Three Poems by Simon Perchik

On the way up this darkness
must sense it's more wax
letting the varnish take forever

though you count how high
a second time--these selves
aren't restless enough, here

for the fire all wood is sent for
--in every room! caskets
stacked as if from behind

the wall would reach around
smelling from bark, roots
and the uncontrollable embrace

heating your cheek the way rain
returns to lower its face on the dirt
that never moves these boards

kept open for a dry rag
all night rubbing your  forehead
darker and darker, almost there.


*

From just dampness, nourishment
and rust seals the bolt
in place--the carriage

already there and nearby, it rains
though you take hold a single spoke
as if the enchanted palace

stopped moving--why is it
a parent favors the weak one
and the crib early on

strengthened with blankets, around
and around the way they dance
in fairy tales scented with midnights

with a gate half iron, half
this wrench, its gardens, ponds
no longer coming apart.


*

Between two fingers
you expect a knot, the string
is used to breaking its fall

the way her shadow
still opens the Earth
for a last look

follows your every move
--even with the sun
you wrap this small box

are carried off
by an icy stream
tighter and tighter, the cover

beginning to close, first
as snow, years later
over your lips already distances

and mountain peaks taking hold
though the mist inside
is not the water you drink

lets you say something
in secret, close to the ground
emptied out in the open.

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, Poetry, Osiris, The New Yorker, and elsewhere.  His most recent collection is Almost Rain, published by River Otter Press (2013).  For more information, including free e-books, his essay titled "Magic, Illusion and Other Realities" please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com

A Poem by Richard Schnap

Testimonial

These are the grey days
When the skies of our minds
Are perpetually overcast

When the books we read
Are filled with blank pages
By anonymous authors

When the clocks that mark
The passage of time
Don't have any hands

When we ride on buses
Only to return
To where we started

When we listen to songs
That all sound the same
Bursts of white noise

When we hear voices at night
And find it's us talking
To someone who's not there

Richard Schnap is a poet, songwriter and collagist living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  His poems have most recently appeared locally, nationally and overseas in a variety of print and online publications.

Three Poems by Jonathan Beale

We Walked Along the Embankment at 14:35 in the Rain After a Night Out in the West End

There is a collection
Of whispers
Beneath the iron
Bridges under every
Doorway.  Beneath

The silken image
Of what was to come.
As necessary as the air
We breathed, or the films
We saw or even the books we read

We walked on jumped--
The night bus
Into the heartless carcass
Of the night.
Until the sun rose and broke the spell.



The Cemetery of Unlived Lives

Passing by these staid walls,
of the cemetery of unlived lives.
Here the wailing bounds over
filling the days left unfulfilled.

Over that far crumbled wall
lays the root of the days of every
lost dream.  Those unfulfilled
vessels--lay dark, hollow, and

spent as the echo's remind the consciences
of the "what could have been" and the
"what ifs, what ifs, if & only ifs," words
drowned out--in the lost days.

In this place of now; the nominal rents,
where all investments have run dry.
Ideas from then are still around
in their idols, jokes, and poetic madness.

Their engines have spent their days.
On waiting for tomorrow and tomorrow
pausing no longer, as the voices of the
now ignored.  As the rest walk into tomorrow.



On the Edge of Things

     -- after Edge of a Wheatfield with Poppies, Vincent Van Gogh, 1887

As we sit on the edge of things--the ground consumes us
And then casts us back, and back, and back again.
Or at least me--
The thick, thick wheat swamps us--we drown
from below--drawn down and down.
Histories grow--and cannot cure.
The seed that should produce the perfect fruit
leaves just imperfections.

The trees offer some solace
a shore from the seas of morning coffee cup.
We never go to drink the evening wine.

A Poem by Sandra Anfang

Mercury

What two-faced god
split your psyche at the midline
trained your right foot as a helpmeet
fitted you with wings
to rush triage to the beachhead,
a telegram to the worried,
arms to the loveless?

Your left foot
bound at the ankle
pulled askew
embarks on the road not taken
glazed in quicksilver
decimated by fractions
and in the effort to be held,
unleashed upon the world.

Thimersal, your doppelganger
seeps into veins
in the spirit of succor
preserves vaccines
the shelf-lives of drugs
Big Pharma's bottom line.

What Janus head made you dark and light
draped you in shadows.
Blame it on the Gemini moon's waning smile
that turns you retrograde,
unhitched 'til conflict reigns.
Entropy loosed upon the world.

Sandra Anfang is a Norther California teacher, poet, and visual artist.  She is the author of four self-published poetry collections and several chapbooks.  Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including Poetalk, San Francisco Peace and Hope, West Trestle Review, two Healdsburg Literary Guild anthologies, The Tower Journal, Corvus Review, River Poets Journal, Clementine Poetry Journal, and Spillway.  She has a chapbook forthcoming in 2016 from Finishing Line Press.  Sandra is a new California Poet/Teacher in the schools and is the founder and host of the monthly poetry series, Rivertown Poets, in Petaluma, CA.  To write, for her, is to breathe.

Three Poems by ayaz daryl nielsen

Young snowboarders upon the rash enthusiasm
of youthfulness, splashes of light in the alpenglow,
making mistakes, adjusting with a sense of the
genuine and moving us further into the sacred.



diaphanous kiss

as poem becomes the presence it needs to be,
with a light caress of my heart and best thoughts,
it softly thrums "bless you, my love, my soul . . .
bless you."



Sinews of the primeval goddess
stretch and shrink in their sentient
engagement with all dimensions of
earthen interaction, the visceral
foreshadows of an ageless embrace.




ayaz daryl nielsen, husband, father, veteran, x-roughneck (as on oil rigs), hospice nurse, editor of bear creek haiku (25+ years/127+ issues), homes for poems include Lilliput Review, Jellyfish Whispers, Cattails, A Hundred Gourds, High Coupe, Shamrock, and online at bear creek haiku poetry, poems and info (translates as joie de vivre).

Three Poems by David Subacchi

Wood Pigeons

Wood pigeons as fat as chickens
Have been our companions
For so many years,
Waking us each morning
With their monotonous calls,
Perching on TV aerials,
Scratching through guttering
Asserting authority

When we shout angrily
Or wave our arms
They cock their heads
With an air of superiority,
So we feel like scarecrows
That have failed
To demonstrate competence

Wood pigeons as fat as chickens
More confident than eagles
Intimidating our garden
Claiming it as their territory,
Flying without fear
Treating with disdain
Any attempt at opposition.



Witch to Witch

The black pointed hat
Is ludicrous,
The ragged cloak
Beneath contempt,
The ugliness of my face
A vindictive insult,
The broomstick
On which you say I ride
A preposterous fantasy

My head is often uncovered
I wear what you wear,
My looks are not unattractive
I drive a sports car
Sometimes a limousine
From place to place
Observing the Highway Code,
I break no laws
My mind is free and clear

Why would you have me
Casting incoherent spells
A scapegoat for all disasters
Babbling vulgar incantations,
Communing with the devil
Inscribing runes
Binding waxen images
Esoteric, secret,
The stuff of teenage fiction

Look into the mirror
I return your gaze,
My eyes are as open
As the thoughts in your head,
Speak my name
In a whisper if you must
I will not betray you,
We are bound together
Witch to witch.



Next Time

I wore a grey suit
With blue shirt
And narrow tie
To be professional
But relaxed

You managed it
Much better
In floral top
And slacks

We started
With pleasantries
Chose a quiet table,
I said "It's been awhile"
Collected the menu
Like a clerk
Would fetch a file

I knew what
I wanted anyway,
You did too
You didn't have all day

So we had "lite bites"
Washed down
With wine
Some coffee
To finish off

You paid the bill
I said "Thanks"
Got your text later
Saying
"It's your turn
Next time."



David Subacchi lives in Wales (UK) where he was born of Italian roots.  He studied at the University of Liverpool and his two poetry collections First Cut (2012) and Hiding in Shadows (2014) are published by Cestrian Press.  He writes in English, Welsh and sometimes Italian.  You can find more information about David and his work on http://www.writeoutloud.net/profiles/davidsubacchi

Two Poems by Herb Guggenheim

Drugged

The last time you took Ambien,
you were on vacation in Vancouver, British Columbia,
staying at a small respectable hotel.

Your wife was asleep and you were asleep
but, at a certain moment,
you got up--

perhaps to use the bathroom,
perhaps driven by some other imperative in your dream--
and the story gets murky after that.

You must have gone through a doorway--
and the door must have locked behind you--
and you must have felt that you couldn't get back in.

So you went forward--
down a long hall
then through a second doorway,

down a flight of stairs
then through another door
that also locked.

You're not sure what happened after that
but, when your feet hit the cold pavement
and you felt the cool spring breeze against your ass,

you woke up enough to know
that you were standing outside
in a foreign country

wearing nothing but a t-shirt
and that a busy 24-hour McDonald's
was just two doors away.

Peering in through the hotel's glass door,
you could see that most of the lobby lights were off--
the front desk, dark.

Without the benefit of glasses,
you squinted at the instructions on the hotel entry system
then punched in the designated code.

A man picked up.
"I was sleep walking," you carefully explained.
"And I'm standing here not wearing any pants."

After a thoughtful silence, he asked for your room number,
your name, your wife's name then said,
"I'll be down."

Eventually,
he came and let you in,
walked you to the elevator,

put in his card key,
pressed the button for your floor
then jumped back out as if you were a monster.

You ascended to your floor
where your sleepy wife met you,
wrapped you in a blanket,

and brought you back to your hotel room
where you immediately fell back into bed.
In the morning, at first, you thought you'd dreamt it

but when you asked your wife,
she told you that you hadn't.
Now, reflecting on it,

you realize that life propels us forward
and that all the doors behind us click shut.
We can't go back.

In a way, you think,
we're always standing naked at the door--
our bodies roused by an insistent breeze.





Hell

1.  Theology

You're six
and, one rainy afternoon when school lets out,
you go to Karl Mueller's house to play.
Karl sits behind you in first grade
and knows a bunch of fascinating stuff.

You leave your muddy sneakers on the doormat
and hang your yellow slicker in the bathroom.
Karl's mother calls the two of you into the kitchen
and serves you each a glass of carrot juice.

You're pretty sure you hate the way it tastes
but Karl gulps his down so so do you.
After you have swallowed the last swallow,
you thank his mom and follow Karl down
a narrow flight of stairs into the basement.

His playroom is musty, dark, and lined with heavy books.
He's pushed his toys to one side
and the floor is strewn with ragged notebooks and thick black crayons.

You and Karl speak of many things--
kickball, The Jetsons, chewing gum--
but at some point the discussion turns to fear
and Karl asks you what you are afraid of.

"Ghosts," you say.  "And sometimes scary monsters."

He studies you and ponders your response
then removes a heavy volume from a bookshelf.

"There's only one thing that really scares me--" he says.
"--The Devil."
With this he begins leafing through the book.

"Who's the Devil?" you ask.

And he shows you a picture of a blood red figure with horns and claws and a leering wicked face--
a figure so hideous, so revolting
that a cold wave of terror washes over you.

"Do you know how you meet the Devil?"  Karl asks.

"No," you say, trying to contain your fear.

"If you sin and don't ask for forgiveness--
if you sin, you go to Hell.
That's where the Devil lives.

"Hell is a land of fire.
It isn't like a camp out or a party--
something you look forward to then it happens then you go home.

"No.
Hell is a place where you burn--
where you're tortured and whipped by the Devil
and the torture doesn't stop.
Once you die and go to Hell, it's like you're still alive only you're dead but not really.
Because
when you're in Hell
you keep burning and you keep getting whipped and tortured, whipped and tortured
over and over and over again.
And it never stops.

"Think about what it would be like to just keep burning," your friend whispers.

And you think about when you accidentally touched the red hot burner of your mother's electric stove.

"Imagine your face pressed against the burner of
your mom's electric stove," your friend whispers as if he knows your every thought.
"Imagine your cheek right up against that burner."

Then he holds up the picture of the Devil once again
and you have to look away.
You're terrified and want him to stop talking.

"Then he holds up the picture of the Devil once again
and you have to look away.
You're terrified and want him to stop talking.

"Then imagine,"
he continues,
"that it's not a burner but a giant waffle iron and that the Devil is pressing down hard so that you're burning on both sides--
your skin sizzling like strips of bacon in a frying pan.
And you stay like that for all eternity."

"Won't you burn to death?" you ask.

"No,"
your friend whispers,
"because you're already dead!
You burn in Hell for all eternity.
You
never
stop
burning."

So you walk home at four in the afternoon
and you're afraid.

2.  A Counterargument

When you get home, you ask your mother if she's ever heard of the Devil
and she says, "Yes.
That's a myth that some people believe in.
But in our religion we don't believe in the Devil.
It's just a story."

"Well, what about Hell?" you want to know.

"We don't believe in Hell either."

"Then what happens after we die?"

"After we die everybody goes to Heaven," she says.

But you're strangely unconvinced.

3.  Fifth Grade

When you're in fifth grade, you notice Katie Philpotts in the far corner of your classroom.
And you notice that she's suddenly developed breasts.  And,
without being too obvious,
you look over at her as much as you can.
And at some point you pop a giant boner
and you have to take deep breaths to make it go away.

At home,
after you have your bedtime glass of milk,
you go to bed
and you're lying face down, your face buried in your pillow.
And you start to think about Katie Philpotts.

And,
once again,
your peter springs to life
and you notice that it feels incredibly good
to rub against the mattress.

Then you think,
What if this is a sin?
And what if there is a Hell?
What if Mom is wrong and everyone else is right?

And then the image of Katie Philpotts fades away
and in its place you see that blood red Devil that Karl Mueller showed you years before.

4.  The Adult

As an adult you think about death a lot.
You're ostensibly an atheist and you say that when you die you die.

Then you think of all the bad things you've done--
lying,
placing your own self-interests above those of others,
taking pot shots,
employing hurtful sarcasm to make you look good and everyone else look bad.

And you think about that leering Devil
and the idea that--
if your first grade friend was right--
you could burn for all eternity.

Isn't that what you secretly believe?
Don't you pray on airplanes when the weather's rough?--
a sure sign that you believe in God,
atheist though you profess to be.

Then you think, Nah,
that's ridiculous.
Surely, Hell is--
as you've heard C.S. Lewis once suggested--
reserved for big time sinners,
not small fry like you.

Then you think:
But what the fuck does C.S. Lewis know?
He could be in Hell right now for underestimating the scope of his own sin.

The Devil, you figure, is right there in your mind--
or else God is
(and he's telling the Devil what to do).
And one or the other of them is thinking:
He thinks he's going to get out of it--
just like C.S. Lewis did.
How misguided.
What a fool!

Herb Guggenheim's poems and short stories have appeared in a number of magazines, including the Beloit Poetry Journal, Poetry Quarterly, and Gargoyle.  He's been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net Award.  Mr. Guggenheim's rhymed poem "Countdown" received an honorable mention in the 2015 Writer's Digest annual writing competition.  He is the author of Sunset at the Hotel Mira Mar (Infinity Publishing, 2011) and the chapbook, Strange Encounter at the Shakespeare Motel (Finishing Line Press, 2015).

A Poem by Mercedes Webb-Pullman

Alchemy as Process, Not Product

During the process of alchemy
a peacock appears in the flames.
From your TV chair you think
"phoenix" or even "change the channel"
but once his tail flicks out
like a veil tossed by a beautiful
Saigon bar-girl who's also a magician
your happy vision vanishes.
Your wife could be better looking
but maybe then she wouldn't cook
or clean, and keep the kids
in school and on the track
you left to fight for someone else's
freedom, somewhere else.
When you came back
your dog refused to know you
your wife had a new boyfriend
like everyone else, and you lived
in the box your car came in.
You wouldn't think
of motorbikes if it weren't for that
helicopter overhead, and the bus, idling.
Alone, cold and hungry, you dream
of freedom.  That's alchemy.

A Poem by Theresa Darling

Days Without Anger -- Day 4

I promised not to open my mind
to anger.  I'd deny the rough pearl
forming beneath my tongue.  Yes yes
yes to jewels secret treasures of all shapes
bring them on but know precisely
where to bury your precious fire.
Avoid the space between warm bodies
chilling slowly beneath flannel
in an unheated bedroom.  Never indulge
near your morning shower
shared before breakfast.



Theresa Darling's poetry has been published in The Green Hills Literary Journal, Baily's Beads, Hellbender Journal, Kind of a Hurricane Press and The Cellar Door.  Her poem "Another Departure" was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2014.  She recently fulfilled a lifelong dream by moving to Vermont, where she hopes to live happily ever after with her husband Reg and two shelter cats.

A Poem by Barbara Ruth

Cleave

Cleave
a verb intransitive:
to hold together
to attach, adhere
becoming one
as in marriage.
Cleave
a verb transitive:
to split asunder
to fissure, fracture
becoming two
as in marriage.
It's in our chemistry
the same as rocks or stars:
our molecules embrace, then as we transform
they fly apart.

Does quartz resist
rutile's bold intrusion?
Does copper wish that manganese was malachite?
Do sodium and chlorine
lick their lips as they
anticipate their union?

Another life form
may have charted us already
set out places at the periodic table
in a house we cannot see:
it is not given us to know.

Come here
cohere
because of this, our natural attraction.
Go back
detach
because of this, our natural division.
Through it all, and through it all
we cleave.

In the small, Midwestern towns where she grew up, Barbara Ruth always felt queer, even before she fell in love with a girl at age seven.  Since early childhood, she has written to uncover secrets, resist assimilation, and explain what she could not understand, to the world and to herself.  She is disabled by diseases and disabilities too numerous and aggravating to name.  She still believes in propaganda by the deed and revolution within the revolution, preferably one she can dance to.  Access, in all its permutations, challenges and inspires her.  And that ain't all.

A Poem by Diana Raab

Remnants

The day after you left
I sat on the ledge of my desires

and spun an intangible invisible web
suspended around my essence

encapsulating the warmth of your trusted touch,
the moisture of your recycled kiss

entangled in the firmness of your caress
whilst the rest of the world froze

in the mold of you
beside the phone that stopped ringing,

around the birds not chirping,
and the waves that finished undulating--

only moments after
the windows got stuck open

leaving the stale air of your absence
empty without your love.

He who returns never left

Diana Raab is an award-winning poet, memoirist, poet, and author of eight books, including four poetry collections, Listening to Africa, Dear Anais:  My Life in Poems for You, The Guilt Gene, My Muse Undresses Me.  Her latest collection, Lust, was released in 2014.  She often facilitates groups on writing for transformation and empowerment.  Her work has been anthologized and has widely appeared in trade and literary magazines.  She blogs for the Huffington Post, Psychology Today, PsychAlive, and BrainSpeak.  Her website is www.dianaraab.com.

Two Poems by Stefanie Bennett

Insomnia

Consider the ash
In its 3rd degree.
The partisan
                You've
Made of me . . .

I succumbed -- but
Only when someone
Had to lead the band
Out over the walls

Of the infirmary.

Biographies, aspired
Will fire
A line so slick:
Was there no

More to this
Than the music?



Elegy . . . . . . . . . . . 

We who came through the generations
          -- Emptied the pepper
          All over the dessert;
          Knifed Arabic
          In the gravy;
          Dealt out spoons,
          The royal
          Flush of poker;
          Turned the wineglass
          Into paper-cups;
          Fed cheese and anchovy
          'Over there' to
          A mange mimic connoisseur;
          Set the finger-bowl alight
          And quarreled
          Words and sent them
          Packing
          To another
          Serious luncheon . . .

The balloons we left intact.  Air!
No-one's put a price on it.




Stefanie Bennett has published several volumes of poetry and had poems appear with Dead Snakes, Poetry Pacific, Snow Monkey, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Boston Poetry Magazine, Mad Swirl, The Mind[less] Muse, and others.  Of mixed ancestry [Italian/Irish/Paugussett-Shawnee], she was born in Queensland, Australia, in 1945.

A Poem by Jude Neale

One Cleft Moon

The pretty girl's neighbor drank her beauty like wine

Kept her in his breast pocket for slow days

when he danced with her silhouette
to the tune of the Tennessee waltz

Alone behind curtains he imagined her waist
fitting into the crux of his arm

and she said bring me more than I asked for

So he carved a cleft moon into her bedroom door
protecting her from dreams
of others creeping into her world
without permission or regret

He gave her a red ribbon to tie back
the noose of her gladness
Stroked her black coil of braids
that fell like a tar bridge across his fence

She danced in the twilight with just her shimmery whimsy
so bright was her gossamer shift of unequaled shine

The pretty girl knew all the words to his songs
and reached out to show him the keen flutter
of her vermilion possibilities

Her kindness flooded his rear view mirror
where he never looked back to see her

caught like a butterfly cleaved to a pin

Jude Neale is a Canadian poet, vocalist, spoken word performer and mentor.  She published frequently in journals, anthologies, and e-zines.  

A Poem by Inna Dulchevsky

The Day After Day After Day Then Again

Summer runs away
I hunt for its tail
But it slips
I've failed           again

It was not a tail
But veil     of memories
Recall its feelings
Slipped through my fingers
Into a pelagic zone

From fear to love
From love to fear     then back
Sex     no sex      sex    again
Desire and tears
Anger and bliss
Chills visit the tips of my hair

A day-long meditation
Standing ovation for a
Quintet of senses is muted      again

My presence is a slight poetic
Somewhere   nowhere     then back
In the present

Don't let me forget how to breathe
In-and-out     in-and-out        again
Then back

No

Breathe now




Inna Dulchevsky spent her early school years in Belarus.  She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.  She was awarded the First Prize 2014 David B. Silver Poetry Competition.  Inna's work has been published in numerous anthologies, books, and journals including Pyrokinection, Jellyfish Whispers, Petals in the Pan Anthology, book Laveder, The Cannon's Mouth, The Otter, New Poetry, Calliope Magazine, Aquillrelle Anthology, 4th annual Lummox Poetry Anthology, Antheon, and is forthcoming in Element(ary) . . . My Dear Anthology and Calliope Magazine Anniversary Issue.  Her interests include metaphysics, philosophy, meditation and yoga.  The light and expansion of consciousness through the connection with inner-self and nature are essential in the writing of her poetry.

A Poem by Theresa A. Cancro

Inert at the Door

My toe catches
first on pupil, then iris,
matched without matching as
the mirror cracks at the corner

of my lip, ear, an eyelash
whipped and alert in the squall
of mid-life, when we inherit only
a bit of morose honor
in milquetoast manner, unlike

one or two who prefer
to be independent
of these things, though they have
surely seen the short light
along moon's cusp,

yanked at hairs unbidden, those
graying dregs, mid-sectioned on past
crazed lips, sports cars, long legs
sheered on the ledge, not creased
yet,

catharsis in a nutshell, still
quelled beneath the moss
of mere inquietude, never mordant
until you masticate the willful quadrant
under a ragged fingernail.

Theresa A. Cancro writes poetry and short fiction from Wilmington, DE.  Dozens of her poems have appeared internationally in online and print publications, including The Artistic Muse, Lost Paper, The Rainbow Journal, Leaves of Ink, Plum Tree Tavern, The Heron's Nest, A Hundred Gourds, Presence, Wild Plum, Jellyfish Whispers, and Napalm and Novocain, among others.

Two Poems by Brenton Booth

Running from the Night

the gallows are not always as scary as a lonely sunday morning
or punching a time clock or answering the phone that never seems to stop
it's the same old song for the puppies, eskimos and croupiers--
regularly holding more cards than they can handle or care to have in their possession
and some do it with religion and some with sports and some with
money (i have luckily never been too fond of those things as they
have never been too fond of me),
on this tuesday afternoon in syndey watching the rats scream at the
mountains, the ferrari paddling on a cement pool, the sailor return
to the sea
while the opera singers eat pumpkin soup in the green room and
guns fir in the desert--stepping sideways as usual:  desperately
clinging to out-dated ideas
the brunette with the long hair and beautiful skin smiled at me again
today
which wouldn't seem like much to some, but it's the closest i have
got to love from a woman in months and the screaming monkeys
all fell down inside my head like the stolen dominoes or tomorrows
news
these small things that can make such a difference
walking now with new purpose:
finally beating the night.




Behind the Lines

The page takes another line
and the brown walls hide
behind white trees
the balcony holds onto the
moon
the coffee table is on the
longshot
the page takes another line
and the speakers float in
large bowls of margarine
teardrops
the blinds ask for $21 change
the fan has on a concrete
neck brace
the page takes another line
and the warm plate is on
vacation in Bora Bora
the small Asian statue
recites Whitman
the carpet crawls on the
ceiling
the page takes another line
and the mirror bleeds like
baby seals
the wardrobe holds out its
grey hands
the face is as beautiful as
always
her face
that won't leave me
will never leave me
the page takes another line
and I wish it were me.

Brenton Booth lives in Sydney, Australia.  Poetry and fiction of his has recently been printed in Chiron Review, Mas Tequila Review, Paper and Ink, Zombie Logic and Bold Monkey.  brentonbooth.weebly.com

A Poem by Dennis Maloney

Bridges

I have spent my
life building bridges
between the shores
of language and culture.
Always straddling
emptiness and danger,
wave by wave,
an incomplete bridge,
extending across a
map of the world.

I have crossed
the Pont Neuf,
the Ponte Vecchio,
as poets have between
reason and madness.
The Bridge of Sighs,
the Charles bridge,
the humpback canal
bridges of Amsterdam.

It is a long, shaky
bridge of compromise.
In the evening I wander
the streets of the city
along these frontiers of
our uncertain freedom.

Dennis Maloney is the editor and publisher of the widely respected White Pine Press in Buffalo, NY.  He is also a poet and translator.  His works of translation include:  The Stones of Chile by Pablo Neruda, The Landscape of Castile by Antonio Machado, Between the Floating Mist:  Poems of Ryokan, and The Poet and the Sea by Juan Ramon Jimenez.  A number of volumes of his own poetry have been published including The Map Is Not the Territory:  Poems & Translations and Just Enough.  His book, Listening to Tao Yuan Ming is forthcoming from Glass Lyre Press.  He divides his time between Buffalo, NY and Big Sur, CA.

A Poem by Kacper Niburski

Night Drools

Night drools
onto a day
that pisses onto
the night that was
different than the last
for the sun now splotches on the horizon
and tries to hide from the land,
or maybe just me,
while I search for my name
in the sky and in the
caramel colored clouds
forgetting the fluffs
do not know the alphabet
or that I wish
for messages in nature
to nurture my messages
instead of rain and thunder
that drowns all
eventually


Kacper Niburski doesn't want you to think he has made it, even though he's made it here and here has it made better than there where he currently is:  clawing through a Master's degree like an amateur and hiding creeping baldness with hats.  Find his work here:  https://kacperniburski.wordpress.com/