Poets in this issue — click a name to read
- Antebi, Debbi
- Bava, Alessandra
- Blaker, Eli
- Bogar, Adam
- Boone, Randy
- Boyle, Jonathan
- Brager, Heather
- Brown, Rebecca
- Chan, Jon
- Clarke, Lauren
- Drury, Ivo
- Dunlap, James
- Edwards, David
- Fix, Elvis
- Gustafson, Jim
- Hartwell, Richard
- Hayes, John
- Iuppa, M.j.
- Jackson, Jennifer Ruth
- Joo, Jungmin
- Joy, Bernard
- Laguzza, Robyn
- Leslie, Stephen
- Minard, James
- Murphy, Mickey
- Orris, Scott
- Ratcliffe, Michael
- Robbins, Clay
- Robbins, Doug
- S., Preeti
- Scheer, Wayne
- Seymour, Jim
- Shiers, Richard
- Wankowski, Lynn
- Whitman, Neal
- Wilson, Connor
- Wisely, Dale
Jim Seymour
after the argument
trembling lips
glassy eyes
Jim Seymour
funeral parlor reception line
muted conversations
gentle embraces
Richard Shiers
Authors are published
Writers are not
I will always be a writer
Lauren Clarke
Lost glove on park railings
Sticks its finger up
at the world.
Richard Shiers
A dance through the heart
A frolic through the mind
A tumble through the joints
Alessandra Bava
Any of your pictures in
black and white is more
subversive than you, Tina.
Alessandra Bava
Nothing sings better
than a starved tummy
on a sidewalk.
Connor Wilson
Sometimes I like your singing
Sometimes I like your screaming
Sometimes sad and nothing said
Eli Blaker
The walls are high
There is no escape
Where is my God
Preeti S.
With laboring strokes
The elastic hand of time
Cancels a known past.
Jungmin Joo
reloaded
ready to shoot
death in the face
Jungmin Joo
candlelight
flickering in the air
it will suffice
John Hayes
Mockingbirds sing
daffodils flower
its spring
James Dunlap
Nights she would dream of kudzu
creeping through the open window
and down her throat until it was part of her.
James Dunlap
All the bones laying under blood, skin and dust
have felt the flap of night wings
through the air-filled woods of the south.
David Edwards
eons are lengths of
time that can be measured in
similes alone
Randy Boone
weeds consume
the garden,
beautifying death
Ivo Drury
in the quarrel�s aftermath
recalling placid Niagara waters
mere meters past tumult
Ivo Drury
why fuss the precision of words
when we can find meaning
in drumbeat and birdsong
Doug Robbins
Feline friend why are you so mean?
Clean the blood from your whikers.
The bird is dead.
Scott Orris
I framed the condom,
to remember�
a dream.
M.J. Iuppa
Gazing up, our eyes steadied
the quicksilver sky� fizz of stars
left us with one reconciled wish.
Clay Robbins
Your blood on my hands,
Years of oppression avenged,
But who really wins?
Robyn Laguzza
I now know why they make gravestones so immutable
it takes a thousand days of rain to dull their sharp edges
and ten thousand lifetimes to return them to sand
Lynn Wankowski
Through dark wells in the ice ocean
spring escapes, rising gold infused,
vowing renewal.
Debbi Antebi
at his wife�s funeral
loud memories
silent tears
Wayne Scheer
False gods
Heal believers
Just fine
Bernard Joy
the clear white moon, and the warmth inside,
after sleet storms that seemed to start and stop
just long enough, among dark willows
Adam Bogar
in fly�s eye
light of stars
no more there
Lauren Clarke
I breathe you in
rain on the window
darkness like a womb
Jennifer Ruth Jackson
Inviting brass bed
Billowy sheets to lie on
Someone else�s bed
Debbi Antebi
under the blanket of makeup
worries swim
in deep wrinkles
Michael Ratcliffe
Winter walk in woods--
cold wind rattling through beech leaves
brings warmth to my mind.
Debbi Antebi
first day of school
sharpened pencils
droopy eyes
Jim Gustafson
It is no secret
We do not see the wind work
�till it rests in trees
James Minard
Nonjudgmental eyes
gaze down on my every movement-
the clear nighttime sky.
Rebecca Brown
Don�t trample the roses;
It took so long to grow them
In this bed of pretty lies.
Jonathan Boyle
All was known then
Knowing nothing now
Living without my friend
Dale Wisely
At 2 a.m. sitting on the side of the bed,
she hears the sound of a flute through the wall:
one, long, low note, falling in pitch.
Mickey Murphy
Distant obscure bard
Singing to my loneliness
Lift me on your strings.
Richard Hartwell
gray days and gray thoughts
recall earlier colors
blanketed by white
Richard Hartwell
listen to the wind
summoning my memories
forcing tears to fall
Elvis Fix
Days are the ways and means
of coffee cups and coffee beans
Days are your enemy.
Heather Brager
I turn over in the sheets, and
listen to arguments on the wind, while
endings writhe against the windows
Heather Brager
it craves oxygen
we fan our flames with fervor
words may burn it down
Heather Brager
in the early part of dawn, she watches patterns
sneak across a ceiling while they try to elude her
and she can almost recall being someone else
Neal Whitman
nothing eye-catching
sad to say
only an object of curiosity
Jon Chan
I wanted to tell them that you were in a better place
But I knew it in my heart that it was a lie
So I stood there and thanked them for coming
Jon Chan
They say a man must believe in his star and follow it
It is sadly true: by the time the star�s light reaches
Here, the star is long dead
Stephen Leslie
Dropped off by his dad
At the homeless shelter
The day he turned 18