Montana Sunrise

by Tim Dyson

You do not know her, not really
Nor do I, neither did the men
Who took her and did whatever
Bestial strangers do to fleshy things

One sneaker found at the edge
Of the small, once-safe town
Two pitiless killers guzzling a beer
Somewhere in western North Dakota

Local authorities will do the Christian things
Permitted underneath the Big Sky
And many of the private militia guys
Will wonder why she went out unarmed

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Tim Dyson is a retired corp HR pro, living in SE Pa. with beautiful spouse of thirty years, many poems published over last few months including two nominated for 2011 Pushcart.

"Lone Doorway" by R Edwards, Click to buy this piece, support our site.

HAI!

by: Susan Elliott

Evenings here, Konichiwa!
The gajin came to town.

Itadakimasu opens.
Serving ocha all around.

Itame holds in his hand
suribachi, surikogi.

While geta waits till orders up,
Una-don, norimaki, ebi.

Omakase for best friends
tazuna rolls, sashimi.

Futomaki won’t be enough
the gajin still are hungry.

Yum, Yum, so good hai?
Okonomi, ocha more?

Domo arigato,domo.
Gochiso-sama, sure!

###

Susan Elliott is a poet and fiction writer. Her works have been published in Visions, Poesia, and Christian Woman Magazine. She operates Susan’s Poetic Blogosphere and recently published her first two collections of poetry, “Wandering Through a Barely Functional Mind,” and “Inkblots on Paper.” Susan enjoys participating in poetry lectures and giving public readings.

My Website: http://susanspoeticblogosphere.blogspot.com/

Equarium Èstrange

by Dr. Narendra Kumar Arya

Around the lame-lit fogginess
Dark figures are swimming
They have the heads
Eyes too
Lips and nose intact as well’
But faces from their beings are missing.

Their bodies are jumbling into each other
Changing identities perversely
As if floating in oblivion;
So close
As dead fishes in an rotten equarium
Piles of piles, pliant , lumpish
And their identities
Like the nasty bubbles that
on the surfaces
Get completely lost.

###

Born at Moradabad (UP)and educated at Banaras Hindu University ,Varanasi in disciplines of Politics and Management; obtained Doctorate on Globalisation and its Impact on sovereignty of India. Writes in English and Hindi.Poems and articles published in various Magazines and Periodicals.

A Patriarchally Deteriorating Company Versus “Don’t Go Policy”

 by Sarah Gamutan

Superiors stuck in corridors, half blind to us
wee subservient women – true, weird. So, they
suck fries in their mouths and put some locks
on the door, as if they are hard to reach? Some

documents signed and all I see is crevice. Gag.
I always say no. Floors which are of the same
color are only cleaned by company’s old vacuum.

We are like slugs crawling on the floor of red carpet
which turns from puce to bloody red when we jester
like baby dinosaurs knocking on their doors and

grabbing their shirts named after our superhero.
We hope our boss doesn’t lose his normative
characteristics so he can still sign autographs

to us fanatics of his piggy swagger and smirk.
Fine. I want to include my daughter to our street
protest. At times, we need some man in the house.

###
Sarah Gamutan’s poems have been published in many online literary journals including Carty’s Poetry Journal, Western Australia Poets Inc., The Beat, Haggard and Halloo, The Camel Saloon, Rainbow Rose and The Sound of Poetry Review. She lives in Philippines where she works as a Customer Support Associate by night and a poet at heart by day.She aims to earn a degree in creative writing soon.

Freda Kahlo’s Cry

by Laura Solomon

Today the ghost of me attended
My own exhibition at the Tate Modern.

All those paintings on display,
The ones that I laboured over for so long.

The sickening part was the merchandise.
Coffee mugs, calendars, prints, clocks –
all with either me or one of my paintings thereupon.
Somebody’s making a pretty packet –
and during my lifetime, I was as poor as a church mouse,
living hand to mouth.

At least I have achieved a form of immortality.
I hang on many walls.

Nobody ever seems to bear in mind,
the price I paid during my lifetime;
my nerves of steel –
my shattered spine.

###

Laura Solomon has an honours degree in English Literature (Victoria University, 1997) and a Masters degree in Computer Science ( University of London , 2003). Her books include ‘Black Light’, ‘Nothing Lasting’, ‘Alternative Medicine’, ‘An Imitation of Life’, ‘Instant Messages’, ‘The Theory of Networks’, ‘Operating Systems’, ‘Hilary and David’, ‘In Vitro’ and ‘The Shingle Bar Taniwha and Other Stories’. She has won prizes in Bridport, Edwin Morgan, Ware Poets, Willesden Herald, Mere Literary Festival, Proverse Hong Kong and Essex Poetry Festival competitions and was short-listed for the Virginia Prize. She has had work accepted in the Edinburgh Review and Wasafiri (UK), Takahe and Landfall (NZ).

Child Among Metal Sculptures

by DWE Scott

Roll the metal sculptures out;
Shake out their gnarled limbs;
Loosen their terrible torsos;
Let the air be filled with horrible clankings;
Let it grow rank with sulphur smells
And be splattered with blue bruises and yellow flames.

True they scare the children,
But the tortured faces are necessary I’m afraid
And digestible if spied from the laced shadows
Under the trees of a bright afternoon.

Unfold your hand dear one
And you will find in it the curled nature of all beginnings,
Pink and shy,
Longing, perhaps, for the absence of light.
The boy’s copper hair is like a mist covered sun,
Such a bold red to be exhibited before these consuming engines.
Keep him back here, behind us,
Where his eyes, round as moons,
Can examine the grass and bits of stick, his playthings.

Ours are gone now,
But this boy, see how grave he is, see his pale, shining skin.
No human heart can resist him,
None can avoid becoming victims of his loveliness, his beauty.

###

I live in Winnipeg, Manitoba in the same house I have been living in for thirty years. I am married with grown children. I paint and write short stories as well as write poetry.

I publish a blog – www.storiesdwescott.blogspot .com

A Day at the Office

by Mark Kerstetter

Boggled.
Paper stacked beneath a box of pencils,
paint hardened in tubes,
images not rendered fill mental
picture frames like engorged
intestines.
A perimeter of nails, now rusty,
encapsulates the unreliable frames.
A pummeled palmetto bug drags itself
out of the dust only to
halt in the dead
center where
apples tumble
back onto
the tree.

###

 Mark Kerstetter steals time away from restoring an old house in Florida to write and make art out of wood salvaged from demolition sites. His poems and stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Jerry Jazz Musician, Unlikely 2.0, Evergreen Review and other journals. He is the former poetry editor of Escape into Life and blogs as The Bricoleur

Paper Birches

by Glen Sorestad

The clump birches
beside the lakeshore
are slowly peeling off
their papery attire
like well-practised
lovers intent
on sustaining that
delicate tension
between fantasy
and reality.

###

Glen Sorestad is a much published poet with over 20 books of poems. His poems have been translated into a half-dozen languages and have appeared in scores of literary magazines, over 50 anthologies and textbooks, and on numerous literary websites. Sorestad lives in Saskatoon on the Canadian prairies. His latest book of poems, A Thief of Impeccable Taste, is a bilingual, English/Spanish volume published by Sand Crab Books(2011).