or hold you in its hands like a prize fish
Mumble rosaries as it prays to you, its mouth open and regretful
Love does not scramble for its clothes in the dark
Or leave an earring behind; breathe something hot and moist into an ear
Love does not wander fingers down its body looking for souvenirs
Love does not wipe itself down with printed napkins
Or lose its underwear, a necklace, a sandal
Love does not sit in the bathroom and take inventory
Text a friend, call a cab, scrawl goodbyes on credit card receipts
A number, an exclamation, a drooping smiley face
It does not leave with its skirt caught in the car door
Love does not drive to a diner and eat pancakes
One after another, moistened with syrup and butter
Crunchy bacon and flaccid eggs cooked sunny side up
To lose the taste in its mouth
Love does not smoke bummed cigarettes
Or swallow handfuls of water in a gas station bathroom
Walk to a local pharmacy for little pills and take them dry in the parking lot
Bury the packaging in the trash
Love does not picture the darkness of its insides,
Porous white egg shell and minnow quick movements
Love does not curl its body into bed at 9 in the morning
In a little black dress, no underwear, and cold sheets
Love does not dream of babies rolling in lazy somersaults
Their eyes closed, hands folded, waiting patiently
Of bellies rounded with expectations
Seeds that smell the dirt like heaven
That come through cracks in the sidewalk
Their necks held out for execution

Landscape of Reason

by Austin McCarron

Behind chrome plated forests
there is a stump
of light and bright
is the flame of its inner machine.

Hot as a roast the meat
of its gleaming fist.  On tours of air
the destination silence cherishes.
Its heart trembles like wood.
Plagued by doubt, its greatness of
spirit is revered and its life is a song
poured out of
concrete furnaces like a cast of wires.

The land is sweet, full of religious
smells.  Out of roots of chaos, springs
of water, wearing caps of snow.
On legs of blood
a journey through gates and passes,
where trees
with animal fur over time begin to thaw.

Rapscallion

by Mike Berger

I've been down this ugly road a dozen
times or more. I've done some damage
along the way; leaving a string of broken
hearts. Striking up torrid love affairs, then
leaving without a word.

Always able to find a job and make a
little money. Dollars were made to be
spent and I rarely have cent to my name.
I drink only good scotch and I know how
to romance a woman.

Driving a new Porsche, I'm six months
behind on my payments. I don't fear the
repo boys, I'm gone before the can
track me down. It's a perpetual game
of hide and seek where the repo boys
are always it.

I'm getting old and not as quick as I
once was, but I still have my mojo.
I hold to the principle that good die
young; that way I will live another
thirty years.

Refraction

by Rebecca Gaffron

I look in the mirror of your eyes and see myself, as I see myself, and wonder what you see. You, who called me beautiful while your calloused thumb rubbed traces of Halloween-costume-freckles from my smooth cheek. You gazed at me under a streetlight all but over-powered by the orange glow of a harvest moon. And it was clear you loved in that moment before your lips met mine. For an instant I wondered how and then the feel of you made me forget to question.

Now all I can think of is the reflection of your smile distorted by glistening water. A line whips and circles in the air.  A lure, so light—freshly  tied and real. The cast is perfect. I am mesmerized by infinitely swaying loops outlined against sky, like some complicated incantation, working and weaving the designs of the universe into our own desires. Willing this fish to strike.

And I can’t tell if I’m the fish or the fisherman. Not sure who is catching who.  Not that it matters. The hook is set and the work begins. We play each other. Reel in the slack and come up close, close enough to look in the mirror of the other’s eyes, where we see ourselves as we see ourselves and wonder what the other sees.

I could be a fish in your grasp. Caught. A gift you’d gaze heavenward and give thanks for. Or you, slick in my hands . A gift I’d tremble with gratitude for. But the run isn’t finished yet. So speckled, iridescent skin slips through hesitant fingers and the line pays out again.

I ache to trust you the way I have never trusted. I ache for you to kill me fast and set my soul free. I want to feel you split me open. Offer my depths to the river and watch as spring-cold currents wash away this mistrust. This doubt. This fear of surrender. I would do the same for you. Rub you down with juniper and salt, protecting more than flesh. Preserving those bits you thought you’d lost.

We could accept the gift of a magic fish. We could look into its eyes and see ourselves as we see ourselves, but also possibilities—a lifetime of harvest moons together and the lingering sound of your guitar, or my words, or the laughter of our children.

But then your lips meet mine and I wonder if this is refraction or reality, before the risk of losing you makes me forget to question.

Soul Star

by Raymond Keen

Why would I
not sing to you
in tears of
vermillion fire?
Sing the fires of blue flame,
sing the rage of form.
For these words
no location,
in the blood-red
depths of an apple-green
paradise.
Yes, yes your azure eyes
speak mine.
You breathe Bordeaux.
Your body is a rainbow
in this gunmetal world.
Heather me, feather me
in this gunmetal world.
Your seraphic soul
a star sapphire,
your roots a verdant green.
Awaken me
you do
in this
most pale night.
You cry out in me.

The Digital Clock Hotel South of Hartford, Connecticut

by Noel J. Hadley

I kid you not. Pain and agony – there
is no healthier way to put it.
To say my bones ache, ha! I think my spine
just exploded. All night iron
fists pulsate my back. And then, reaching for
pain killers, a land mine detonates!

That is about the extent of my night –
In bed, cold, swallowed in agony.
I shall never forget the sting of death,
as though all my youth had been bested,
beaten in one final blow to the bone.
That is the full degree of the night.

Except I have failed to cite the length of
the slow drive through a despondent blizzard,
and how, when pulling off the interstate
I spilled charred coffee across my lap.
The only hotel was blistered in heaps.
True, but everyone swore it wasn’t.
The gas station attendant, the Waffle
House hostess – they pointed me in this
direction. Five times – Yes, I say five times
I spun my car down the icy hill,
crossing ghost paths with a charcoaled hotel.
Then, on my sixth try, I kid you not,
I stumbled upon this place, VACANCY
sign aglow – the V and N darkened.

That is about the extent of the night.
Now I am in bed passing the time.
Cold, broken, alone – Death molested me.
Where are you youth? We were together
for a moment, it seems, or perhaps two.
A moment, a day, a week, decades,
what does it matter? Everything before
perdition is a childhood dream. Now
seconds tick as minutes – hours as days.
Please, grant me the breath to kiss the flesh
of youth, if only in a lucid dream.
To grace, let me sleep, fashion a beard.
I fear I shall never leave this place – that
the sun shall never rise – that this
bed should always plague my bones – this hotel,
that it would descend into ashy
embers, plowed by an eternal blizzard,
that I should be a covetous ghost
in winter, always alone, – craving youth.

So, that is the extent of the night.
Still, the part that I will not soon forget
isn’t the blizzard, coffee, hostess,
burnt down hotel in heaps, nor corpse groans.
The greatest torments of hell rest not
in those, but in the damned digital
timepiece taunting me from the in-table.
Yes, taunt! That miserable device,
inching ever so slowly through the night.

Wondering

by Kyrsten Bean

I am thinking of all the ghosts I know
who are still alive
and I wonder if they are watching me or
if I’ve become a faint blip on their radar

I am another person inside this person inside this person
nested like Russian dolls
open one and you get another and another and another
and there are so many pieces of me smashed across the continent

we are missing smashed pieces our entire lives
and we can never recreate the whole glass bottle
because someone up there or out there has the pieces in their hands
is holding them. Is laughing.

But what do I have if not this: This attempt
what I had, what I did
so many pauses and starts
so many fits and gasps

Everything falls inevitably
cherry blossoming to the ground
And I spin through this bourgeois world wondering
And I spin through this bourgeois world wondering

Coda

by P. L. Powell

Many of us

normal lives

underneath

            strangenesses.

A roof leaks.

An old couple

persists.

This is what

breathing becomes.

In the morning

another reason

on warm sheets.

An eclipse ends.

The moon remains.

crop circles in wood

by Lynne Hayes

i saw a man in the coffee-shop
he sat near the door,
feet moving
in that still-walking pattern
that said take me there
anywhere, somewhere.
observing his profile,
the unshaven jaw twitched
as if biting on an unsaid word.
i wondered if he would spit it out
or swallow with the next sip
of his dark Colombian.
i stared at the man by a door
waiting for an imminent departure
so my feet could rest
in the circles made
on an old wooden floor
taking me somewhere,
anywhere.

exiles

by John Grochalski

b.j. looks happy

in the window
of the new bar

drinking his bud

talking to don
who’s keeping watch
over the basket of cheez-its

when i walk in
it’s like the mayor
has shown up

shouts and pints lifted

i think
well, i’ve finally made it

but to where?

i take a seat next to b.j.

the new bartender
gets me a beer
after i tell him what i want

this is something that i haven’t
had to do on this street
in almost four years

i ask b.j. and don
what happened at rooney’s

but instead they tell me
where everyone else is drinking now

b.j. says
they want to have one
last go round at the old joint

but because it’s closed down
the cops will probably come
and cart us all off to jail

so it’s going
to be a picnic instead

everyone from the joint

their families
their kids

reunited

he says he’ll email me the details
when he knows for sure

then jr slaps me on my back
and starts to talk to me
about books

while i take a good pull
on my draft

look around

trying to remember
where the bathrooms are
in this new joint.

Picking the Bones Clean

by Cynthia Ruth Lewis

I should have known
that eventually you'd come slithering back
you crashed into my life
like a train wreck
and completely turned it upside-down;
fucked with my mind
screwed with my heart,
basically made me realize
that Satan is very much alive and well
and living in California
I must say the experience
really opened my eyes
and taught me a lesson I will never forget;
it's been a tough road,
but I'm a lot stronger because of it all
since then I've taught myself
how to pour alcohol directly into the wound
to help it heal,
notch the skin and suck out the venom
and build a barbed-wire fortress
around my heart
you managed to make quite an art
of emotional and psychological torment;
one can only assume that you've experienced
more than your fair share of that
at some point in your past,
but what amazes me
is not only that you scraped my own plate clean
while casually picking the remnants out of your teeth,
but that you had the balls to come back
for seconds

The Sea

by Roger Butterfield

I wanted to be higher than you one time,
Not knowing
What that would mean.

Knowing hasn't changed much,
Only from where I'm looking.

The Short Story

by Brittany Fonte

SETTING: Many weeds grow green in the Mid Western wilds of cows and plains, mosquito-filled lakes and conservative politics. Wisconsin happily barters in cheese curds and whey (sown by serial killers), the twin Dakotas dapple in deer ticks, dust and durable durham wheat. My Minnesota, though, touts corn and soybeans, also gun racks, goys, and cheap ale. Ice fishing holes, sans crops, are stuffed with mammal heads and hookers as company-come-tail. I was raised here, shallow soil et al; “gay” meant “jolly,” only in the way it was used in famous Broadway musicals recreated at the local (Norwegian) rec center. Here, lefse is rolled as much as Mary Jane, and Mary Jane marries men.

CHARACTER: Mary Jane married three men, maybe high, but I hoped for more. I held Ellen a hero without a hampering cape, or male hormones. Nineteen and nit-witted, I coddled visions of karaoke love songs in my mind of minimal focus and tone deafness. Feeling powerful with temporary parental leave, and teenaged volcanic panties primed in electric shocks, I panted after—preyed— on pretty coeds without guilt, without redneck perceptions, concepts of “perversity,” or narrow-minded prattle. Until.

THEME: Until Eternity: This is what I promised her. I kissed her once, offered, “Until we meet again.” Until the clock struck twelve and my spring break curfew counted, I held her hips until the cows came... I thought of her driving home, got a speeding ticket from a dyke who couldn’t see me for who I wanted to be. I thought: Until the fat lady sings. Until the end. Later, I told my parents until I was blue in the face: I loved her. Juliet and Jolie-Pitt. They were silent. They wouldn’t accept it, not until Hell froze over. Sex equaled guilty until proven guilty.

POINT OF VIEW: Guilt from Her. Mom. The old-fashioned. The bigoted. The Christian Right. The Focus on the Family, not mine. The Majority. The Man. The Commandments. The hope for a grandchild. The neighbors and what they might say, have said, have seen over a privacy fence. The hurt I might contend with. The discrimination. The “phase.” The idea of tab A and slot B without silicone accoutrements. The slut. The family friends who will not accept me. The façade. The children with no father. There is, also, God.

PLOT: My God, Thanksgiving came gifting and I, riding shotgun in my mother’s shuttle van, thinking of tofu turkey and brown buttered biscuits (basic human rights) showed my cards: I shouted, “I’m in love. With a woman.” Torrential, tyrannical screams ensued, and then my ride was wrought with the most soundless of nauseated silence.

(
)

It was clear I would not break breads of bartering, then. There was not one loaf for all, and I had to bide my time until a foreign taxi could return me to sender, reset my sexuality, tally all of my wrongs as a child and all of my tuition costs.

CONFLICT: The cost is more than I have

 

Airplane Bottles

by Kevin Ridgeway

six months dry and a sip
of bottom shelf Kentucky bourbon
out of an airplane bottle

gag reflexes dance across the seething nodules of my throat,
sour world worms wiggle along the linings of my intestines
which writhe into arms that want to crawl out of my ass
and produce a sharp blade in one arm
slicing the main line of this head
with an aluminum bat in the other arm to shatter the skull

removing the brain delicately like a newborn
and spoon feed hunks of gray matter
past my bitter lips down
the slide of fire and out of my ass again
to shake hands with this doomed clown
plastic bottles on each finger dancing a horrific
deluded dance with the Devil.

CALIFORNIA FIRE

by Stephen Jarrell Williams

Near dawn I'm sitting on the edge of bed,
everything with a tinge of black
pulling me back into the night,

you're behind me breathing hot on my neck,
your hands snaking around to my belly,

pressing hard against me
your cool breasts...

California fires burning on TV and you
lasting like a line of flame across the entire valley,

never forgetting this
our last night together

sprinkling ashes of glowing orange outside the window,
bed squeaking like an old woman,

you thinking
you'll never be alone,

mountainsides burnt with stumps of trees and bushes
once strong and green,
canopied by an arc of tainted sky.

Goodbye, So Long, and Farewell

by Danica Green

i. Goodbye

Rain is the sad weather,
Snow is reflective,
Such pathetic fallacy.

You'll still be dead when the sun comes out.

ii. So Long

I've never flogged a dead horse,
But I've kicked a dead rat.
I found it in the garden last summer,
Not a mark on it,
But covered in flies.
I kicked it to check it was really dead.

iii. Farewell

I'm taking the good china when I go,
You never used it anyway.
The duvet cover you said was too vintage,
The tacky seashell lamp

And maybe
Wait
...yeah

Fuck it.
I'm taking the cat.

HISTORY ON A FLATBED

by Robert E. Petras

First to go was the lawn tractor
swept away by a flatbed,
then came the strangers to the auction,
and they took things,
things like Betty Jane Demerit’swasher and dryer,
things like Betty Jane’s flat screen TV,
things like Betty’s jewelry,
her pearl necklace, her mother’s brooch,
carried them off the hill
like ants carrying crumbs
as the auctioneer warbled on and on
and they carried away more things—
just things—the grandmother’s wedding dress,
a mother’s ring,
the daily reminder blackboard
erased, the erasers, too.
Another flatbed rolled into haul away junk
as the auctioneer warbled on:
Going, going, gone forever.

Second Millennium Fairy Tale

by Claudia Rey

‘Hi, pretty little thing’
growled the wolf
jumping on the path
from behind a bush.
‘Going for a picnic?’
The girl batted her long lashes
and adjusted her red bonnet.
‘A big bad wolf… how interesting’
she said with a smile.
‘Aren’t you afraid of me?’
said the wolf, disappointed.
‘Er… no. Should I?’
‘Of course you should.
Ever heard about the big wolf
who eats tender little girls
and their grandmothers as well?’
‘Aw, come on’ laughed the girl.
‘No one believes this any more.
And speaking of eating,
are you sure you could manage?
I’m not as tender as I look,
actually I’m pretty tough.
As for my grandma, poor thing,
she’s so old and bony…
not that much to chew there.’
The wolf stared at her, confused.
‘But… but look at me!’
he insisted. ‘Yellow, scary eyes…
sharp fangs… strong claws…
I mean, the works!
You should be terrified!’
The girl examined him critically
from head to tail.
‘Scary eyes, you say?
My dear, they are not scary at all,
they only look sort of red
as if you didn’t get enough sleep.
Try eye-drops, they do wonders.
Fangs? Hum. Not so sharp
and rather yellow in fact.
You should see a dentist!
Now, show me your claws.’
She took his paw in her hand.
‘But Wolfie, you have a problem here!
You see here? A badly broken one.
And there? Broken as well.
Wait a minute, not exactly broken…’
She frowned. ‘Say, do you bite you nails?
The wolf stooped his head
and burst into tears.
‘I’ve been so depressed lately…
no one is afraid of me any more,
can’t find a single goat or lamb,
rabbits and mice regularly outrun me,
I often go to bed hungry…
and now little Red Riding Hood’
he sobbed ‘makes fun of me!’
Red Hood put her arm round him.
‘Now, now, don’t cry. You know what?
I’ll buy you a drink. A beer,
a brandy, a whisky. You choose.
There must be a bar over there
just round the bend.’
‘But… a drink?’ said the wolf.
‘Little girls don’t drink!’
‘Wolfie’ grinned Red Hood
‘don’t be so daft.
I’m no little girl, I’m twenty-eight!
But I had to keep my job, you see,
so I got myself a nip and tuck.
And you know what,
you should do the same.’

She paces the isle of the streets

by Jenny Catlin

She paces the isle of the streets
Corner of McArtur Park,
Alvarado Street
She’s always been there
She was before time.
Her broken sunglasses
That once used to be Gucci
Hang one amputated arm over heavy lidded eyes.
She dances
Shaking her round bottom inside a faded house dress
The flowers that she colors in with felt pens
Her things all live around the park bench
She is before time and above future
Even the crack heads leave it alone
Her leather bag spilling out Family Circle cartoons
And bristeless hair brushes
She’s taped three quarters to three fingers
Now castanets accompany her dancing.

SHOVELING DIRT

by Lee Stern

I’m sorry I can’t shovel the dirt anymore
in the manner in which you’ve come to expect me to do it.
I thought that I was doing a pretty good job.
But the way you looked at me
indicated you lost confidence in what I was doing.
And wanted somebody else to step in and take my place.
And I’m sorry if I didn’t put the dirt in the right place
or if I didn’t spread it evenly.
I tried to subscribe to the goals that you outlined.
But I had a lot of things on my mind
during both the nights and the days.
so I wasn’t always successful in reaching
out for the correct operation. Or for the correct solution.
I was merely trying to move one pile of dirt to another place.
From where it had been located.
And from where safeguards
had been removed from the places that we dreamed would always last.

Vlad

by Emma Ambos

I was the shadow
of a waxwing slain,
sullen and sodden,
plain as a Jane.

But I suppose
that is well beyond
your concern.

So close me down,
fold me up,
hide me in
the pages of
a library book,
where I belong,
along romance and jokers.

Goodbye goodbye
forget me not
or do
if it makes you
feel any better.

Meaning

by Aashish Thakur

I called a tree- ‘Tree’
Tree laughed,
And said-‘I am the wind’
I called the wind-‘Wind’
Wind smiled
And said- ‘I am the cloud’
Then I shout the name -’ Cloud’
I saw the lightning and thunder
Angry could said-‘ How dare you, I am the rain’
Then I asked the rain- ‘How are you river?’
After that, my legs never got dirty
And I never felt thirsty.

Israeli Jasmine, Manicured

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Jasmine, hedge-high, bordering a beachfront bungalow,
Slung itself along the Mediterranean, in a land
Shaded by disputes of international stature, grows.

Pigeons, gray, brown-red, also white,
Opined witnessing to local, pedestrian issues
Missing all traces of ocean tranquility, take flight.

Conch shell inhabitants, tiny, maybe thumbnail-sized,
Chorused periodic flowery, feathery, or dysfunctional flash
Rumoring natives as no more than immigrants or tourists, slide.

Certain civic cases, cached by multinational requests for mollification,
Spun “insights,” didn’t offer counterpoints to foreign correspondents
Habituated in gifting bad press to residents, erupt.

Yet, all the beauty of sky-filled vistas, chain smokers, darting lizards,
Cedars, acacias, myrtle, oleaster, cypress, box trees, likewise elm,
Waylaid by dint of ill-intended, external aloquoting procedures
Designed to trump the population, continues on, unabated.

Death Waltz

by Craig Shay

We are waltzing instep to a cold wind,
blowing us toward extinction.

We are waltzing, in the glow of computer screens,
while specters haunt our American Dream.

We are waltzing, because we support illegal wars every day,
with our tax money and by pretending they don’t exist.

We are waltzing, while innocent civilians submit
to the brute force of our military.

We are waltzing through shopping malls,
while foreign cities are bombed to ash.

We are waltzing quietly,
unaware that our government,
which preaches freedom and equality,
is the world’s greatest purveyor of violence.

We are waltzing, with our hands held
tightly over our mouths.

We are waltzing, because the American Dream
is really the coma of consent.

We are waltzing through massively corrupt systems
of monopolies and oligarchies.

We are waltzing through decades,
suspended in consumer hypnosis.

We are waltzing up to voting booths,
believing lies, fed to us by puppets.

We are waltzing, while a handful of corporations
control the music of the dance.

We are waltzing, while our media provides
the chanting drone of obedience.

We are waltzing, because denial reigns,
like a pistol, butting everyone over the head.

We are waltzing through our empire of illusion,
too petrified to act out against it.

We are waltzing, while waves of false history
knock us back into the Middle Ages.

We are waltzing as serfs and peasants,
on the manors of dark lords.

We are waltzing on vast plantations,
working for ruthless masters and demonic butchers.

We are waltzing, like zombies down dead-end streets
with faded promises tattooed to our eyelids.

We are waltzing through a luxurious ballroom,
without realizing were are on a sinking ship.

We are waltzing, though the glass ceiling is caving in,
and water is slowly rising around us.

We are waltzing, without realizing that we are dancing,
with entities of death and annihilation.

We are waltzing with blindfolds on,
oblivious to the emergency,
with nothing but apathy in our souls.

Waiting Room

by Rachel Marsom-Richmond

After the world becomes a hospital,
a content, controlled safehouse,

when men, women, children
live in every sense enlightened,

in a rush for nothing, a
moving outward, surrounded—

as when in your elderly years the
friendly neighborhood ladies so obviously

secure were only a few blocks away,
flaunting tied-back curtains, open doors—

everyone talked to them, everyone
hugged them every day, everyone watched

their routine of predictability—as
you all say when the day ends

at last, as you hide from the burst of moon,
as we are not here, we give up, and we are leaving.

A Woman Who Watches

by Jill Chan

I am not a bad person. I'm like anyone else. In fact, I can be weak and passionate. When I was younger, I was regarded as someone with a penchant for turning things over—upsetting a table or a house. But I am normal. I am not boring though I find strength, the kind that pushes people away, the kind that holds on to weakness like something opposite yet determined—I find it terrifying. I find what I have terrifying.

She was a beautiful woman. I don't argue with that. I welcome it.

The first time I met her, she was laughing at something with a force so intense and relentless, she was dying like I was bemused with her ability to be there, holding my attention like that.

I don't know why but I intently watched her then like someone who had seen something strange yet satisfying.

She was about my age though infinitely wiser, more in touch with the world. My world was closed in like a house. Boring, you could say.

And she enlivened the room like light that fell through the curtains. I hesitated to answer when she asked me, 'Are you laughing, too?'

'No, but I enjoy watching you laugh.'

She cocked her head to her right and said, 'A woman who watches. How interesting.'

Then I kept quiet after that. As everything fell quiet after a thunderstorm. As only she could allow.

I was married by then and pregnant. My husband was away working. In a few months, our first child, Mary, would be born. And made our family all the more decent and satisfied with decency.

The woman who had just made my acquaintance was married to my husband's boss. As I found out later. He was in the media business. My husband was an accountant at one of his businesses. I was a photographer in my father's shop.

After Mary was born, I'd spend all the time at home taking care of her. I had to stop work and my father hired another photographer to fill in.

I didn't see the woman again for awhile. She had remained a figure forever laughing in my mind, a delightful distraction from all the busy work at home. The duties and cares of motherhood.

But one time, I came across her at the park. She was sitting on a bench watching people pass by, seemingly careless but strangely occupied.

She said, 'Hi. I remember you. How are you?'

'I'm fine. I'm just having a minute away from my baby, trying to keep my sanity.'

She smiled and nodded.

I detected something sad in her look. Her hand was absentmindedly touching a button on her coat.

She suddenly said, 'How's your husband?'

'He's good. Working.'

This time she didn't nod but merely smiled.

It seemed to me she spent a lot of her time asking questions which called for trivial answers. But she said then, 'Life is strange, isn't it? You want something, then you have it. Then you want it more and more. And pretty soon...' she stopped and looked away.

I could not see but I thought she must've been moved by something none of us could change. Devastation. Desperation.

When she looked at me again, her eyes were red but she was not crying. Only angry, as far as I could tell.

'I'm sorry. I must be going. Hey, how about you come to my house sometime. Hmmm? Well, I'm not doing anything. And you must want some company sometime, nursing your baby.'

'It's good of you to ask. Sure. Here's my number.'

Luckily, I found a piece of paper in my purse.

When she said goodbye, she laughed that laugh again, seeming now another person, another face.

I never heard from her again after that. My husband said that she split up with her husband and moved to another city.

How the city moved as if dangerous, as if alive in some way yet dead in countless others.

After Mary grew up and started going to school, I went back to my father's shop, taking photographs of people I'd never meet again. I still do this.

How I watch their faces like a lens. And capture something of theirs they'll never have again in quite the same way, at quite the same time.

Some day we'll stay the same in our minds. But now, I am reminded of how the table is sturdy. How it holds a coffee table book. A glass of wine.

I am tempted to turn the table over. In my mind, I do it a hundred times a day. Until the table is sturdier for my moving it. Or my attempt at moving it.

A woman who watches.

I have been known as a good photographer. One who brings out the inner stillness of the subject. One who makes people sit and view themselves as subjects of the room at least. They are gods and goddesses in that second when the camera clicks, when I tell them to smile and be themselves. They seem to be happy. To be there in their own skin. To smile at the stranger in themselves. And hopefully occupy their own happiness.

I see the woman in every one of my subjects. She was the most beautiful by far. Even if I never took her picture.

I would've loved it—taking her photograph. She was a natural. Her smile distant yet endearing.

A woman who watches.

I am incredibly distant now from all my subjects.

I remember the last look on her face. She looked once behind her after she had stood up and walked away. As if suddenly terrified of closeness yet not getting enough of it.

There, I was not myself enough.

I could've said something which meant something else. Instead, I was the dumb one. The meek one behind the camera where no view could be held.

Ancient Papyrus, Translated

by John S. Fields

Letter to Mark

I lay against the trunk of an olive tree. Its strong branches reach to God, while the arms that once held love now hold a robe with the scent of honey.

The costs of sacrifice…Peter left a family and the life of a fisherman to follow Jesus. And the Master says you will be persecuted by pagans for teaching the word. You may ask what have I sacrificed?

The Master confided to you and trusted you. Do you know the nature and depth of our love? It was the Master who wished I inform Caiaphas. And I have sacrificed a love as sanctified as that of any husband and wife.

I will not be martyred. I will be vilified as the betrayer. Before I play the role cast by our Father, I have a humble request of you…Tell Mary I loved Jesus with a pure heart.

Judas

APACHE TRAIL(Arizona SR 88)

by Ben Rasnic

Trails of smoke streak the cobalt sky,
hang like wreathes
over Superstition Mountain.

Arizona sun buckles unpaved pathways.
Scattered bones of lost souls
offer white line hi-way markings.

Twisted rock formations
and colonies of cacti tower
above multi-colored wildflowers.

RVs & SUVs cling to hairpin
turns & winding switchbacks,
brakes screeching like dry chalk
against a classroom blackboard.

Black vultures huddle
over anonymous roadkill;
pick at the skeletal remains,

dodging slow motion steel bullets
shimmering in the Arizona sun.

in need of no title

by Marcia Arrieta

contrast clarity or the alchemist who walks across the branch—
into a tavern of light. "don't be obtuse," he advises.

i am a white heron in summer.
all is obtuse.

arrows point in different directions.
we need more beer. clearly.

adjunct water. the boat to be piloted through the sand. listen; compose
the sky as idea.

indifferent the approach. the stanzas vary in lines. preface the imagination.
everyone feels sadness. there is no contingency.

the attempt to control will shatter. design the spaces.
semi-colon. colon.

triangle. square.
the leucadian shore. the montana wilderness.

hieroglyphic independence. invent immediate.

snowflake. sun. air.

Red Sky Mine

by Devlin De La Chapa

Snakes hang dry
pink petals bloom

Sun kisses dirt
water runs green

Cactus saps
trees loose leaves

Dead and dying
blazing and bursting

Girls is the day
under boys are the night

Red sky mine,
burns

Helen Whispers in My Dreams

by Jason E. Hodges

As I drift to sleep I free fall into this strange new land
A land where you’ve been for what seems like a thousand centuries
A land where the air is clean and dry and Helen still whispers in the soft sea breeze
Where the moon bleeds orange and red with love over the city of Troy
Love of a woman that brought the mighty ships so long ago
Ships filled with men ready to fight
To bring her back
Now all is caught between legends and dreams
At least dreams for me, for somehow I’m here with you
Yes, I know I have to be dreaming for Helen seems to be with us now
Walking the shoreline
As graceful as swans gliding through mirrored lake tops of reflection
A shoreline that’s gently touched by what looks to be the bluest of waves
Making our way through the cobblestone streets and cracked marble of time
Then the dream shifts like a blink in the eye of time
Like a stage scene set perfectly with x-marks waiting to place
And now it’s just you and I
Talking in a café as a yacht drifts in the distance
For the ocean is so close we can taste its thick salt in the air
Suddenly we’re on the shoreline of the great Mediterranean
With its water crystal like clear
Polished rocks line the beach as far as the eye can see
So beautiful and smooth like jewels in our hands they sit
Like pieces of time they litter our walkway as Helen once more ushers us into her world
For we now are her chunks of marble sculpted in her on special way
A way of beauty far beyond most comprehension
So bright, she easily guides our way through the darkest obsidian night
Then finally I wake to the last thoughts I remember
You and the whispers of Helen

SAPPHO IN THE KITCHEN

by Kallima Hamilton

Repetition and toil, slaves enough
but the woman in me grows fond of dishes
and something central

sends me back into baking and brooms
in this room lit with sun and cinnamon.

A blue fire burns at the core of me,
each poem of love buffed over sudsy water.
Too often I dream of your ankles.

The soufflé sinks. Still, I go on
with my island view dotted by dolphins.

The universe curves like a green slice of melon.
We observe our need to nest

and nourish. Let me rub sunflower oil
on your belly, give you tonic juiced with lime.

All I can do is recite the syllables of your name,
become entangled in the blonde glass of your wild hair.

This wood table anchors me with roses and grape hyacinth,
these words become the fresh bread of our long afternoons.

Soon, sundown will turn in its coppery shadows
and my ache, like a thing possessed, will wander for its form
until you return with apricots, sweet plums.

Tree

by Danny P. Barbare

Roots, trees  stripped
Of their bark, limbs, no leaves,
No twigs, no shade, no flowers,
Fallen trunk, sawdust,  sap
Splinters, kindling, firewood,
Knots, logs, quarters, smoke,
Smell, crackle, and ash.

THE WINNER LOSES ALL

by Randall Rogers

THE WINDS
OF YESTERDAY
BLEW
BITTER.
HIS PAST
WAS
CATCHING UP.
BEST THE TIME
FOR DYING
IS SOON
HE’D SAY.

TIME
IS A
PRINCESS.
NEVER
A QUEEN.

LIVING LIFE
ROUGH
YOU KNOW
HEROIN
METH
NEVER A
GIRLFRIEND
CRIED THE DAY
GARY COLEMAN DIED
IS NOTHING
RATHER
THAN
SOMETHING
AND IT
COULD HAPPEN
TO YOU.
OR NOT.
BINARY BRAIN.

I SEEN SO MANY
STRANG THINGS
IN THIS WORLD
THIS LIFE
WEIRD SHIT
NO SEEMINGLY EXPLA-CAUSATION
BET YOU HAVE ALL TOO.
WE JUST
DON’T TALK
‘BOUT JOE’S
BLOWING
HIS HEAD
OFF
SHOTGUN BARREL
O WHAT LEFT OF HIS
HEAD
IN THE MOUTH WE
ALL SUPPOSED
TRIGGER
CAUGHT ON HIS TOE.
WEIRD SHIT LIKE
‘’WHY’’, JOE?
MUCH LESS
THAN WE TALK
ABOUT
THE DRUG
SHIT,
AND
THAT WE
ALL
MASTURBATE,
THAT IS,
IF WE STILL CAN.
ALL I GOTTA
SAY
IS
FUCK YOU WORLD
WHO LOVES YOU. BABY?

ARROGANT BASTARD

I ALWAYS SAY
AN INTELLIGENT
PERSON
WILL
SEE THAT
QUALITY
IN ME.
AND NOT BE JEALOUS.

Petals

by Alison L. Peoples

cherry blossom tears
filled the ocean
blue
surging in pain
across the Ring of Fire
our shore
your shore
connected with tears
we see you
finally
amidst the Imperial tide.

the fall

by Manisha Anand

put my sins out
with your cigarette,
i said, i need a saviour
on my cross tonight.
burn me,
sear my eyelids,
make me blind,
make me see.

mesmerized,
i pick my way
through the debris,
in the red-hot glow
of flickering tongues
and smouldering stones.
smoke fills my lungs,
but your hair
is a handful of fire
and i find i can't
let go.

i am ablaze,
running on
yesterday's time.
beyond reason,
past caring,
and you,
you try to douse
this pyre
with gasoline.

standing under
poison trees,
flames still licking at
my throat,
i watch them
throw their bouquets,
as you try and nail
your feet
to the ground.

your shoes are
stained with ashes,
old whispers,
silent screams,
and as the hammer
thuds on, i know
that this
will leave a scar.

it was just a place

by John Grochalski

i have walked passed it
nearly every day
since the new york city board of health
slapped a sticker on the place
and shut the joint down
touched the sticky metal of the door handle
looked inside the dusty window
with the unplugged beer signs
hoping for a sign of life
but the old pint glasses are still on the bar
half-filled the way that they were
when the company man came by
and did his civic duty by kicking everyone out
bottles of alcohol are now out on the bar
sitting next to cardboard boxes
the booze glittering in the sunlight
like a stained glass window
waiting to be packed away
one of the television sets are down
the pictures of ireland are off the wall
and the jukebox is black
i think of nights of staggering desperation
of pointless joy and stunted conversation formed
in the afterglow of whiskey shots
and beer draft illuminations
i think of high drama on a sunday afternoon
johnnie walker infidelities
fueled by the futility of this american life
i think of nowhere else to go but here
and i am as sad as i’ve been in a long time
these people watching me stare at this dilapidated shack
the ugly ones walking along the street
with ice cream cones and yapping dogs
them and everyone else
the ones who are glad to see this place gone
to them it was just a glowing nuisance
a festering hole in the wall
that kept its lights on year round
to them it was just a place
but to me, it was a gershwin tune
paris in the spring
the sistine chapel
with little michelango scribbles
splattered on the ceiling.