8 and 10 —a poem by Holly Day

8 and 10

We woke up
and there was breakfast on the table
and my mother was awake, out of bed,
ready to step out into the snow
and walk us to school.

It happened
just like that.
Two years before
my mother went crazy
started by accusing my father of stealing the ocean
and hiding it from her, just out of spite
I can still remember how my father looked
as he tried to defend himself
from her useless accusations.

For much of the long, Nebraskan winters
we sat through
days when my mother wouldn’t get out of the tub
hiding from the cold in near-scalding bathwater.
“The ocean feels like this, ” she’d tell us, urging us
to climb into the tub with her, or at least
sink hands beneath the bubbles
hold them there until our skin was as pink as hers.
She spent most of the first spring and summer
on her knees, trying to coax things to grow
out of our small, gravel-filled patch of a yard
before my father poured concrete over it all
bought her a television.

Then somehow she got better
all on her own, and in the meantime
I learned how to cook for both
my little sister and me.
I woke up one completely nondescript, ordinary day
and there was breakfast on the table
the laundry was done
and my father was happy.

___
Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minnesota since 2000. Her published books include Music Theory for Dummies, Music Composition for Dummies, Guitar All-in-One for Dummies, Piano All-in-One for Dummies, Walking Twin Cities, Insider’s Guide to the Twin Cities, Nordeast Minneapolis: A History, and The Book Of, while her poetry has recently appeared in New Ohio Review, SLAB, and Gargoyle. Her newest poetry book, Ugly Girl, just came out from Shoe Music Press.

I’m Waiting for a Green Light —a poem by Aaron White

I’m Waiting for a Green Light

Ju-Ju

a real banger from Kentucky

sits idle in his blue Impala

flicks his ash and stares real

Hard

into his side-mirror

and into my

Soul

___

 Aaron White's fiction and essays have appeared in Brain, Child Magazine, Mothers Always Write, 13th Dimension, Bluestem Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine, Heart Literary Journal, and others. He holds an MA in Literary Studies from Eastern Illinois University, and maintains an active Twitter (@amwhite90) and Tumblr (amwhite90.tumblr.com). 

Radiation Day 17 —poetry by Ally Malinenko

Betty has lost her necklace.

She clatters around the room

banging her cane against the legs of the chairs

and Anna shouts

Did you look in the gown

when you changed?

Betty nods. It’s not important

Betty tells us even though she’s

hunched over trying with all her might

to get that bum knee to bend enough

so that she can see under the chair.

Did you look in the machine room?

Anna offers

Betty nods,

It’s just a necklace

just a material thing.

She wanders out of the room

down towards where we all change

each morning.

While she’s gone

Anna says,

This is why I don’t wear nothing.

I’m on the only in the room so I assume

she’s talking to me

but when I look at her

she’s not.

When Betty comes back 

Anna says,

Check the couch cushions

Maybe it fell.

It’s okay, Betty says with a sad laugh

and I can’t help but think

as someone who has lost quite a bit of jewelry

that it’s probably not okay.

But Betty is steely.

You know, she tells us

I wore it every day

because I read in one of those cancer brochures

that this woman

got dressed up for radiation every day.

That it made her feel better

to go there all ready and

beautiful

and I thought,

Betty says, poking her cane under the chair one more time,

It might have helped.

Anna nods.

So does Maria

but Betty just sighs

and says

I better call for my ride home

I’ll see you all tomorrow

and this time,

even I say goodbye to Betty.

___

Ally Malinenko is the author of the poetry collections The Wanting Bone and How To Be An American (Six Gallery Press) as well as the novel This Is Sarah (Bookfish Books). A forthcoming poetry book entitled Better Luck Next Year is slated for publication in 2016 by Lowghost Press.

Invective —a short poem by HR Creel

a spreading hatred

like a rash

ruby red splash

of angry bitters

burns the skin

these are the results

of words

like victims in a burn

ward, convalescing.

___

HR Creel has been around a while, but is getting too old not to write.

Formless Voice —a short poem by Ash Gamble

a voice that formed 

me but did not offer

me its face, a door

slamming in my memory

of what my father would

have been

___

The Poet: J. “Ash” Gamble is a late in life poet from Florida.

The Photographer: Keith Moul's poems and photos appear widely.  Three books are recently published: The Grammar of Mind from Blue & Yellow Dog; Beautiful Agitation from Red Ochre Press; and Reconsidered Light, a collection of his poems written to accompany his photos, from Broken Publications.

They Say —a poem by Andrew Weatherly

They say 
‘space is empty’
‘near absolute zero’
‘nothing for millions of miles’
But my hopes shot like hunting arrows
at the moon and missing
heading toward Aldebaran heat seeking
though simple shafts from just one bow
its the seven billion human shafts
aimed at the mystery of the moon
or the flaming flares of the sun
bouncing off and radiating out
spearing Mars’ armor and Venus’ cherub
ringing Saturn’s icy grains
popping Jupiter in his burnt eye
going to frozen hell with demoted Pluto
thumbing a ride on a comet to a frozen paradise 
Those 100,000 years of human aims
targeted at bears in the sky
carried on Pegasus’ wings
fixing the center of the Southern Cross
or impaling its cardinal points
stigmatizing bleeding hopes across heavens
Dark void a myth
punctured by trillions of hopes and fears
dreams and stories
so pregnant with so many notions
it’s amazing it doesn’t just fall over
from the weight of so much loaded up on out
raining back to Earth
shooting stars efflorescing into fireflies
inspiring another arrow


___
Andrew Weatherly hears inspiration from the trees, the wind, his students and kids, as well as from other poets. He is blessed to live in the hood, teach in prison, and dance in the streets in Asheville, NC. He’s been published in Appalachian Broadsides, Katuah Journal, Belle Reve, Axe Factory, Former People, Danse Macabre, and Cordite and recently lead a workshop at the National Association for Poetry Therapy conference.

Co-Sleeping —a poem by Ed Makowski

Sometimes

I see a group of people

and I wonder why

they’ve fallen asleep sitting

next to one another

in public.

Then I realize

they’re

looking down at their telephones

and it becomes existential

and I wonder whether

there is a difference.

___

The poet: Ed Makowski is a writer who lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has a day job poeting around a nature center and a night job bartending. Ed enjoys motorcycle rides, the left hook left hook to the liver, soul music, and bow hunting. 

The Artist: Daniel Ayles is a Portland, Oregon-based artist whose work bridges the gap between the genres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. If you are interested in exploring his body of work further, you can see examples of his art in the 2012 August issue of The Horror Zine here: http://thehorrorzine.com/Art/Aug2012/DanielAyles/Ayles.html.  You may also view two collaborative pieces he did with Tiffany Luna in the 2012 November issue of The Horror Zine: http://www.thehorrorzine.com/Art/Nov2012/Luna/Luna.html.

Amana Memories —poetry by Carl "Papa" Palmer

She reads in midnight whispers

to my now calmed infant sister

mesmerized by mother’s voice.

Seated in the kitchen, silhouetted

in the glow of an open oven door

reflected in her face, as she scoots

over slightly, invites me to hop up,

huddle in closest to the heat. I

listen to her story accompanied by   

milk bubbled gulps, rubber nipple

noises, sissy’s slowing grunts and

sighs as tired tiny eyes fall asleep.

Mom tilts the book for me to look,

follow her finger under lines of

words I am far too young to read.

From picture-less pages characters

emerge, each given unique speech,

scenes seen in a two year old mind.

With magical skill mom interprets

printed words to adventure worlds

beyond my world safe by her side.

I begin to imagine how someday

I’ll read books myself from library

shelves, recite by rote written notes,

translate letters to sounds to words,

skillfully decipher black and white,

and amaze audiences awed at my art

of perfectly pronouncing six syllable

words, barely heard, as crowds cheer,

rise to their feet and call out my name.

I awaken to the morning light never

remembering how I got to my bed

or when her story became my dream.

___

Carl "Papa" Palmer of Old Mill Road in Ridgeway VA now lives in University Place, WA.  

He has a 2015 contest winning poem riding buses somewhere in Seattle. Carl, president of 

The Tacoma Writers Club is a Pushcart Prize and Micro Award nominee. www.authorsden.com/carlpalmer

Variations on a Theme —a poem by Scott Thomas Outlar

She covers my grave in roses.

She stuffs my mouth with thorns.

She calls forth acid rain

to drench the cemetery plot

where I am reborn as a zombie.

I am the Nothing Man.

I am the New Wave.

I am the Renaissance,

birthed anew with the eyes of a Beast,

the heart of a dying world,

the mind of a black tumor,

the spirit of a raging fire,

and the final truth of a flailing supernova.

I am the essence of morphine

dripping into the splintered veins

of a body where the lungs no longer breathe.

I am the Police State cancer

flooding over a primal riot

as the stitches fall out

and pent up frustration bursts at the seams.

I am the Amazon,

cut off at the knees,

starving for a new harvest,

spitting out the last lungful of oxygen.

I am the image of tomorrow

hauntingly cast through a cracked crystal ball,

drowning the wasteland with silent chaos.

I am the muscle that has atrophied.

I am the kidney that no longer flushes.

I am the liver that has evolved into a leech.

I am the mutation of a thousand mistakes.

___

Scott Thomas Outlar hosts the site 17Numa.wordpress.com where links to his published poetry, fiction, essays, and interviews can be found. His chapbook Songs of a Dissident (Transcendent Zero Press) was released in 2015 and is available on Amazon. His poetry collections Happy Hour Hallelujah (CTU Publishing) and Chaos Songs (Longsword Press) are both forthcoming in 2016.

Devil —a poem by Thom Young

life is often strange
the used
car lot
with the pocket protector
dead salesman
greasy
and nicotine
teeth
like sodden trench
warfare
in France
circa 1916
he's got the deal
of a lifetime
if you're
willing to go down
under the desk
in the refurnished
office.

___
Thom Young is a writer from Texas. His work has been in The Commonline Journal, 3am magazine, Crack the Spine, Word Riot, 48th Street Press, and many other places. A 2008 Million Writers Award nominee for his story Perico. He is one of Amazon's most popular poets hitting #1 in Poetry Anthologies on promotions and his latest A Little Black Dress Called Madness hit #1 Poetry in Germany. 

Pelin went to Spain |a poem by Carl Boon

Pelin went to Spain,
saw different clouds, men
in bracelets proclaiming
the Virgin. She laughed
when they laughed,
and drank San Miguel
in Cordoba at the Atrio Café.
She never wanted to leave,
she wanted to kiss the boy
who stood afternoons
on Avenida Eva Perón,
but always a thundercloud
came, a warning, or nuns
carrying blankets.
So she watched him
from her terrace instead,
surveying the diagonal
streets where supper
might be with Maria,
and read. Hemingway
was there, and the poet
whose name she’d forgotten,
the one whose words
became blue flowers
every summer, then crimson
as the weather cooled.

___
Carl Boon lives and works in Izmir, Turkey. His poems appear in dozens of magazines, most recently Two Thirds North, Jet Fuel Review, Blast Furnace, and the Kentucky Review.

Maiduguri —a poem by Francis Annagu

This
City, perforated, is brash ruined,
Edifice of thunder rumble
And fallen clouds, torn
Rafters on deserted barns
Submitting to night Owl's songs
Of war. Drumbeats of darkness
Shredding it's iron-bridges apart
Into ghost IDP's latrines.
Bad
Smelling burning sulphur
Of human skulls re-uniting
Dark blood protruding veins.
Your children are silenced by
Tepid gun wounds, cholera and
Malarial smiles, Hungry
Swine eating their strength,
Stealing their youth in the
Very siren of livid policemen,
Livid on honour unwon that
Re-birth black days casked
In perfumed coffins.
Maiduguri awake from this night!
Let your sun
Shimmers in dust-ravaged faces.

___
Francis Annagu have been published or forthcoming on Potomac Review, Galway Review, Kalahari Review, Dead Snakes, Lunaris Review, Tuck Magazine, Bewildering Stories, Ancient Path Literary Magazine, Ayiba Magazine, Ann Arbo Review, The Commonline Journal, The Poet Community, Sunflower Collective, Amsterdam Quarterly, Ake Review, PIN, WRR, and others. He lives in Kaduna, Nigeria where he is working on his first poetry book.

Draw a line! —a strikethrough poem by Irsa Ruçi

Days striped in purpose, only numbers on the calendar  

Sighing shackles dragged down, why ideals suffer so much?

Survival is an anemic moment, reflex in foolishness  

Waked in mental delirium…

Nations cannot doze too much

They may forget the waking, what if they forget oblivion?

And a step away are we humans  

Us that the headache heel with painkillers

And stomach with alcohol…     

In morning we wake up with the weight of guilt in our shoulders

Because we spend the evenings playing domino

In the corners of time.

Then we turn to the cup of coffee to read destiny

To find the recipe of an already arranged life   

While eating popcorn carelessly.

Frozen numbers on calendar strip the days from purposes

A little aside the ashes of smoke on the broken strings of a guitar.

___

Irsa Ruçi is an Albanian Speechwriter and Lecturer who has received numerous awards, and whose books include Trokas mbi ajër (poems and essays), 2008 and Pështjellim (poetry), 2010.

The Aloe Incident —Fiction by May Clare

“I could vomit all over your shoes right now.” Eugene said.

“Look, at your skin! It’s peeling off!” Dani exclaimed. She lifted Eugene’s shirt away from his stomach. His belly was lobster red. “So that’s what happens to white boys who don’t use sunscreen.”

Eugene groaned. Why had this happened on the third date? He’d totally spoiled the mood.

Dani rummaged through her utilitarian beach bag and pulled out some aloe vera. “My cousin is light skinned, so my mom and I carry it around for his silly ass. Take your shirt off.”

This was not how Eugene imagined Dani would tell him to take his shirt off. She pumped some of the green goop into her hand. Eugene looked at the brightly lit arcade station and the Dicky’s ice cream next to it.  

“You sure we should do this now? We could get some ice cream first.” He pointed at the crowd of teens near the Dicky’s.

Dani gave the heaviest sigh and side eye. “I already have it on my hand.” She dropped her beach bag next to her.

Eugene seemed to taste dry, sandy rot in his mouth as she approached him with the aloe. He gulped, then reluctantly peeled his shirt off. Maybe if she only used small doses of the aloe on his skin, his allergies would not react to it. “Can you wipe some off on your shirt or something?” he suggested.

Dani twiddled her fingers in front of him, being careful not to drop a bit of green goo on the boardwalk. “C’mon, it’s not even that much!” she dabbed it all over his stomach along his chest then over his neck. This was the first time she touched most of his body. Yet, he shivered and cringed and gripped his forearm. She grabbed him, spun him around and massaged it into his shoulders and back. The massage felt more like a rough ice bath from hell. His shoulders hunched and he held his head low.

Phombis (an excerpt from Sleeping with the Fish) —prose poetry by Catfish McDaris

Sleeping With the Fish
by Catfish McDaris
ISBN-13: 978-0692671320
ISBN-10: 0692671323

Phombies

Cell phone madness was driving the world insane. People walking into things, holding phones up to the side of their heads, blue gadgets stuck in their ears, finger stabbing on tiny keyboards. Folks not speaking to one another, only concerned with electronic communications. Families sitting down for a meal, each and every one of them ignoring each other caught up in their own personal world. Quick warned his daughter to slow down with all her cell phone usage. He explained his theory about phones consuming all human intelligence and conquering the world. Quick’s kid, just shook her head like her old man was hopelessly behind the times. A few days later Quick went to wake his child up, her head was covered by sheets and blankets. When she finally struggled to get up, she had no head. From the neck up was a cell phone. He yelled for his wife and they went berserk, they tried to talk to their kid, but got no response. Quick’s wife sent her a text and it appeared on her face phone. They called an ambulance and reported the incident. They were informed that Phombism was a wide spread virus. There were laboratories and hospitals working on a cure, but all cell phones must be confiscated and destroyed, before a useable vaccine could be developed to treat the Phombies. Quick looked out the window and saw people with cell phone heads stumbling down the street. It was utter chaos, he went to the refrigerator and poured a glass of buttermilk.

____

*You can find Sleeping with the Fish at Midnight Lane Boutique and on Amazon.

if you asked —poetry by Monica Simon

if you asked me, 
i’d tell you i thought i’d be there by now
clutching skin and bones, not metal 
i’d imagined my body would be warm on its own
not plugged in constantly to some electric blanket
that his eyes would glow in the dark 
illuminating my righteous path;
it didn’t turn out that way, 
i would have told you that, if you’d asked 
my breath is wasted, fogging up mirrors in front of me 
just long enough that i forget what i look like
oh, yeah, that’s me, i remember 
it’s all as they told me it would always be
sky blue, grass green, snow white
did i think you’d carry away the colors when you left?
probably, but instead you left them all behind
and yet, if they’d asked, i would’ve told them 
everything looks different



___
Monica created and manages Poets of NEPA, a website dedicated to showcasing the work of local poets from Northeastern Pennsylvania. A poet herself, she showcases her own work at poetrybymnoelle.tumblr.com and has a personal blog at wordsbymnoelle.wordpress.com.

Sea rushing in like a crowd —a poem by Ian C. Smith

A room, two scruffy caravans, verandah with a view,

the sea roiling or calm, tidal-tug and foam-flick,

she-oaks and tea-tree hunchbacked in wind,

the great arc of our beach walk to the rocks

and cloud-shadowed mountains.  Always the mountains.

We take care with water; wallabies eat our plants.

On this broad bluff the stars seem closer at night.

Where we have made landfall rises and dips away to two towns.

Gulls street-strut; islanders weave windswept lives,

their daily outlook also the grandeur of mountains.

Into our corner come yacht crews asking questions,

clouds sailing the roaring sky around this curvature

with scant settlements in their airy global path,

and the spirit of a gallant seaman, Matthew Flinders.

Debra is here, constant as Bass Strait; me, reading.  

___
Ian C Smith’s work has appeared in , Australian Poetry Journal, New Contrast, Poetry Salzburg Review, Rabbit Journal, The Stony Thursday Book, Two-Thirds North, & Westerly. His seventh book is wonder sadness madness joy, Ginninderra (Port Adelaide). He lives in the Gippsland Lakes area of Victoria, Australia.

The Devil's Work —Fiction by S.F. Wright

The Devil’s Work

Mike Ramirez moved to our town a week before school started, and by the second week of September he was one of my best friends. He was likable and laid back; in addition, he was a tremendous athlete. We played touch football on the soccer field after school, and afterwards Paul Denton and I would often go to Mike’s house.

            Mike lived in a well-kept Cape Cod with his mother and younger brother. His father, he said, lived someplace called Garden City. Mike’s mother was a short plump woman who worked odd hours as a nurse. She was always polite to Paul and me, but when she spoke to Mike it was in Spanish and often sounded as if she was angry. Mike would answer in Spanish, and his tone would sound irate also, the only time I saw him like that.

            Usually we played Super Nintendo for an hour or two until it was time to go home for dinner. I’d then walk home and turn on my own Genesis system.

            “Where were you?” my mom asked one evening.

            “Mike’s house.”

            “Is that the new boy?”

            “Yeah.”

            “That’s the third time you’ve been there this week. You must really like him.”

            I shrugged, feeling slightly embarrassed, and then said simply, “He’s cool.”

            “Well, that’s nice.” To my relief she returned to the kitchen, and I scrolled down the list of teams on John Madden Football and tried to decide which one to be.

Accompany Me —a poem by Farnood Jahangiri

Accompany me into the holiest ditches
Where filth decides and piety retreats;
Where owls abide on collapsed towers,
It must be where love shows riches.

Before going, the candle of our pride
Extinguish we must and give a way
To a starless darkness, and drive away
Any sinless souls that might in us confide.


Assemble all our bags – packs of human sin:
Behind your mother’s fault, my father’s guilt.
Malice of men drink rushing in your blood
As I eat out the lust of all women within


Let others think of us like betrayers and whores!
What can they know, what can they know
About the Saints’ Affairs?
                                How could they see
For them we abandoned shores?


___
Farnood Jahangiri is an Iranian Baha'i who became a student of English at BIHE after being expelled from University in Iran, and has been have been telling poetry since 15 years of age, first in Persian and then in English.