2 poems

by Lulu Liu

the snow that came in October

was not impossible but not expected.

The city had not salted the roads.

There could have easily been

another crop of tomatoes.

We woke to a strange sight:

ice slumping leaf-heavy branches

all the way to the ground,

the begonias dead 

in a shocked, bloody heap –

the perimeters of our lives

having closed a notch tighter –

and stored those among 

other images of this year,

all out of order.

- October 2020

to the woman who stayed

The dogwood's been chewed on     

again     it won't bloom this year either     

yet at the first

breath of spring     you'll bear

the old shovel to its branches

break     the frost-sealed ground

and work a mound of compost

into the     exhale

There's much to do

to tender the     roots

of a human life

and you     have steeped

your tea of     discontent

long enough     too long really

day after lonely     day     over

and over     ducked

the swinging anvil of your 

anger     and you're glad to be

past all that     finally

This is the calm that

decision brings

the pain that is the     deep

ripening     has dulled

(an old well     grown over in

the meadow)     leaving 

just    a sutured    hollow   

Besides    there is always the

pleasure     of the night sky

always     sleep

in his gentle arms     always

the next life

Lulu Liu is a writer and physicist, who lives between Arlington, Massachusetts, and Parsonsfield, Maine. Her writing has appeared in the Technology Review and Sacramento Bee, among others, and recently her poetry in Apple Valley Review, and Thimble. She’s grateful to be nominated for Best of the Net 2023.

2 poems

by R Hamilton

draw

When your betraying back seizes up again,

your soft lead pencil falls to the floor

and the hard Future steps, embarrassed,

quickly outside for a smoke

to let you navigate the pain in private

until you can regain the pencil

and your art resumes —

its point whole,

its line flowing,

its poetry unbroken —

at least for a while, until it cannot;

at least for a while, until the baths

no longer keep the Berliner kalt at bay.

flat-wound vs round-wound

The shadows have grown

long enough to reach

around your waist, pull

you closer, kiss you softly;

yet still the guitar

is too cold to play

without any strings snapping

to lash like unexpected goodbyes.

R Hamilton’s poetry first appeared in their 1970 high school literary magazine, followed by a fifty-year backstage career in performing arts ending with retirement and the pandemic. Their next “published” piece was included in City Lights Theater’s 2020 Halloween podcast, an unintentionally round number of years and/or decades. Since then, Hamilton’s work has been included in collections by Caesura, Oprelle Press, and Boats Against the Current. 

cicadas

by Morris McLennan

The cicadas bloom and I know it’s going to get colder soon.
They whisper in engine hums beside my window,
under my bed,
inside of my left ear. 

I can see the first tinted leaf.
Once they scatter, they’ll make the hills seem
like piles of rotting lunchmeat
if you drive past them too quickly. 

That’s what I thought of on the school bus one day.
Cicadas, hiding, never found.
Shells, pressed into my palm. 

Going home and being a child and getting unwrapped,
layers of coats and scarves and hats and gloves and boots and socks.

All ochre toned. All sepia. 

Then being old again and looking out a different window and feeling different and being different.
And the sights are the same but the colors have more red in them.
Or maybe they don’t.

Maybe it’s just me. 

Alone in my room. Listening to the engine sounds.
With translucent shells stuck on every desk, every shelf, every surface.
Glowing golden in the evening light. 

I, too, know how to glow golden. 

Morris McLennan is a writer from Chicago, Illinois. His plays have been workshopped with the support of DePaul University and Shattered Globe Theater. He has a BFA in Playwriting from DePaul University, where he was the recipient of the Zach Helm Endowed Playwriting Scholarship and the Bundschu Award. Currently, he interns for Fruit Bat Press while working on his upcoming play, debut novel, and his Chicago restaurant review zine series.

the rule of thirds

by Darci Schummer

Amongst your many things

your father discovers

undeveloped film
“I think this is

actually yours,” he writes
on a note folded into a plastic case

holding the disc onto which 

another life of mine has been digitized.

In the pictures my young legs

stretch out from a pink bathrobe

I put on shimmering eye makeup

I wear my red winter coat 

the one with a faux fur collar

and too-short sleeves.

I smile, laugh, purse my lips

“Stop taking my picture,” my face says

as the camera watches me

your eye behind it capturing the bones of our love. 

For days I don’t stop looking and looking.

You taught me the rule of thirds 

how to compose a photo just so.

But now I know 

to account for what lies beyond the frame.

Darci Schummer is the author of the story collection Six Months in the Midwest (Unsolicited Press), co-author of the poetry/prose collaboration Hinge (broadcraft press), and author of the forthcoming novel The Ballad of Two Sisters (Unsolicited Press). Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in Ninth Letter, Folio, Jet Fuel Review, MAYDAY, Matchbook, Necessary Fiction, Sundog Lit, and Pithead Chapel, among many other places. She teaches at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College where she serves as faculty editor of The Thunderbird Review.

high water

by Cheryl A. Ossola

When you said you wanted to see Venice 

in the acqua alta you didn’t bargain 

on slogging a mile to the train station,

suitcase held high, lactic acid burning, 

past trapped traghetti bobbing at bridges,

floating in the liminal space between 

piazza and canal where turquoise color shifts 

opaque to transparent, begging you to walk

(in the way heights dare you to jump) 

that shimmering edge, risk

slipping beneath the surface.

Instead you slog far from the edge, 

past shops kitted with pumps and doorway dams, 

shopkeepers whose faces say life goes on.

Water grabs at your feet, sucks at your knees, 

urging you to give in,

reminding you how desirable it is to stay grounded.

With each step you break free, 

contemplating alternatives,

destinations romantic, transitional, dead-end.

You want them all.

On the platform, water pools at your feet. 

You like the chill dampness, the clutch of fabric

like a lover’s embrace.

The trains wait. You are expected 

somewhere, sometime. Does it matter? 

You think only of depths, of possibilities.

Cheryl A. Ossola lives in a 15th-century ex-convent in Italy with her dog and too many books. Her work appears in boats against the current, Fourteen Hills, Switchback, Writers Digest, After the Pause, and the anthology Speak and Speak Again, among other publications. Her Nautilus Award-winning debut novel, The Wild Impossibility (Regal House Publishing), came out in 2019. More at italicus.substack.com and cherylaossola.com.

terrarium nights

by Richard M. Ankers

We look up. We always look up

to the diffuse stars gleaming

through our world of glass.

Inexact, these cosmic entities

dare the human eye to defy

their right to exist, as we exist,

hanging where clouds disprove

as opposed to our walls, roofs, 

and impromptu posturing. 

They look cold up there,

while we are warm, too warm 

in our managed overheating,

minimal even, but only at night. 

The day remains beyond perception, 

too loud, too in our face, hot, 

while the trees and the cacti 

and the flowers bloom

in kaleidoscopic starbursts, 

desperately pretending 

for their children’s sakes

to like it.

Richard M. Ankers is the English author of The Eternals Series and Britannia Unleashed. Richard has featured in Expanded Field Journal, Love Letters To Poe, Spillwords, and feels privileged to have appeared in many more. Richard lives to write.

the moon tonight is a large purple dragon

by Jonah Meyer

1

i want to bury deep into the world.

up to my nose in grass-leaves, earth roaring awful inside my belly, a tapestry 

of slow-falling raindrops to savor the splendor of smile upon lips.

2

what can be seen through such 

tender, generous eyes?

how is the song sung by wind on

her glorious foreverflow journey?

when night falls, the sun is

simply playing 

hide-and-seek.

3

rhyme of the sea makes a poet.

sweet wine on the breath, a poet.

never a sentient being whose

innermost delicious thoughts

were not

(in fact)

poems.

4

the moon tonight is a 

large purple dragon.

yes our moon tonight, that brave 

lonely traveler, 

how she hang-glides amongst the stars,

spilling answers to questions of 

the ages ...

the poet tonight snug tight in her room, hair curling out into wondrous constellation, such incandescent waterflow flowing forth forever free.

the poet breathes in silence, but is 

not alone.

the poet tonight sips red wine,

chats it up in animation with 

the nightsky,

dreams connection.

5

the poet’s hands are rose petals,

deep orange silk.

her mind reveals small childplay.

somewhere, on a mountain, smashing poems eternal softly against such fantastic heavenly blue.

Jonah Meyer is a poet, writer and copyeditor based in North Carolina. His poetry and creative nonfiction has been published widely. Poetry Editor of Mud Season Review and Random Sample Review, Jonah seeks and celebrates the poetry of mountains and sea.

after our daughter’s birth

by Claudia M. Reder

for months I was ill 

from Staph. We lived 

in bed clothes, you nursing and napping, 

and sitting up once in a while.

Months for me to put back together 

the foreign words, ‘mother’

with ‘daughter.’  

Remembering the two of us years ago

seeking the green leaves 

that fed the windows

where we slept, I wasn’t sure

how long I would carry words

for depression or pain,

shadings of language 

misfiring in my mouth.

I had to learn to love you again. 

The warbles and timpani 

of the ocean power my heart,

I set out among the dunes,

the ragged orange of roughened grasses,

mock heather shredding.

Claudia M. Reder is the author of How to Disappear, a poetic memoir, (Blue Light Press, 2019). Uncertain Earth (Finishing Line Press), and My Father & Miro (Bright Hill Press). How to Disappear was awarded first prize in the Pinnacle and Feathered Quill awards.  She was awarded the Charlotte Newberger Poetry Prize from Lilith Magazine, and two literary fellowships from the Pennsylvania Arts Council. She attended Millay Colony, NAPA Writer’s Conference and The Valley. She recently retired from teaching at California State University, Channel Islands. Her poetry manuscript Appointment with Worry was a finalist for the Inlandia Institute Hillary Gravendyk Prize. 

time flies when you’re escaping reality

by Jowell Tan

i want to lie in orange light; 

bathe my books in sunset's glow. 

time to slip past me unnoticed; 

i don’t want to know how long it has been.  

i want to swim in sky-blue seas; 

trace my name under quiet waves. 

time to slip past me unnoticed; 

i don’t want to know how long it has been. 

i want to walk amongst green gardens; 

feel the flowers brush against my skin. 

time to slip past me unnoticed; 

i don’t want to know how long it has been. 

i want to float inside an infinite black; 

drift through darkness with no end in sight. 

time to slip past me unnoticed; 

i don’t want to know how long it has been. 

i want Time to lie, to swim, to float beside me; 

to hold my hand while i breathe in this air. 

Time to keep still, not a tick nor a squeak; 

allow me to stay for as long as i need.

Jowell Tan writes. He thanks you for reading, and he appreciates your time.

footnote

by Kelli Simpson

I’m a lesser Bible
verse – you
are a blackbird.
I am haunted –
you’re the homicide
that happened here.
Books of witching
wither my nightstand.
Your book of Lorca
bruises the floor.
I’m a headstone.
You’re a footnote.
Nothing more.

Kelli Simpson is a poet and former teacher based in Norman, Oklahoma. Her work has appeared in Lamplit Underground, Green Ink Poetry, One Art Poetry Journal, The MockingHeart Review, and elsewhere. 

beach trip

by Victoria Turner

The sea spills out before me.

I watch as the sky blurs into waves, waiting

as the water washes away and returns

again, lapping quietly at my toes.

The girl who brought me here

calls from dry sand.

A distant gull sings in tune with her soft cadence,

her mouth curving into something recognizable,

almost. A water-stained photograph

washed clean in all the wrong places.

I return to her.

Loose sand clings to my damp feet.

The rest falls away, back to the beach,

back to the sea.

She reaches for me, smooth fingers

wrapped around a leathery palm,

tugging gentle as a forgotten memory.

As we watch the waves roll, she tells me

we have been here before. 

Victoria Turner is a writer and substitute teacher interested in the intersection of art and memory. She holds a Bachelor’s in English Literature from the University of California, Davis, and lives in Northern California with her dog.  

2 poems

by Ave Jeanne Ventresca

life is a thief

life is a thief

with tiny hands

and knuckles rough,

who creeps a 

silent journey

through many people’s

calendars, and so

it has become that

living has decided to

paint each horizon into

a gallery of portraits,

all still wet with oil 

and long intent strokes 

from a world wind, and 

so I sit with thoughts

on this

day of clouds, mindful

of cold, empty sidewalks

where many friends

have passed away.

portrait in ochre yellow / pigeons of Milan

according to the locals

pigeons of Milan

listen to people’s conversations

as they wild sprinting grasp

for crumbs along sun warm stone and

grass just plowed. i have seen them

as they repeat phrases of old men,

respond with questions when

young children have faces that

laugh through snow falls soft,

landing in concrete birdbaths

and upon these occasional

umbrellas ochre yellow. notice 

their expressions. they actually

wonder when phrases include them

when those who saunter along

see their hunger and winter thirst. it is

obvious at sunrise, they are

not sure how to react, but they do

understand that their existence is owed

to these biscotti throwers, those who leave

crusts on purpose, or others, who toss

wishes for good fortune that heads their way.

crowds of black, gray, and white little bodies

dart through wind soft as conversations

continually unfold.  wild sprinting grasps

toward food with appreciative wings

flapping and desperate beaks.

Ave Jeanne Ventresca (aka: ave jeanne) is the author of nine chapbooks of poetry that reflect social and environmental concerns. Her most recent collection, Noticing The Colors of Ordinary, was released in 2019.  Her award winning poetry has been widely published internationally within commercial and literary magazines, in print and online. Ave Jeanne was nominated for the Pushcart Prize for 2019. She edited the acclaimed literary magazine Black Bear Review, and served as publisher of Black Bear Publications for twenty years.  

the stories we tell ourselves

by Caroline Reddy

You tried to stitch your songs

to my throat —

and with each word you spoke

I drifted farther from beach parties

and further 

into the Manhattan sky.

I swallowed time capsules 

to shape a future

without your noise.

You diluted my music box

and coiled us into an endless loop

that widened our trails.

Thus, our trial began:

I hid my twin flame 

and danced with swords 

as the winter solstice

isolated us within our insecurities.

Scenarios became faint —

peaks faded from 

a mountain of memories

and a starless night.

I played with magnets 

to force our stories to part.

Caroline Reddy’s work has been published in Active Muse,  Calliope, Clinch, Clockwise Cat, Deep Overstock, Grey Sparrow,  International Human Rights Arts Festival and Starline among others.. In the fall of 2021, her poem “A Sacred Dance” was nominated for the Best of The Net prize by Active Muse. Caroline Reddy was born in Shiraz, Iran and is currently participating in the exhibit “Playing in Wonderland.” Recently Caroline performed her poetry and led an artist talk on Mohammad Barrangi's exhibition. 

rudders

by Austin Kuebler

Rudders, riggers, rhythm 

Seaward stop shy of the Sound

We turn at the gray gone green

And the blue chop

Back for the clumsy, untended beach 

With questions doubled down. 

Safety is warm and restless,

Untested and imagined,

Leaving the rumble brackish rolls

For tomorrow, to you. 

You’ve seen it now, 

A father’s decision at the brink. 

Tell me what it is like

When you see no land from either eye

At the opening of the sea 

Where sky is the only marker

And dust becomes the distance. 

It’s a famous line to cross, so I have been told. 

Austin Kuebler is a songsmith, musician, poet, manager, and coach who lives in Long Island, NY. This poem is from his upcoming collection, “Notes to Margaret and Songs for Marguerite.”

sleeping on the day I drown

by Bethany Jarmul

On the day I drown, I breathe salty water deep into my lungs and blow it out my nose. I bathe amongst the seaweed, dance with dolphins. I give each fish a name, until I run out of names. I dive deep, swim wide—until my legs burn, arms ache. I speak to the sea, sing to the sea turtles. They whisper stories of old, secrets of days long past. And when my spirit has exhausted itself, I sleep on a coral bed—hair floating with the tides, tangled with broken bottles, food wrappers, and cigarette butts. 

Bethany Jarmul is a writer, editor, and poet. Her work has appeared in more than 40 literary magazines and been nominated for Best of the Net and Best Spiritual Literature. She earned first place in Women On Writing's Q2 2022 essay contest. Bethany enjoys chai lattes, nature walks, and memoirs. She lives near Pittsburgh with her family. Connect with her at bethanyjarmul.com or on Twitter: @BethanyJarmul.

bones break

by Dominik Slusarczyk

You cannot be

made out of glass and

expect concrete.

Minds melt.

You cannot be

made out of sand and

expect lava.

We do not know how

to work our way through the world.

We get jobs but it doesn’t help.

We cry but it doesn’t help.

Dominik Slusarczyk is an artist who makes everything from music to painting. He was educated at The University of Nottingham where he got a degree in biochemistry. He lives in Bristol, England. His poetry has been published in ‘Dream Noir.’

before the next storm

by Kevin A. Risner

The moments, minutes

before the next storm slides onshore

hold a narrow slice of heaven

An anticipation that mirrors

the cutting of giant circular cakes

or ones that look like inanimate objects

Cats, eyes, boots, onions

whatever the thing is, it’s been videoed

for viewers to wait

The knife lowers to make the incision

and out pours the rain, a water-

fall that way hasn’t been seen for years

Who wouldn’t stay put as the lines

touch cloud to ocean

highlight this connection as noticeable

as a mustard stain on red blouse?

The true nature of weather, the climate

and its portentous portents:

Is it you who’s become a seer?

Auguring layers of rock to tell us

this century is the one that plummets us

into the abyss for good? My dream

this year doesn’t depend on viruses.

It depends on who survives the fallout.

Kevin A. Risner is the author of multiple poetry chapbooks. The most recent are: Do Us a Favor (Variant Literature, 2021) and You Thought This Was Just Gonna Be About Cleveland, Didn't You (Ghost City Press, 2022).

2 poems

by Ryan Hooper

hope 

hope is in the ear of the listener 

listen: 

the winter 

is thawing

asleep/awake 

Upon your gaze  

the flowers sleep. 

Asleep  

in the surreal  

night. 

Thoughts swirl  

like falling leaves 

carried by all the hands forgotten  

in the wind. 

We are strangers  

when we meet. 

Awake in the sprawl. 

Inside a house of memories 

and strangers. 

The most beautiful thing  

in the world 

must be shadow.

Ryan Hooper is a writer and content designer from South West England. He is passionate about exploring memories and landscapes – both internal and external.  Under the name Heavy Cloud, Ryan creates experimental music often in tandem with collage-based artworks and textual explorations. 

2 poems

by Charles Hensler

the garden shed 

You don’t know 

what led you there, after years— 

the doorway half-hinged, a rusty 

shovel, shears cobwebbed on the shelf:  

evening descending, the garden 

giving in to field. 

Soft rain arrives 

like a rumpled man in a tired suit, a weathered face 

under a rain soaked brim, pockets full of lint. 

He leans at the edge of the field 

as he has always leaned. 

He waits to be invited in. 

articulation 

Outside you realized your fingers 

had fallen from your hands, words 

from your tongue leaving you 

only able to push 

or punch, only able to utter 

a solitary sound 

the street a sprawl of rattles 

and whispers, gradients of refracted light 

a surface of silver cars, a crow 

in the afternoon lift of leaves, the lilt of voices 

from an apartment window 

a shape of home 

you remember: 

left in your speechless hand 

a smooth, gray stone. 

Charles Hensler lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest. He attended Western Washington University, where he won the Leslie Hunt Memorial Prize for Poetry. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Jeopardy Magazine, Crab Creek Review, The Shore, One Hand Clapping and West Trade Review.

the way she speaks

by Navi K. Goraya

The way she speaks 

that small star in her cheek   

(one cheek, for two would be too much like the others) 

I can’t quite place what it is – 

but her face,

it reminds me of Summer. 

Of sweetness

of warmth 

(of peaceful picnics in parks) 

but mostly

of premature proclamations 

of love. 

Navi (she/her) is a Master of Public Health student at McMaster University. Her research focuses on masculinity contest cultures and mental health in Canadian public safety organizations. Outside of academia, Navi enjoys reading (and sometimes writing) the odd cryptic couplet.