Bradley Williams- A Cartoon

John Pursch- A Poem

John Pursch lives in Tucson, Arizona. Twice nominated for Best of the Net, his work has appeared in many literary journals. His first book, Intunesia, is available at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/whiteskybooks. Check out his experimental lit-rap video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l33aUs7obVc. He’s @johnpursch on Twitter and john.pursch on Facebook.

A Passing Tram

Even though the sound of a latchkey child fills the city with want, even though a drink of cold water quenches the need of an epiglottal stoplight, even though a busybody persists in the circumstantial release from bondage of many a chosen warrior; the appropriate may never escape the opprobrium of a broomstick, regardless of the efficacy of action taken freely, in purely spontaneous charity. Such is the often perplexing effect of the world’s balance of events in apparent randomness. Probably turns to certainty only in the wake of now. We may wonder why it must be so, why there cannot be another way, relief from wayward verbiage, conceptual couth, illegitimate onslaught, literality, bogus abstinence, vowels out of whack, formal fall from grace to gratitude to gravitational collapse. Finally, the door is closed, as if by accident, but actually by inevitability, and we are relieved, found by relief, maybe even in bas relief of the source of all that is, imprinted on each passing moment, each commitment of fact. A wayward wanderer straggles by, plunges into the evening heat, leaving us to struggle to our feet. Even so, the voices murmur on, passing through chambers of appointed rounds, dimming lights, emphatically living in counterpoint of prevailing silence.

Stefanie Bennett- A Poem

Stefanie Bennett has published several volumes of poetry & worked with Arts

Action for Peace. Of mixed ancestry [Italian/Irish/Paugussett-Shawnee] she

was born in North Queensland, Australia.

 

 

 

THE BRANCH      

 

How to address the hollowness

That looks out

From an old friend’s eyes?

 

Much is demanded of the observer

- Far more than the one

Salvaging the desire.

 

Affiliations are catching. Just search

Your pockets; you’ll find

                                     Smoke

But – there’ll be no fire!

 

Most of us are in this state

Of rehabilitation, constantly

Meeting another’s danse macabre...

 

People of the earth – there is

A conspiracy to keep us

Leaning away from ourselves:

 

Believe in the universal petition. Learn

To look into a cripple’s eyes

And say... I know you!

 

 

 

(‘The Branch’ appears in “First Refuge” Poems

on Social Justice Anthology, Ginninderra Press)

 

 

Charles Rammelkamp- A Photo

                            "These feet were made for dancing!"

Ryan Hardgrove- A Poem

Answers out there!

and the rains

coming down

like nails on the street

and I’m reaching out

into it

the loud shards of blankness

cutting through the air

rushing to the earth

while somehow floating

hoping something out there

can save all this

save this

constant cycle

deviate

the fucking stream

so as not to

repeat every shit mistake

for eternity

but the answers

are never out there

they live someplace closer

they live one place only

deep within us

past all the deception

we are cursed to carry

past the poisonous ego

and the confusion

of self love

and self hate

to search

outward

without first

seeking inward

is the first step

towards completely

deluding yourself

Steven Storrie- A Poem

GEORGIA

I didn’t think you’d heard me

I didn’t think you would do that
Don’t you feel we sometimes
Think more of people
Than maybe we probably should?

The small red digits

On the alarm clock say 3am
But I know that can’t be true
If it was you would be lying here
Next to me
Or I’d be in some seedy downtown bar
Wondering if I’d dreamed you up inside my room
 
And I wouldn’t be having to write this stuff
Again.


BIO;  Steven Storrie has worked as a cable T.V repair man, dishwasher, choreographer, ice cream vendor and junk yard attendant. Tired of this he is currently locked in his basement working on his first full collection of poetry, bickering with his neighbours over nothing and storing the baseballs he keeps when they are hit into his yard. His first collection of short stories, We Are Not The Kids We Used To Be, will be released in November by DevilHouse Press. You can find him at the website he runs, 'Black Coffee For Breakfast', at http://renegadepriest11.wix.com/blackcoffeebreakfast

Gopal Lahiri- A Poem

Adversary

Watching every morning then
you used to miss the
the little egret as if running over water
with its vivid yellow toes.

you recall, too the game plan with
snow white ducks and the slick path
the way they mean for you
leading to the ponds and marshes

And those tall cranes stand as statues
gaze fixed on the water and then the
squabbling over tiny fish
end up being funny.

without brush the walking shoes
you know you will throw them,
cracks between the floor boards
and the rose curtain disappearing too,

paintings on the wall,
they are the enemy and they are not,
you think you have the sole right,
You kill them without a thought.

Jennifer Lagier- A Poem & Photo

Solstice Moon

 

Spring evaporates, elongated days

of humid sunshine arrive.

 

Abbreviated night trembles on

the precipice of seasonal solstice.

 

Full moon languidly rises

above wetland tules and mist.

 

Swollen orb pulsates, glows,

levitates between cypress limbs.

 

Dim light infiltrates darkened rooms,

instigates summer’s sensual itch.

Jennifer Lagier and her three spoiled dogs live beside the Pacific Ocean where they entertain poets, a few select mad men and a small gopher snake.

 

 

Joan Colby- Two Poems

THE DAY YOUR DAD DIED

We were young and death had not yet touched us

With its black-gloved index finger

Except for the grandparents who were old

And thus deserved to die. We were young and heartless.

Your dad, only 50, middle-aged, busy,

Then the series of heart attacks as if

The house was being strafed by the aircraft

Of an unknown, but invincible enemy. In and out

Of hospitals, then back to work. We had a baby.

We hardly knew what to do with it

Except love it. Feed it. Keep it clean. Your dad

Smiled and offered it candy it could not eat.

Christmas, he was back in the hospital, this time a prominent

Downtown edifice, where presumably more could be done.

He improved, so we were told. We were expecting his release

By New Year’s. He’d be coming home again, like always.

That early wintry morning, the phone

Urging us to hurry. You drove like hell

Blazed beneath your foot on the pedal

Where all of life depends on motion.

We gathered in the room high above the city.

Your dad, so white, his breath coming hard

And gusty like the prairie winds in January.

The doctor, a sober man in white, looked us over

Told you to take your mother elsewhere,

A waiting room with chairs and a coffee urn.

I started to follow, He took my arm. You

Stay here, he said. Figuring what? I was

The in-law, someone who didn’t matter

In the course of such matters. He handed me

A cool cloth. Wipe his forehead. Hold his hand.

In his, the syringe. He looked at me.

I’m going to help this guy. You understand?

AMANITA: DESTROYING ANGEL

                                                                                      

Smooth white cap of an Amish girl

In a buggy pulled by a trotter. Her hands

Fold over the sins of pleasure.

Frilled skirt of a gypsy,

Dirty white and ragged, her plump thighs

Trembling to dance like Salome.

Symbiotic with oaks,

The hammocks where they gather,

To be gathered by the unwary

Innocent in their little knowledge,

That birds and squirrels consume

What must confer goodness.

Imagine the canny god

Who inveigled the Viceroy to mimic

The sour Monarch or pasted

An eyespot of an owl

Upon a frail wing. The stink

Of spoiled meat should prove

A warning, but greed fills its

Basket. Eat as angels might slicing

The tempting flesh with flaming swords.

Victor Henry- Two Poems

FINDING OURSELVES HAD NOT BEEN EASY

Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, she said to herself, gazing out the window.  Why not? she asked, addressing no one in particular as she sat behind her off-white office desk, laughing. Adjacent, directly across the street, Tiny Pierre, who sold laughter to the dying, clapped his hands and stomped his feet, jumped up and down, turned circles and genuflected. The afflicted, bed soaked in death, hooked up to respirators, gestured weakly with their hands. Three wheelchair patients wiggled their toes. Dr. Milton and doctors Cavat and Parker stood nearby, discussing a recent arrival's statistical chart, occasionally glancing in the direction where Tiny Pierre was and then wasn't. From Ward 12, the Sick Bay of Life, laughter echoed. For the most part, everyone was happy. Natasha wedged her way, step by step, sliding her left foot first and then her right foot farther along the ledge near the open window at the Universal Guaranteed Match Mates Building, a firm that exclusively endorsed the perfect relationship. Natasha decided she would spend her lunch hour and most of the afternoon, sixty-three stories above pavement, reading Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar.  From the moment she was first noticed on the ledge, a sparse crowd began to gather, taking bets amongst itself and chanting Jump! Jump! Jump! Now leaping two and three steps at a time, Tiny Pierre hurried up the emergency stairway toward the sixty-third level.  By the time he got to the fiftieth floor, Tiny Pierre could barely guffaw. He laughingly cursed the elevators for being out of order today and momentarily paused to check his Daffy Duck wristwatch in order to gage how much time he thought he had before she jumped. Thirteen minutes later, Tiny Pierre reached the top. He regulated his laugh, which took about a minute, leaned out the window, and called to Natasha. Miss!  Oh, Miss! The people below are wondering if and when you are going to jump. Jump!  I only came out here to read.  Catch some sun. Get outside of these walls. You know...escape! Inside the Match Mates rectory, located on the first floor, Reverend Ross was looking into the sacred mirror and adjusting his white collar.  He wiped off his patent leather sandals with a soft rag and rallied a call to battle. Mercy, mercy. To understand all is to forgive all, he sighed. Down in the basement, Ferguson, the attendant of the building, was reloading his pipe and explaining his theory to Mr. Betterway, the President of Match Mates. Now the way I see it Mr. Betterway is that she's only gonna make a small splatter on the pavement of life. Sirens sounded. The Rescue Eight team arrived. An ambulance arrived. A police squad car arrived. Mite-sized gaps closed as the crowd cluttered together to watch. Firemen hoisted an enormous metal extension ladder from below. Stepping to the pavement, Natasha told a reporter that it looked like it might rain.

THE THIRST FOR POWER

 

If a man obeys everyone he needs to obey, it stands to reason that eventually there will be no one left to obey and others will start to obey him.  Which was just the case of the white collar worker who lost no time in finding someone to obey.  Who could he charm?  His next door neighbor's wife.  His assistant supervisor.  His major competitor.  Just last week he had charmed two sweet old ladies in a millinery shop to take his suggestion on which hat to buy.  But then he raised his sights on the mayor of the city he lived in.  His charm seemed so infectious. I'm a leader in my community, the mayor said.  I'm able to get my faithful followers to contribute coin to my campaign in any increment I name.  All legal of course.  And the white collar worker imagined separate bank accounts in different cities.  The only trouble was the mayor worked ten hours a day and had very little time to be charmed.  The white collar worker drank coffee all day while the mayor answered the telephone and conducted meetings.  You know, said the mayor, I'm an active member of the American Legion and the VFW.  I attend parades and ceremonies in honor of my friends.  It was then that the white collar worker heard himself say, Here, let me answer that phone for you.  It's probably someone unimportant anyway.  And when the white collar worker would get impatient and want to lead the 4th of July parade, the mayor would say, I'm only happy when I'm dedicating a park in my honor, or cutting ribbons at a new shopping center I've been instrumental in persuading the public to vote for. But it's not enough simply to charm the person you want to obey, you have to live in their shoes, lose sleep over matters of life and death, and sell your soul to the corporate world so that your city has a tax base that is large enough to pay all your public employees.  So after two weeks of charming the mayor and his staff, two men in dark blue suits, driving an olive green four door sedan, carted the white collar worker off to jail.  They threw him in a cell with murderers, rapists, and con artists.  The mayor, of course, relieved that the white collar worker had been removed, proclaimed that the following week would be "Local Charm Week." There would be banners, marching bands, drill teams, and baton twirlers.  What is the true measure of charm anyway?  Apparently, the white collar worker made one fatal mistake.  He had been charming the already charmed when he should have been charming the ignorant to learn humiliation.  Think of the infinite mindless nonthinking people who would line up in droves to be manipulated.  In no time, had he realized this, he could have been president of the United States.