I love to see a parking lot being
reclaimed by the weeds,
when it becomes
In Defense of Ruin
by Joshua Converse
I love to see a parking lot being
reclaimed by the weeds,
when it becomes
Defiant of asphalt and stone.
-The yellow dandelions
push up through the cracks
with joined voices of
silent
patient
rebellion.
###
Joshua Converse was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and grew up on a horse farm in Louisiana. He spent 4 years in the U.S. Army and deployed to the Middle East during the war. He holds an AA in English and a BA in Literature, and continues working toward an MA as a grad student at San Francisco State University. He lives in Monterey, CA with his wife and their children.
inamorata of the deep
frozen into their thousand-year dreams,
feed wryly upon one another.
She Lounges Hungrily
by Sy Roth
inamorata of the deep
frozen into their thousand-year dreams,
feed wryly upon one another.
champagne remembrances,
asexual canoodling
and noisy their pomposity
accompanied by a cacophonic ocean.
this passel of blue mussels
are adrift on their final ocean.
In their bunkers of rotting plaster
and heroic busts,
the lovers rattle old sabers
fusty with the weight of their incarceration,
musky relics that she will wrest from them.
bunker tunnels echo with their ancient thoughts
tattooed on deadened lips.
last dances as they cavort on tables,
amid lusty wishes of forgetfulness.
their illusions rocked by boomlets,
baying soldiers,
and armies that raze the living into fetid mounds.
unabashed adoration remains scattered
in the silence of abandonment.
they prepare themselves for the meal the world must have
while she lounges hungrily in a corner.
loss lazes like a grimy dish rag on a spent stove.
###
Retired after forty-two years as teacher/school administrator, he now resides in Mount Sinai, far from Moses and the tablets. This has led him to find words for solace. He spends his time writing and playing his guitar. He has published in Visceral Uterus, Amulet, BlogNostics, Every Day Poets, Barefoot Review, Haggard and Halloo, Misfits Miscellany, Larks Fiction Magazine, Danse Macabre, Bitchin Kitch, Bong is Bard, Humber Pie, Poetry Super Highway, Penwood Review, Masque Publications, Foliate Oak, Miller’s Pond Poetry, The Artistic Muse, Word Riot, Samizdat Literary Journal, Right Hand Pointing, The Screech Owl, Epiphany, Red Poppy Review, Big River, Poehemians, Nostrovia Poetry’s Milk and Honey, Siren, Palimpsest, Dead Snakes, Euphemism, Humanimalz Literary Journal, Ascent Aspirations, Fowl Feathered Review, Vayavya and Kerouac’s Dog.
She’s sitting on his bed,
Can’t remember the deaf or the blind,
The souvenir of illo tempore is lost
With her once at his forgotten side,
Summer Return
by Mihaela Tudor
She’s sitting on his bed,
Can’t remember the deaf or the blind,
The souvenir of illo tempore is lost
With her once at his forgotten side,
Holding hands
Like marbles trying to sculpture fire
within the sleepy wind
She’s now in the dim light,
Drinking a summer transgressed return.
Do you remember? Once your words dropped silent
And eyes drew wings,
Acoustic honey strings
And purples of wine
On this skin;
Do you remember? Once you made love to the mirror,
Emerald scent burning my breast
While nailed in the corner
Do you remember? Once you played the Alchemist,
Turning me into an ephemerid
Feeding her the never coming morrow
She’s sitting on his bed,
hands frozen in frames,
She can’t remember the deaf or the blind,
Acoustic honey strings
Flowing onto the skin;
Solitary violin on a shelf;
Naked,
in a transgressed summer return.
###
Mihaela Tudor comes from Romania but currently she works as an English lecturer at University of Hail in Saudi Arabia. She previously published flash fiction on www.orionheadless.com (“The Rhapsody of Thoughts”) and in The Battered Suitcase on www.vagabondagepress.com (“Les Reveries d un Promeneur Plus Solitaire”)
your lips,
cut like razors,
tap dancing on inapt destinies.
Cheers to(o)
by Terceira A. Molnar
your lips,
cut like razors,
tap dancing on inapt destinies.
kissing stranger’s breathy syntax,
a grammatical witch hunt.
Cheers to nothing.
Your lips are nothing to(o)
life’s little slivers biting
into human husk,
the skin of my words.
So salute to nothing
Existing long before you.
Long before you knew,
you were taught, your ABCs
and 1 + 1 doesn’t equal \too\.
Cheers to the next time
our eyes shake hands.
When my smile is so loud,
it bursts your ear drums.
You go deaf
with happiness.
###
Terceira A. Molnar currently lives in Manitowoc, WI. Her work has appeared in University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s undergraduate literary arts magazine, Furrow, in Lakeland College’s literary journal, Stoneboat, and in Inlightenment: Discovering the Sacred Within ezine.
To give my thought a body
I choose a corps de ballet
I’d have it dance
excogitate acrobatic tricks
see it dancing about on the air
I’d create suitable tools to enable it
strengthen its intuitions
an athletic corps endowed with poetic ripples
hither and thither peepin’n the show
enormously increasin’n bubbles of trasparency
to reach the transfigured tumult of the audience
which coreographer has this very power
###
Carla Paolini lives and works as a writer in Cremona. She attended University and graduated in Italian Letters with a research on the Rethoric through Images in Advertising.
For some years she cultivated a keen interest in the studying of clay moulding techniques. Her interest in poetry goes back to her early teens.
She contributes to the organization of reading sessions held in libraries, bookshops and other artistic circles, together with poets, musicians, painters and photographers. She also devotes her time to projects for varied cultural events.
She was present at the poetic Bunker edited by Marco Nereo Rotelli for the Biennale di Venezia held in June 2001. She won recognition as a poet at Premio di Poesia Lorenzo Montano for literary researches advertised by the Anterem Journal – Verona. She published short stories and poems on anthologies and reviews And the poetic compendiums: Impronte digitali (1993); Diverso inverso (1995); UNAxUNA (1998); Ai cancelli del flusso (2001); Amori diversi (2002); Modulati (2004); Prosemi (2009); Internectasie (2011).
Down the steep drop-off to sea
without plummeting.
Patterns
by John Sibley Williams
Down the steep drop-off to sea
without plummeting.
Returned by thermals and sweat to the sky
without rising.
Each following the lost one before it,
thirteen sandpipers and their aluminum streaks
write one word for me in the air
and at the same time
erase it.
###
John Sibley Williams is the author of six chapbooks, winner of the HEART Poetry Award, and finalist for the Pushcart, Rumi, and The Pinch Poetry Prizes. He has served as Acquisitions Manager of Ooligan Press and publicist for various presses and authors, and holds an MFA in Creative Writing and MA in Book Publishing. A few previous publishing credits include: Inkwell, Bryant Literary Review, Cream City Review, The Chaffin Journal, The Evansville Review, RHINO, Rosebud, and various anthologies. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
His gift to me: a concealed mirage in an urban wasteland,
tucked away behind Taco Bell and a 76.
Comic Book Fantasy
by SMC Wamsteker
His gift to me: a concealed mirage in an urban wasteland,
tucked away behind Taco Bell and a 76.
On a dark corner a black door a hidden entrance with a faceless bouncer.
We enter a delicious department of hell
My company two useless men who just closed a nervous deal.
(Once inside they turn into snakes)
Out of the crevices of the underworld you crawl
You cropped seraph with your alcohol-swollen lips
The moving walls release you like a birth and you
Materialize among the mass of powdered hermaphrodites,
Your naked skin still moist from the recent partus.
Feline eyes green like insect blood
Hook me without words but with a broken promise.
I get drunk with the brief taste of your absinthe lips
And nothing remains but lust in a sea of heated despondency.
Helium headed I want to drink you up, my Manga girl
but instead, I kiss you once
then lose you
Forever
I have come back too often,
like a dog in heat picking up a bodiless scent,
looking for the door ever since, but in vain.
All I see is a blind breathing wall on another lost corner
of my life,
that I lost the moment I chose to leave with him.
On the outside, I smile.
I socialize,
I laugh,
I have a good time…
And most of the time,
It works.
On the inside, I cry.
I worry,
I wonder,
I feel hopeless and afraid…
And most of the time,
It hurts.
On the outside, I sing.
I am strong,
I love,
I’m determined…
And most of the time,
It works.
On the inside, I mourn.
I contain,
I maintain,
I cage anger and fear…
And most of the time,
It hurts.
On the outside, I dance.
I’m alive,
I ignite,
I focus on the pieces
That haven’t been broken.
And you know what?
Most of the time,
It works.
###
Jennifer-Crystal Johnson is originally from Germany, but was raised all over. She has published one novella under her former last name, The Outside Girl: Perception is Reality (Publish America, 2005 – this will be out of print in 2013), a poetry book, Napkin Poetry (Broken Publications, 2010), and a collection of poetry, art, and prose called Strangers with Familiar Faces (Broken Publications, 2011). Her poem, Yin & Yang, was featured on Every Writer’s Resource’s Poem a Day site. One of her short stories, The Clinic, has been featured in Jack Meets Jill, and her short horror story, The Huntress, has been featured in Zombie Coffee Press. Her poetry has appeared in various anthologies including Theatre of the Mind (Noble House, 2003) and Invoking the Muse (Noble House, 2004). She currently works as the Managing Editor for Phati’tude Literary Magazine published by the IAAS, freelance writer and editor, and is working toward a degree in creative writing. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her 3 kids and four cats. Her annual domestic violence anthology can be found at www.soulvomit.com and her publishing company is Broken Publications: www.brokenpublications.com. As of January 1st, 2013, a new literary magazine will be published every 2 months, beginning in February. The site is still under construction, but the magazine will be titled Chronicles [insert story here]. Her author web site can be found at www.jennifercrystaljohnson.com.
The milk you gave me was skim. I wanted two percent, I would’ve even taken one.
2% Milk
by Amanda Wall
The milk you gave me was skim. I wanted two percent, I would’ve even taken one.
But skim milk makes the grass bend down and it never lets the leaves fall.
It puts me in a congested alley.
But two percent you see,
it puts me in a small cabin on an orchard where apples are so bountiful, I can stand on my toes and reach them through our kitchen window.
Two percent is sweet wine and kisses in the garden, public for all to see, but private because it’s just you and me.
Two percent is you and me together, nothing separating us, nothing stopping me from stretching me to you, nothing stopping the connection.
Two percent is leaves falling on us at our wedding, two percent is our bed of leaves that night. Two percent is my gift to you.
Pale mountains in the examining room
Scoops of ice cream from the A & P
Cold and hard peaks, like your utensils
Something She Feels
by Marissa Dubecky
Pale mountains in the examining room
Scoops of ice cream from the A & P
Cold and hard peaks, like your utensils
Soft but treated roughly.
It’s just part of the practice
The way we get answers
The way we get what we want
The way the machines are wired
The way he is wired.
There is nothing here that anyone would yearn for
Just a body being tested
Being tugged and told
If you relax you won’t feel it
It won’t hurt if you just relax
Relax.
Fluorescent lights ruin any romance
There are no gentle curves
No secrets or subtleties
The goal is too clear
And the Latex between us to keep both of us clean
Both of us separate
It’s all that we will know.
###
Marissa Dubecky is a recent college graduate from the University of Connecticut with a degree in English Literature and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She has been pursuing creative writing for many years, and this is her first publication. To read more of her writing, visit marissaaletawords.tumblr.com
Much noise there is
when two sprightly streams
bump into each other, bringing forth
At the Confluence and Beyond
by Haris Adhikari
Much noise there is
when two sprightly streams
bump into each other, bringing forth
the hidden color of water
What do they churn out of themselves?
I wonder
I wonder
what a spiritual ecstasy springs forth
from their acts of declining
hurls and hugs
into an inebriated river
with a slow
and serene motion!
I wonder
I wonder
about their deepening depths that leave
green reflections behind.
###
Haris Adhikari is from Nepal. He holds an MA in English and American literature from Tribhuvan University. He is a lecturer of English and edits Misty Mountain Review, an online journal of short poetry. His first poetry anthology, Flowing with a River, was published by The Society of Nepali Writers in English (NWEN). Currently, he is working on That Distant Lane, a chapbook of children’s poetry. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in London Grip New Poetry, Red Fez Journal, Buddhist Poetry Review, Cyclamens and Swords Publishing, The Citron Review, The Rusty Nail Magazine, Mad Swirl, Red Box Kite, Of Nepalese Clay, The Enchanting Verses Literary Review, Message in a Bottle, Lyrical Passion Poetry, Essence Poetry & Yes, Poetry.
think of warm baked bread
melting butter with crunchy crust
think of casseroles one after the other
Comfort Food
by Jean Varda
think of warm baked bread
melting butter with crunchy crust
think of casseroles one after the other
coming out of the oven
deserts baking steamy with
berries peaches custard whipped cream
think of ice cream summer
how it cools down your mouth
coffee flavored chocolate chips
think of salad
chopping radishes cucumber carrots
crunch of romaine lettuce
adding chunks of cheese
smell of vinegar and oil
think of breakfast
scrambled eggs toast
hot tea jam home fries
morning sun warming the table cloth
breakfast served in cafes
think of romantic evenings
pasta and crunchy garlic bread
wine Parmesan cheese
###
Jean Varda’s poetry has appeared in: The California Quarterly, The Berkeley Poetry Review, Illya’s Honey, Daybreak, The Lucid Stone, Poetry Motel, The Santa Fe Sun, Rive Guache, Manzanita, Poetry & Prose of the Mother Lode & Sierra, Avocet A Journal of Nature Poetry and Nurturing Paws by Whispering Angel Books. She has published 5 chapbooks of poetry, most recently, Carved from Light and Shadow, by Sacred Feather Press. She teaches a poetry writing class. MC.d three open mics and hosted a poetry radio show on KVMR Nevada City,CA.
Refinishing the round oak table
refinished twenty years ago
I stroke the grain so gently
the pattern gets under my skin.
Refinishing the Round Oak Table
by William Doreski
Refinishing the round oak table
refinished twenty years ago
I stroke the grain so gently
the pattern gets under my skin.
Once inside me it elaborates
in shades only painters delicate
as Vermeer can catch. Others
might render it as crudely
as Freud’s sexual fantasies,
crosscutting feathery chevrons
and roughing minutely the surface.
I plaster chemical stripper
onto lathe-turned legs and wait
while it loosens finish I applied
when young enough to taste and smell
these chemicals with a pleasure
only reckless young men enjoy.
Now they alienate mucus membranes
and pucker the backs of my hands.
While the slather works I wash
and rub lotion into my wounds.
How sad. I yank on latex gloves
and return to work. With paper towels
I remove the stripper and expose
raw oak as the acorn made it.
Repeat and repeat till the table
gleams naked as adolescence.
Now a matte natural finish
brushed on so neatly not one
drip troubles even the complex
turning of the legs. If I live
another twenty years I’ll redo
this table again, resolving
all the sexual metaphors
that have lingered beyond their use.
###
William Doreski teaches at Keene State College in New Hampshire. His most recent books of poetry are City of Palms and June Snow Dance, both 2012. He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors. His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in many journals, including Massachusetts Review, Atlanta Review, Notre Dame Review, The Alembic, New England Quarterly, Worcester Review, Harvard Review, Modern Philology, Antioch Review, and Natural Bridge.
Sometimes
I just disappear
into the patterns
of the tablecloth
and wallpaper
and at other times
I am the floral
centerpiece
sometimes I
am the embarrassing
coffee stain
but sometimes
I am the
vintage wine
sometimes
I am the
apple cider
of your eyes
and then
suddenly
I am as far
away as
the man on the
quarter moon
taking a cold
meteor shower
a sight only
a geek
with a telescope
would be
interested in
and sometimes
you give me
one hundred
percent of your
attention
and I am
a crowned
prince of
infinite
possibilities
and ruler
of your smile
###
Ivan Jenson’s Absolut Jenson painting was featured in Art News, Art in America, and Interview magazine. His art has sold at Christie’s, New York. His poems have appeared in Word Riot, Zygote in my Coffee, Camroc Press Review, Haggard and Halo, Poetry Super Highway, Mad Swirl, Underground Voices Magazine, Blazevox, and many other magazines, online and in print. Jenson is also a Contributing Editor for Commonline magazine. Ivan Jenson’s debut novel Dead Artist is available as a paperback and on Amazon Kindle and Nook. His new novel a psychological thriller entitled Seeing Soriah is now available as an eBook or in Paperback on Amazon.
