Issue 3

Daniel M. Shapiro

I feel like coral. I may look beautiful, but touch me and you bleed.

Daniel M. Shapiro

Open your stardust till dawn greets your suffering with a lone pale yell.

Deborah Ngo

Labyrinth of thoughts... A heart of glass and Crystal tears of sorrow

Anthony Ward

I run from myself Aware that when I’m most tired I will still be there

Anthony Ward

I’m deafened by sound Hearing only the silence Of the noise inside

Joel Ferdon

I still wear your shirt, Old man. 1977 faded Plaid. Your last remnant.

Joel Ferdon

Every time I look upon My page of pink petals, Memory creeps on blue Zhen shores.

Joel Ferdon

My books are the lovers When the flesh is absent, And the night is still young.

Neil Ellman

After the tide falls back there are broken shells and weathered glass footprints not our own.

Lauren McBride

dams and deforestation land and people parched – progress?

Peter LaBerge

lighthouse, marigold fingers behind it clasp the paint and drag it into the lathery sea

Tracy Davidson

a broken blue eggshell the only sign of new life among the gravestones

Tracy Davidson

a cloudless moonlit night the stars brilliantly displayed on the red carpet

Tracy Davidson

from the black heart of the forest a kingfisher soars skyward wings sable against the sun

Robert Petras

Moonlit beach Palm trees swaying Two dancers, one shadow.

Robert Petras

Computer turned off A deer frolics outside Image downloaded.

Wendy Schmidt

Trapped in our boxes, Closed and apart from others, Choose to be opened.

Debbi Antebi

Friday blues-- lonely weekend among happy couples

M.J. Iuppa

Continual rhythm Dip and pull, dip and pull Invisible oars

M.J. Iuppa

Wisps of spider silks Unravel, and floating down, Sink beneath shadows

M. Elaine Moore

He’s dreamt so long of flying free. The cage door swings open... Sweet freedom calls his name at last.

M. Elaine Moore

Dune grass sways, the ocean sings her song. I am home.

Don Cunningham

blue skies dripping half-life children malformed eons lost

Debbi Antebi

with a crippling fear of rejection the pencil holds its breath-- waiting.

M. Elaine Moore

His fingertips alight her skin, decades disappear. Love and lust reunite

Benjamin Nardolilli

Mother, Father, Child come to the old stones The guide tells them all they need to know, Fantasies of buried treasure and bones.

Benjamin Nardolilli

Boat is too small, mainland too large, The bearded men can only dream Of iron horses and aluminum birds

Michael Ratcliffe

So long had it been Since I held a spring blossom— I had forgotten.

Lauren Clarke

I think I dance to a different beat Awkward and defiant I got no rhythm, but I got soul.

Debbi Antebi

after the fight, she left silently with soft footsteps, like the sound of oars against open water

Howie Good

Buds pop, a nation of suicide bombers in dynamite vests.

Aleathia Drehmer

There is loveliness, I’m overtaken with it— ambushed, surprised and falling like a petticoat

Heather Harris

Today is not breaching the water’s surface but knowing that the mud beneath my feet holds eggs, of fishes and tadpoles.

Pat St. Pierre

Birth arrives in spring Colorful countryside blossoms Gravestone marks the loss.

Pat St. Pierre

Bees buzzing around Children play in the garden Stone statues stand still.

Pat St. Pierre

Black air swirls like a funnel High mountains reach for the sky Memories are lost.

John Tustin

Smoke pours from your heart Your body an inferno I am oxygen

John Tustin

Walking over stones Blocked by mountains and rivers Where am I going?

Simon Kewin

the rose glow of dawn shows in shaded pencil lines a whole world redrawn

Joe Engel

We handle our souls like clumsy busboys with fine china.

Maude Larke

Written on the back of a madrigal to spring, Monteverdi bleeding into flash, two halfways combine their camouflage.

Howie Good

Last night I dreamed they built a giant bonfire. The books I’d written in my head refused to burn.

Shea Van Rhoads

Maybe God may be what happens when we listen.

Shea Van Rhoads

A snag in the sweater’s story: one long yard knit the rest together came loose and left her bare.

Deborah Ngo

The ebb and the flow, Waves rising to the shore... Wetness inevitable

Richard Hartwell

spiraling downward twisting in the summer breeze eucalyptus leaves

Richard Hartwell

grassbound Zamboni swirls of patterns in the lawn thousands of dead blades

Matthias Hoefler

her pink hand outstretched clam shell

Don Webb

The last Aleph written The last zahir spoken of blind eyes close.

Don Webb

Cattle of the sun mooing on the Liffey’s bank Shamus comes raiding.