B.Z. Niditch- A Poem

BY THE CAPE'S KIOSK

Sensing warmth
in the earth
a young widow spider
climbs up the rose bush
sunshine devouring
everyone dazzled in sight
the boy on the bicycle
now fixes a tire
near the gazebo on the dunes
watches the flute player
with urgent fingers
hob nobbing with a young Mozart,

soon the musician passes the plate
to the veteran card player
for his last supper
on the island
before the rainy season
grows utterly dark.

Neil Ellman- Three Poems

Black Fire I
(after the painting by Barnett Newman)

At the beginning white
the end black fire
the eyes see only darkness
invisible flames
not what they wished for
behind translucent lids
their lives eclipsed
by too-red fire
too hot to feel or see
too black to understand.



Double Gray Scramble
(after the painting by Frank Stella)

The opposite of opposite
its opposite
attracts multiple
incongruities
the warp and weave
in the waves of time
possibilities converge
contradictions emerge
itselves diverge
observe the paradox
of opposite lives
chaos to matterless matter
nothing matters
but this me and now.



What is Gravity?
(after the screenprint by Ralf Winkler
aka A.R. Penck)

Whatever it is
It keeps me here
hog-tied, bound and fettered
like a rodeo calf
or a dog on a leash
unable to move or escape
your arms.

Whatever it is
I am Newton’s apple
fallen from a tree
to lie by your side
and hug the earth
shackled to your body
never free
of your embrace.

Whatever it is
we are together now
and forever
hamstrung and betrothed
till death do us part.



Neil Ellman, a poet from New Jersey, has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and the Rhysling Award.  Close to 1000 of his poems, many of which are ekphrastic and written in response to works of modern and contemporary art, appear in print and online journal, anthologies and chapbooks throughout the world. 

Brad Middleton- Two Poems

MARCH OF THE MAD

They know who they are, the bastards
Those who claim to be an original, even an outsider?
For as long as you obey the
Values of your labels you’ll never be
Worthwhile or free or interesting to me
The people I value are the mad
The damaged and those outside
Your elitist label obsessed life
Yours is the life of someone
Who doesn’t understand that to
Be an original you need to stick out
But not just in what you look like
Be brave and speak your mind
The mad, the damaged and us on the
Outside speak our minds as if it’s
The truth cos our belief is based on conviction
We are the mad, damaged outsiders
Who will confuse with our words
Antagonize you with the way we look
Confound you with our life choices
As we march on in the search for truth




IT’S OVER

I’ve wanted to speak to you for a while now
To tell you it’s over; our friendship is no more
I just can’t take your flakiness any longer
No more questions of ‘out tonight?’
To which I used to reply but which would always
End with… nothing! No going out with you
To the bar, just idiocy

Come round you say and we can play with
The most trivial of pursuits and the worst of minds
I cannot tolerate how you treat me
For example when I tell you some news
I’d like a reaction but all I ever get is more about you
YOU! That’s all you ever care about
I was willing to be a friend when I didn’t know you well
But now I can’t get far enough away from you
And the boredom you bring
I’ve had enough and just want to get on with life

Paul Tristram- Three Poems

Mad Cow Disease

I remember being in a relationship once
that was disastrously ‘On The Rocks’
We drove to a campsite somewhere
out in the wilds off Bodmin Moor
to try and patch things up again.
‘We spend all our time in the pub’
she had said like it was a bad thing?
‘Drinking and fighting and generally
creating a bloody mess and disturbance’
‘But I like that’ I had replied with a smile.
‘We’ll pitch the tent and go off walking
in the vast, beautiful British countryside
and breath in deeply the fresh summer air.
We’ll have time to talk about other things
like baby names, home decorations,
furnishings, TV soap dramas and work’
When we arrived at the place we were
notified straight away that all walking areas
directly outside of the campsite were now
completely out of bounds for the foreseeable
future because of  Mad Cow Disease.
That they currently had no fun activities
since the woodland and lake closure
but they did have an on site public house.
I took it as a sign and walked over to the bar
laughing loudly as she scowled besides me.
And it only took 6 hours of serious drinking
to finally find a solution to our problem
and say goodbye to each other permanently.

© Paul Tristram 2014

 

Run Down, Run Over, Run Out

He was just one of those dirty old drunks
that you see wandering around town
wearing a big overcoat even in the Summer.
He was married to my Grandfather’s Sister-
on my Mother’s side-until he went destitute.
They’d given my Grampa two and a half years
in prison for stabbing him before I was born,
my Mother still has the newspaper cuttings.
He never even said ‘Boo’ to me when I started
drinking in the Skewen pubs, knew who I was see.
It was in that backstreet behind the old Co-op
in Neath centre just down from the Taxi Rank.
It was one of those big delivery trucks that did it,
around 4 or 5 o’clock in the bloody morning.
The Driver said he was just laying there
in the middle of the road and looked just like
a bunch of rags so he drove straight over him.
He was my Auntie’s Father somewhere back
on down that long and miserable road of ruin.
Christ, I can’t even remember his name now?
Except when I was a kid the women would spit
and refer to him as ‘That Useless Bastard!”

© Paul Tristram 2014

Pityriasis Rosea

I took off my shirt and there it was
a purple and red rash
made up of little circles
and half-circles.
I had never seen anything like it before.
It was really quite pretty
and very interesting to look at,
it covered my left shoulder.
I stood inspecting it for ages
then I took myself off to the doctors.

“It’s Pityriasis Rosea,
a stress related rash,
I can do nothing for it,
it will clear up on its own!”

I smiled as I left the surgery
walking home via the narrow back lanes
of this little Cornish town
where you had chased me last week
in your car
nearly knocking me down
screaming and spitting like a lunatic.
I smiled because my heart is intact,
I managed to get out of your selfish web
and away from you
I lucked it and escaped
with only a small temporary disease
which like you, is really nothing at all.

© Paul Tristram 2013



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.

Linda M. Crate- Three Poems

broken promises

you were supposed to be
my best friend
always,
but you chose him over me
it didn't have to be
that way;
but it
was—
you broke all the promises we made
that a man would never matter
more than our
friendship,
but you let me go;
and i'll stand by my sixteen year old self and say
i never want to be married
not if it means
breaking all my promises
and hurting all
my friends—
you changed and became the meanest,
most ignorant person i've
ever known
pushy and bossy;
demanding and ferocious
all you want is complete and utter control over me
to pull my strings taut because you can't
control the chaos
of your married life,
and if this is the way it is then please
forget my name
i've had enough villains in my life, mystique, i
thought you were my friend.



you're gone

i
lied to myself
when
i was sixteen
because i've always wanted a family,
and a husband to hold my
heart;
for my children to know their
father like i could never
know mine,
and my stepfather tried but he is not my
blood and kin
it's different
no matter how much he loves me
there's still a hole in my heart
where my father
ought to be—
you
insisted that we didn't need men
because you would never
marry,
and you insisted that i'd be married one day
the irony is that you're the one that's
married and i am here
still searching
for the man that is meant to hold my heart
in his hands, the one that makes
these raven's lips tremble
in both love and fear;
because unrequited love has nearly ripped me
apart
he can't do it to me again—
we were friends once
but you are gone
too absorbed in your own concerns you let our
friendship wither,
and it's only because i'm pulling away
that you want to draw
closer.


 
just the same

you're a bully
tactless and rude
always
insisting that i give, give, give
so you can
take and take and take;
i am a giver,
but even i have my limits
all you do now-a-days is irritate
me—
no, you cannot have everything
for free, and no i will not feel
bad for that;
once we were best friends
shared everything
were there
for one another like no one was there for
us,
and now we've drifted away
you probably blame me
i blame you—
you were the one that put your husband before me
then when he started to irritate you came
clawing back to me,
and you expect that i can just ignore all the times
you weren't there for me all the times you
just ignored my texts
i'm sorry, i can't;
thought that i meant more to you than that
yet it turns out that i'm just a paper
thin
leaf blowing through the winds of a lost dream,
and you're tearing through me
with every word—
i thought you were someone i could believe in,
but you're just like everyone else
you just want to take
until i have nothing left to give.

Douglas Polk- Three Poems

Nightmare

minds empty of everything,

but hate and fear,

terrorism encased in flesh,

and needs,

a problem since the beginning of time,

pawns ignorant,

to be moved and played,

minds empty of thought,

humanity's nightmare.

 

 

 

Captive

Isis,

an Egyptian god,

now a hostage of terrorists,

heretics,

in every sense of the word.

 

 

 

Cold Blooded

Obama's drones,

Cossacks in the sky,

precursor of a technological KGB,

political dissenters,

and enemies beware,

mechanical legions fill the air,

killing in cold blood,

just as they were programmed to do.

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

Horns Over Hooves

You meet all kinds of women in pubs,

women far different than women

you meet in church on Sunday

when you're in a pew with your wife

which is why I was surprised to hear

this beautiful woman two stools over

ask me if I believed in angels 

before I had ordered a drink. 

Well, as a matter of fact, I do,

I said, happy to get the small stuff

out of the way before we got down

to business, whatever that might be.

What kind of angels do you believe in, 

she smiled and asked, sipping a Guinness.

Well, I believe in seraphim, cherubim,

principals, thrones, dominations, all 

the different choirs of angels 

listed in the Bible I studied in school.

What about guardian angels, she asked.

Do you believe you have one?

Indeed I do believe I have one, I said,

although I saw no reason why guardian angels

couldn't be women if angels had genders

which as pure spirits they don't have.

And what does your guardian angel do,

she inquired, getting rather personal.

Well, I said, my guardian angel is busy

from the moment I get up at dawn

till I fall back in the sack at night

because Satan or one of his minions

is always trying to worm his way 

into my mind, memory or imagination

trying to get me to do things

forbidden by the Ten Commandments.

For example, whenever I see a beautiful woman, 

Satan always says I should introduce myself

and I always ask my guardian angel if I should

and he always asks what my wife would say

and I always ask if I have to tell her

and he always says I should keep walking

while he does what guardian angels do

and knocks Satan horns over hooves

back into Hades, something he does for me

several times a day, especially when

I stop at this train station pub for 

root beer on ice when my train is late 

and a beautiful woman two stools over

smiles and asks if I believe in angels.

Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Craig Stormont- Three Poems

The Fig Tree

a sun glazes this still scorched plain

where martyrs walked ages past

scorned in recollection

for their wicked sacrifices

slaughter the legacy

kiddie game king of the hill

a hanging on a cross

see the mad people shout!

they shout from the corners of streets

a fallen brood

we are said

experience to verify

in churches or traffic jam

the other is dust

caveman driven

with motives of armadas

by senators and CEOs

impotent intelligentsia and playful priests

watch the young die for gas

delusions of liberty shield money games 

a hole in the sky grows daily

yet yachtsmen smirk

when informed that the many missed dinner

masses paralyzed by dumb repetition

too stunned or numb to demand more

enduring inherited agony

prove numbers mean shit

unless it’s cash or revolt

serenaded by saints and dollar signs

a graceless embracing of droll routine

leads to what -

trading this for some imagined future bliss

promised by counters?

something notices

twinkle of starlight far off blast

a wink

that they scream on and

dare to dress a god

the ape’s mother

the cruelty humans are capable of

became clear to me at the age of twelve

after breaking a window

when my best friend

- we called him ape -

was no longer allowed to hang around with me

I called ape’s house afterward

pretending to be my older brother

his mother answered the phone

hurling a barrage of insults

realizing it was me

“you’re not Billy”

“you’re bad”

“I don’t want you near my son”

the woman drank a lot and died young

bad karma I guess

but drink or no drink

that’s not something any kid should be told

whatever respect I had for my fellow humans

began to wane then

and yes

I proved her correct at one thing

however bad I was

I became more so from that time on

before long none of the other

kids were allowed near me

they saw through the bullshit of it all

flocking to me regardless

 The Quiet People

the quiet people set their clocks

weary conscience avoids the acts

their taxes subsidize

all is well drudging toward the dinner bell 

hours zombified by television madness

miles from the reality media hides

the fact that things could be otherwise

the quiet people no longer even whine

as they watch the gas prices rise – near four dollars a gallon

the environmental cost worth less than a tax loss for the boss

obscenely they allow themselves to be resigned

to a false sense of inadequacy     a paralysis

instead of shouting for change

        they should rise

the quiet people cannot comprehend

that the national dream of wealth

was designed in mind of profit for one

a deceit that directs their lives   

paychecks waved as if bones to dogs

an easy temptation

in an urban age a terror

allowing continuance of mistaken occupations

only brave solitary voices echo of the fraud          largely unheard

justified rage en masse nonexistent

a nation founded on principles of freedom should mourn

shamed by its cowardice

Bio - 

Craig Stormont is originally from Queens, NY, but he currently lives on Long Island. He began writing poems in the late 1970's before spending the next decade hitchhiking throughout the USA in order to experience life to the fullest. Craig now earns his living teaching college literature and writing courses. He values nature, truth and most of all his young son Harry.

Jim Pascual Agustin- Three Poems

Goat, Rope, Rock

There is a goat in front of a house surrounded by sand.

Its left foot is tied to a rope

attached to a chunk of rock.

The desert town of Jaisalmer grows dark.

It is possible there are other goats

like this one, tied similarly to a rock.

But this is the goat that will not surrender

gnawing at the rope even as darkness reigns.

It will not give up while rope

taunts the limits of teeth. Even when I

am no longer by the window to witness

its freedom.

first published in my book ALIEN TO ANY SKIN (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, Manila 2011)

BigDog Takes a Walk

Wonder cast in the sea of dreams

caught your fragments. Pieces

with their own limitations were forged:

rubber, metal, wire, glass, plastic.

Their possibilities stretched to bring you

close to something almost alive.

You were born of careful hands,

patient in taking note of countless failures.

Amazement filled your creators

as the dynamics of behaviour began

to thrash inside your casing: pulse of laser light,

hydraulics, sensors, mechanical organs.

It was not the dark heart

of destruction that pushed your limbs

toward those first twitches, and later

into the complex physics

of walking. It was wonder.

But where to? What burden

are you bound to carry?

Whose hands will take command

of the perfect balance of limbs

now able to navigate riverbeds, dunes,

concrete, rubble, sleet?

You have no choice in matters.

The greater powers have predicted

your history. Geopolitics, interventions,

calculated murder. The language of madness

where my fear of you resides.

NOTE: BigDog is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by a gasoline engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog’s legs are articulated like an animal’s, and have compliant elements that absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next. In separate trials, BigDog runs at 4 mph, climbs slopes up to 35 degrees, walks across rubble, and carries a 340 lb load.The program is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA).

Boston Dynamics

first published in ALIEN TO ANY SKIN (UST Publishing House, Manila 2011)

Village Potter’s Wife

Jaipur, India

crouched

in a corner with no shade

she smashes, pounds

old, broken

pieces of pottery

close to dust

fifty years she never felt

the sensuous dance

of earth and water

on stone wheel

her hands know

cut of shards, lick of flame,

burden of sons,

cling of daughters

first published in my book ALIEN TO ANY SKIN (UST Publishing House, Manila 2011) and in New Coin Poetry (Rhodes University, South Africa, 2011)

Jim Pascual Agustin writes and translates poetry in Filipino and English. He grew up in the Philippines and now lives in Cape Town with his Canadian-born wife and their twin daughters. His fifth and sixth poetry books are Kalmot ng Pusa sa Tagiliran and Sound Before Water, simultaneously published in 2013 by the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House in Manila. The same publisher recently accepted a new collection, A Thousand Eyes. His blog is www.matangmanok.wordpress.com

Willie Smith- Two Poems

OVERDUE BLUES

What am I gonna do

now the rent overdue

and in my wallet ain’t doo-doo?

Throw a shoe at the cat,

swat at a gnat, catch

a flyby yellowjacket?

Kick through the morning dew.

Puppies get soaked

as all the bills

soaked up my dough.

Wet, cold, shivery, even forget

where I got evicted from.

Hunt under the bridge for a crumb,

feeling like a crumb.

Rub the backbone of that cur

growling in my bowels.

All I need is duds,

grub, some decent flop.

Not this flop of a life.

The freeway roars, the jail overflows,

the mission by its own bugs devoured.

Me under an eave

in a downpour cowered.

Throw a shoe at the cat.

Step in dog flop.

Go crazy bugs. Catch

in mid-flight hell from a bumblebee.

What am I gonna do

now the blood overdue?

and in my vein ain’t doo-doo?

 

OWE

Eternity dawns at sunset.

Eternity knows,

stitched in the very word,

everything now.

Eternity knows everything new.

Before eternity nothing knew everything.

After eternity everything knew nothing.

Eternity at death rises down

to own the only word

left at peace

with itself:

O, eternity… o.

Linda Sacco- A Poem

 

Worlds Colliding

 

“Attention passengers:

Welcome to Melbourne Central Station”

Says the artificial voice

Not one of them hears it

On a night like this

Old friends speak intimately

Standing close

Another is in his own world

Transported to another era

Where trains and exhaust aren’t yet imagined

When he looks up

Dragons and medieval castles will disappear

He’ll see the man in the suit

Walking past briskly

With one hand in his pocket

And the other gripping a casual backpack

A girl on a mobile phone circles me

Chatting loudly with a foreign tongue

Comforted perhaps that I don’t understand

Her smile is conniving

What could she be talking about?

The artificial voice snaps back to life again

The train appears

The platform empties

All disappear into the same setting

Worlds apart between us

Now worlds collide

Barriers between are up

Aided by personal comforts

Enables a feeling of somewhat safety

When worlds overlap

Underground

Jude Conlee- Three Poems

I am not left with these

 

I will think of something

awful and I will have no regrets,

I will have no regrets, and

you will have been a liar

and I will neglect any whisper you made

to state, “think upon your future”.

 

No, it’s past.

 

I’ve gone by,

I’m the future I never had, I’m

done with thoughts and

here come actions!

actions and words

 

words and images

words don’t try

they don’t they never will they can’t

 

I am one of them,

my own kind call me and I’ll be here

no longer

 

no longer than it takes for

a word like “forget” to form on the wind

and blow away to its rhyme

Personal failure to breathe results in

Personal failure to breathe results in

a general existence failure that

makes others upset even if they

couldn’t stand your existence while the breath was

still in your body.

Rediscovery Is a Poisonous Fact

 

cover cancerouskiss,you are no-other to

be taken quite seriously like you knew what

was goingon in the goings on of the ((life you re-discovered

            and quite seriously it doesn’t pay,notforall the world

            to be slip-sliding-self-assured when

                        no one is

                                    going to

                                                see you

fall or

maybe stay

 

 

 

Jude Conlee is a person who puts words together, some of which are born from the writer’s experiences and some of which are born from supposals of lives that are not the writer’s own. Places that have published these words include Otoliths, and/or, Words and Images, and Southern Pacific Review. Aside from this, Conlee plays ukulele, finds almost everything fascinating, and forgets things.

Tamara Fey Turner- A Poem & Photo

Spring Tree

 

Imposing front yard giant

Stands turning deep lilac

Darkness evolves to yellow

                                                  She has shed a moat 

Tamara currently lives in southern California with her favorite parrot and kitty.

Dah- Three Poems

 "Queen"

 

The way the bees pull apart the Borage

pack their bags and fly off

I raise my head

and pluck the air with my lips

marvel at their weightlessness

at the way they stain the sky

when they swarm

 

Striking against the sun

their yellow appearance

is a child’s design that floats

from the bottom up

small stars of exquisite bitterness

a wood-fire of stingers

minute eyes of splintered black ice

 

They have invented the secret

the persuading of waterless pollen

into Royal Jelly

while the queen dominates

with her dangerous sex

the pure poison of ecstasy

spilling a violent sweetness

 

"Sardines Mesh and Scars"

 

The freeway shakes with severe

nervousness. Bullets of light

ricochet then strike, like livid eyes,

the sun drops its broiled fruit,

and the cars mesh with one another,

burning the air’s thin garment.

Each face in a window is a dream

that just begins, radiates and dissolves.

The spinning tires run from death,

impatient and burdened.

Dense smears from dark treads

are collected scars on the road’s body.

The metal wheels burn with the furry

of a great applause.

Somebody’s oil is leaking, like black guts

from a belly wound; clashing music

breaks out of open windows,

and everyone is compressed,

as if enormous cans of sardines

in line on a market shelf. 

 

"Lead and Salt"

 

So often I come close

then pull myself together

Still no concern for this wrecked world

all I can do is go back into myself

conjure a hole

and caste these feelings to the bottom

where the light is displaced

dries out

where the dust scatters

like a shy apparition

and leaves the world behind

 

darkness of days

darkness of nights

darkness of lives

darkness of deaths

the unseen void

the obvious severed air

 

There must be lead in my lungs

or a heavy sea that’s all salt

 

I could list more complaints more ailments

but what’s the use

cause my weakness is for life

but not for the wrecked world

yet this weakness draws me closer

closer to death 

 

 

 

Bio:

 

Dah’s poetry has appeared, most recently, in The Sandy River Review, Stone Voices Magazine, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Orion headless, River & South Review, The Muse, and Miracle Magazine, and is forthcoming in Eunoia Review, Perfume River Review, Literature Today, Poetry Pacific, Zygote in my Coffee, Red Wolf Journal, Deep Tissue Magazine, Jellyfish Whispers, and Rose Red Review. The author of two collections of poetry from Stillpoint Books, his third collection is due for publication in 2014, also from Stillpoint. Dah lives in Berkeley, California where he is working on the manuscript for his fourth book.

Richard Schnap- A Poem

LIBRARY PEOPLE

They appear from nowhere
To gather at the terminals
Like birds on a wire

Searching the Internet
As if they’re fortune tellers
Consulting crystal balls

And in the enforced silence
I hear their fingers tap
In desperate rhythms

Trying to find a sign
That will let them know
Where to go next

Ryan Quinn Flanagan- Three Poems

Sex Toes

String theory

would be plausible
if it ended
in sex
toes.

Blood flush
and fully extended
like toast
from the toaster.

Ask another Ouija board
who killed Kennedy
in the streets
of Dallas.

Hoffa

buried in the backyard
like cucumber
seeds

in a summer

garden.



Heist

I was desperate, I’ll admit it,

not whiskered soup kitchen desperate
or anything
but desperate enough
to put on that black balaclava
in the middle of the afternoon
and arm myself with a butterfly knife
and accost that garden snail down the street
by the curbside
because humans can run away
while a snail cannot -
an easy target, I thought,
like the muggers of old ladies
like the reader of tea leaves instead of Tolstoy,
but the tiny bugger wouldn’t budge,
he ignored my many knifepoint demands
and when I tried to take his shell
he wouldn’t give it up,
leaving me with a decision to make:
the use of force              
or a quick exit strategy,
and being the coward I am
I turned             
and took off running
down the
street.            

Verily proud of that little snail

and mildly disappointed
with myself.



Meet the Parents

She wheels me out into the front room
loads a cannonball in my mouth
and points me directly
at them.

They smile

like their very lives
may depend on
it.                 

They do not like me,
I can tell.

I can always tell.

Nothing makes it better,

the cheese platter
all for naught.

Those little rounded crackers

that smell like bacon.

Everyone plied with wine.

Something white

and dry
from California.

After an hour or so
of idle chatter 
and many uncomfortable glares,
she wheels me back
into the back room
and closes the door
over.

And I feel at home again,

among her many curiosities.

This old rocking horse

with the painted streetwalker eyes.

A childhood dollhouse -

in the corner by
the window -
full of dismembered Barbies.



Bio: Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a wheezing asthmatic who enjoys short walks on the beach. He lives deep in the Canadian Shield with his toaster oven and his muse, believing himself to be eternally hungry as many his poems are about food.

Laura Stamps- A Poem

A Toast For All The Men In My Life (Except The Ones I’m Trying To Forget)

South Carolina, the first day
of March.  Ostara, our Pagan
sabbat, still three weeks away,
late winter slicking palmettos
and pines with a glittering
glaze of ice, while tulips and
daffodils unfurl from the earth,
colorful, defiant.  “I want you
to come to dinner,” he texts. 
This is the message I receive
when Dante creates a new
vegan recipe.  He’s not a
Kitchen Witch, but he likes
to cook.  And I’m his favorite
guinea pig.  Savory fragrances
pour through his door when
he opens it, and I step inside. 
“This is delicious,” I say,
pointing my fork at the pasta
piled on my plate.  “What’s
in it?”  We’re seated at his
dining room table, the emerald
green one, the one decorated
with zillions of tiny pentacles,
skulls, rune sigils, and Gothic
crosses painted in licorice
black, the one he bought at
an art gallery in the Vista
last month.  Dante is a Faery
Witch and vegan, but he
decorates his house in Goth. 
Who knows why?  I think he
likes the contrast.  It makes
him laugh.  He’s good about
that.  “Zucchini, kidney beans,
red peppers, rutabagas, carrots,
collard greens, pecans, kale,
pumpkin seeds, and tofu,”
he says.  “Tonight I used rice
pasta.  I’m avoiding wheat
this week.”  He fills my glass
with more spring water.  “But
it’s vegan, right?” I ask.  He
looks at me like I should know
better.  I do.  But I can’t resist. 
“Of course,” he says.  Outside,
a ruckus of brittle leaves skitters
across the driveway, the sky
already as dark as the potting
soil in my garden, and it’s
only six o’clock.  Ostara, the
spring equinox, can’t come
fast enough for me.  “Then
what’s in this creamy yellow
sauce?” I ask, licking my
finger.  It’s not nutritional
yeast.  It’s not curry.  But it’s
tasty.  “You’ll never guess,”
he says.  “Butternut squash. 
Bake until soft and then toss
in the blender with honey, sea
salt, lemon juice, white beans,
and garlic.”  I wipe my fingers
on the cloth napkin bunched
in my lap.  It’s an eerie shade
of crimson, embroidered with
lavender skulls (of course). 
“Cool,” I say.  “I want this
recipe, okay?”  His smile
flares as bright as the summer
sun igniting the petals of
a daylily.  “Done,” he says
and tears open a rice flour
roll, smearing it with cashew
butter.  I raise my glass.  “A
toast,” I say, “to men.  They
make good friends.”  He taps
his glass against mine.  “Men
are good for more than that,”
he says.  I stab a plump carrot
with my fork.  “I’m trying to
forget the bad stuff,” I say. 
He nods while he hands me
a cashew butter roll.  “True,”
he says, “there is that.”  



BIO: Laura Stamps is a Pagan novelist and poet living in South Carolina.  Her fiction and poetry have been nominated for seven Pushcarts and appeared in many literary journals, including Curbside Review, Half Drunk Muse, Main Street Rag, Iodine Poetry Journal, Mannequin Envy, Poetry Motel, and Word Riot.  She enjoys creating experimental forms for her prose poems, blurring the line between fiction and poetry.  http://www.pw.org/content/laura_stamps

Bruce McRae- Two Poems

                                 Banished

 Bundle-of-lint, get back into your cubbyhole,

into your linen drawer, your kettle of fish heads.

To the seeping wound from whence thou came.

Silk-purse-out-of-a-sow’s-ear,

get back down into your hole of holes.

Return to the smirking mouth of the salamander.

To the bottom of your olive jar.

To the glove compartment of a burning sedan.

Mister-face-like-a-slapped-backside –

exit with the staged play’s walk-on mob.

Back to your shallow-dug grave in the woods.

Return to your shoebox hidden under the bed.

To your gouged hill scarred with aircraft debris.

Go, and never trouble this existence again.

And may your shadow never cross another’s.

                Day’s End

 Sundown, which is a book closing,

which is the last page turned

in a story unwillingly relinquished,

starlings crowding cloudbanks to the east,

the west glowering, so proud of itself

and the great works the Earth has accomplished.

When one moment catches sight of another,

short-winded from breathless passages,

the mind idly strolling about, wandering

toward the swirling mists we term ‘pre-history’,

seeing there the old made new,

long before the slang of our time

and its ream of ambiguities, written in blood

and on stone, their messages sealed always. 

Pushcart-nominee Bruce McRae is a Canadian musician with over 800 publications, including Poetry.com and The North American Review. His first book, ‘The So-Called Sonnets’ is available from the Silenced Press website or via Amazon books. To hear his music and view more poems visit his website: www.bpmcrae.com, or ‘TheBruceMcRaeChannel’ on Youtube.

     

Linda M. Crate- Three Poems

trying to forget

you fancy yourself sherlock holmes
with your pipe and jacket,
but the detective
has a kindlier nature than yours;
you're professor moriarty
convinced of your brilliance—
or maybe irene addler
because you
kill all of my sense until i'm scrabbling
on my knees,
and i know you're bad for me
hate myself for loving you
there's watson always telling me that
i'm mad to care;
he's right, i know, i know—
yet the way you smirk at me, the way you
smile so sweetly
you disarm me with your snark
and your caustic wit
sometimes catches me off guard and makes
me laugh;
you can't help whom you fall in love with
even if, sometimes, it's
with a sociopath—
goodbye, irene, you've already killed me
it's time for me rise from my ashes
solve another crime
forget your face
in the poplars when i walk past;
try to forget so i don't
remember.


have you seen the rain?

do you remember, irene?
when you told
me you liked to dance in the rain?
i still dance
sometimes i wonder if you do, too,
wherever you disappeared
to,
and whomever's holding your hand;
it can't be me, i know
even if i wish it could—
humans have a penchant for wanting
exactly what's perfectly wrong for them
i wonder if
that was why i was drawn to you
if one of your most
alluring traits was the fact i could never
have you,
and perhaps there's a part of me
that always knew it would be this way;
loathe as i am to admit it—
thought maybe we could rewrite history or
maybe i could
rewrite you,
but it seems neither of us got what we wanted
as we both stand alone in a crowded room
i can't recognize the person you've
become,
and i doubt you'd recognize me
dancing in this rain
as if it'd bring you smiling back to me.


a love that's foolish

once i died,
but it really wasn't
death
unlike you
laying there lifeless
never to rise
again;
perhaps, it's a blessing
that your poison
love
can no longer dance through
me, but i don't think
so—
i miss you,
and i know i shouldn't
because you're long gone and in
the arms of another;
jarring up
emotions i think would be rather
be left alone—
they got it wrong when they said
it was better to have loved
and lost than to have
never loved at all,
perhaps,
it's selfish but i'd rather have a whole
heart instead of this shattered
thing;
irene, i wish you could come back to me—
for someone so brilliant
it's foolishness, i know, but when has
that ever stopped me?