Issue 21

Dean Bowman

December, sharp kiss of winter Love pangs, fools stabbing fools Graying days, color out of eyes

Phillip Larrea

So unfair that something in the air or water or sunlight or beauty or the pills or their men- kills women.

Mary Delabruere

Sugary words from a sinister tongue Alien to my soul like agonal breaths. I have no room to rent to your lies.

Nanette Avery

Sound bites are like dried dandelions; how suddenly they are whisked away leaving behind gleanings of uncertainty.

Steve Klepetar

Cold water to dry lips, a leap of flesh and tongue and sighs. How wonderful to thirst, and thirst and drink at last.

Caroline Nawrocki

Bruises can turn into secret tattoos. Wishing it was temporary.

Caroline Nawrocki

The man on fire shakes your hand. The usual business.

Neil Ellman

By tenuous light we walk among the candlesticks— how soft our steps..

Shakthi Shrima

On covers, flowers pinched in their wilting, the flushed betrayal of a soft projection.

Pat St. Pierre

The church bells ring Calling home the Wandering soul.

Pat St. Pierre

Wind whirls through the trees As snow falls continuously Tree branches look like stick figures.

Robert Lunday

The first stars emerge, ministers of the new regime.

Robert Lunday

A smokestack jabs the sky like the middle finger of all Ohio.

Mickey Murphy

Moonlight awakens Whispering ballads Exhaling daylight.

Douglas Polk

Kennedy was loved by the camera until his untimely end, the acid bath completed, the images retained,

Gary Watkins

blue jays strafe a squirrel looter of the birdfeeder risks all for peanuts

Gary Watkins

tide pools team with life friend and foe tossed together until the next wave

Lennart Lundh

If you settled on my shoulder, a caffeine-high firefly blazing in the night, would the jar of my heart be enough to hold you?

Gerry Norton

Arm the knaves with thoughts of rainbow braves

Padmini K

My silk gown flows as I try to gather hordes of crawling silkworms

Bernard Joy

A fresh wind fills this scaffold of ruins; walls that topped these hills before the Danes came. Now, in my washed-up mind, new feelings start to turn.

Brian Barnett

black pitted steel bars cage hung on a crooked bough graveyard prisoner

James Gilmore

a baby carriage bought returned in the box tears in the dark

Ray Scanlon

cold solstice sun suspends aerosol wood smoke lone dandelion crouches

Martha Christina

airborne every day red-tailed hawk ravages the small and wingless

Martha Christina

crow’s wings flash silver in late December light

Bill ONeill

A tiny you though so unfair love transformed

Michael Ratcliffe

New snow on mountain. My love lying next to me. Moonlight on soft curves.

Michael Ratcliffe

Moonlight on mountain, blanket of snow covers slopes. My love’s warm embrace.

J Patti

this play doesn’t last any longer than usual just because we’re in it. (it’s more like bread)

Chad Horn

complex directions man’s maps mounded as compost ME compos mentis

In a world full of gallops, I think faster than the air, but run slower than my grandmother’s voice.

Santosh Kalwar

Life remains unchanged till a leap of faith runs towards heaven

Arthur Heifetz

I’m a clock with no hour a solitary sock, a hummingbird circling a wilted flower

Arthur Heifetz

wish I were a rock anchored in the bay but I am sand and you are tide drawing me away

Bill Melton

Courage to speak up Or to sit down and listen They are both the same

Ivo Drury

we mourn the last cicada of summer and anticipate the first of many snows

Ivo Drury

late-blooming chrysanthemum scene stealer when summer’s upstarts have faded

Eric Nelson

Why oppose opposites? A hammer pulls as well as drives. What is buried grows.

Eric Nelson

Bright autumn day. The room darkens slowly-- Leaves landing on the skylight.

A.J. Huffman

Icicles glisten, daggers dangling from rooftops. Frozen fangs of glass.

Bill ONeill

flying buttresses, b69’s and landing strips shaved papayas, camel toes and thigh gaps gonna post to instagram

Samantha Symonds

Rain on December 25th wiping the raindrops from my eyes feeling where the crows are circling.

David Edwards

twelve readers have a dozen different Dantes to guide them through Hell.

Jean Brasseur

graveled morning voice over the phone I can hear your face waking up

Douglas Luman

On Saturday afternoons, I go here full of juniper and rye – to be satisfied with gin, to find traces of heavenly peace.

Timothy Pilgrim

Head bowed, tweeting from third pew priest’s eyes on me, hungry, his thumbs down too.

Brenna Conley

i see your primitive grace rust brown blooms on toilet paper the youth of crosshatched etchings

Judy Beaston

throat etched and burning salt gargled, Advil consumed remedy eludes

Judy Beaston

age threads her hairstyle silver streaks overwhelm blonde retired and reborn