Jezabel Castillo is 17 years old from New York. She has been writing poetry for 5 years and strives to pursue her dream career of becoming a Published Poet
Gods Tears
by Jezabel Castillo
I have recurring
false dreams
where I find myself
to be the daughter
of winter.
Blood made of snow,
glacier shoulders,
polar bones,
just as tough
As hail rocks.
I, numbing the bites
by the frost of winds
piercing teeth.
I must possess
the power
of waves.
I shall interfere
with the velocity
of roaring melancholy.
What have I turned into?
Am I the reason
why gods tears
gives everyone rain?
###
Jezabel Castillo is 17 years old from New York. She has been writing poetry for 5 years and strives to pursue her dream career of becoming a Published Poet with her dedication to writing. She hopes to share her deep, emotional poetry with the world, as well as supporting an audience who can relate to her work.
AARON POOCHIGIAN earned a PhD in Classics from the University of Minnesota and an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University.
The Intersection
by Aaron Poochigian
One Wednesday in America at night
someone was in a pickup running, running
from wrong back there where nothing worked out right:
the hopes that bombed, the love that turned to shunning,
jail, juvie and a neonatal ward.
Sucked up into injustice, he ignored
all that his wide-eyed high beams brought to light.
Quail flickered, and abrupt mile markers grew
greener, then swooped into the past abaft.
A plastic bag lurched like a twisted kite.
A farm with barn and slaughterhouse, a raft
of lit efficiency, came passing through.
But these phantasmagoric waifs and ghostly
surprises surfaced harum-scarum. Mostly
the edgeline, white and wanting to be true,
drunkenly went about the brink it drew,
and center strips stitched contours as they dashed.
Such wonders failed to fetch our absentee.
Soon, though, a far-off nodding body flashed
a telltale yellow, a portentous code
that yanked him outward from his beef with life.
The omen spoke:
there was another road
approaching, an oblique trajectory
athwart the one that drove him. It would run,
with time, as main street through some center rife
with bars and diners, with the interplay
of known dead-ends and new things to be done.
Sure, there’d be more flush bosses grudging pay,
more bible-thumpers damning real fun,
more girls who won’t give you the time of day,
but it might be a change.
There was no one
to yield to, but he stopped there anyway.
###
AARON POOCHIGIAN earned a PhD in Classics from the University of Minnesota and an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University. His latest poetry collection, American Divine, the winner of the Richard Wilbur Award, came out in 2021. He has published numerous translations with Penguin Classics and W.W. Norton. His work has appeared in such publications as Best American Poetry, The Paris Review and POETRY.
John Frank Haugh’s writing has been published in storySouth, The North Carolina Literary Review, Notre Dame Magazine, Main Street Rag, Rat’s Ass Review, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere.
Pretty Lights
by John Frank Haugh
Pretty Lights Nine days left in his twenty-ninth year the Businessman
slips silent from Claustrophobia House. He climbs
shadows, stands on a darkened church roof.
Four hundred bucks, a bus ticket, a backpack with apple
& paperback. A long wool coat scratchy-sodden wet,
tight at shoulder and hip. I bought a birth certificate,
it carries a different name. Two cement block are three sixty two,
at Lowes. Pretty cars pass. I could leave my overpass note or river
bridge note as if jumping, then Greyhound. Walk on, consider.
Weight paper with cement or drop a block? I could almost take out
one of the lights streaming below, tonight. Block through glass
as they speed curves. Pretty cars drive by, unaware
John Frank Haugh’s writing has been published in storySouth, The North Carolina Literary Review, Notre Dame Magazine, Main Street Rag, Rat’s Ass Review, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. He won the 2022 Randall Jarrell Poetry Prize, was selected for Poetry in Plain Sight, a couple anthologies, and other things. Haugh lives in Greensboro North Carolina, was a good fencer once, and spends untold hours in bookstores like Scuppernong and Bookmarks. When not helping fix supply chain problems, walking, or napping, he works on his next book.
William Wiggins is an African American writer who is currently pursuing his Master’s in Psychology at the University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Life is Precious
by William Wiggins
Even as the night sighs,
I am enamored by the silence
of the trees. The leaves sleep
in the air as the boys
huddle closely together,
whispering of their fathers.
Fireflies hover in place
around us, barely glistening
as a woman rests her eyes
bedded with if.
Life—it’s still here.
Sometimes I forget.
But when there’s no more deer on the hill
or birds in the bush, we know they’re still,
too. Gone, but there. Waiting. Tomorrow,
the sun will rise, kissing the earth awake
and we’ll thank her with our being, our eating.
Nodding, I’d like to imagine
that there will be horses.
Some galloping, sweating with pride;
some sitting with the foal near the trees.
A gentle heat sliding through the leaves.
Or bees, buzzing by the flowers
as the boys sway in the field.
One humming, the other singing.
Or even, just the woman.
Sitting in the grass, shining.
And simply smiling.
###
William Wiggins is an African American writer who is currently pursuing his Master’s in Psychology at the University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has been writing poetry since July of 2022.
Nolo Segundo, pen name pof L.J.Carber, became a widely published poet only in his 8th decade in nearly 140 literary magazines in 10 countries and 3 trade book collections: The Enormity of Existence [2020], Of Ether and Earth [2021], and Soul Songs [2022]
The Low Hanging Sun
by Nolo Segundo
I went to take out the trash,
the good trash, glass and paper
destined for re-incarnation
and as I stepped outside,
the air cool and pearly white,
the low hanging sun smiles,
throws a late afternoon warmth
over my body, a blanket of silk.
For a moment I stopped to think,
then thanked the low hanging sun
for being there, the last defense
against a cold deep unto death….
In our immense Universe, wall-less,
ever expanding, is mostly night,
utter and fearsome darkness, all
pitch-black and cold, a coldness
beyond comprehension or life—
so the light and heat of every
myriad star is precious, precious….
Nolo Segundo, pen name pof L.J.Carber, became a widely published poet only in his 8th decade in nearly 140 literary magazines in 10 countries and 3 trade book collections: The Enormity of Existence [2020], Of Ether and Earth [2021], and Soul Songs [2022]. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, he’s a retired teacher [America, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia] who has been married 43 years to a smart and beautiful Taiwanese woman.
Larry D. Thomas, a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, was the 2008 Texas Poet Laureate. He has published several award-winning and critically acclaimed collections of poetry
The Shaman
by Larry D. Thomas
He gazes
with the eyes
of an ancient god.
For thousands
of years,
he’s seen
himself
as a sibling
of the beast
whose blood
and flesh
have nourished him.
He regales
his brow
with the plumes
of birds, which,
when darkness
falls, roost
in his skull
as dreams.
He wakes, rises
from his mat of straw,
and clothes himself
with his hallowed
robe of daybreak.
###
Larry D. Thomas, a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, was the 2008 Texas Poet Laureate. He has published several award-winning and critically acclaimed collections of poetry, most recently A Murder of Crows and Uncle Ernest, both of which were published by the Virtual Artists Collective, Chicago, in 2011 and 2013, respectively. His New and Selected Poems (Texas Christian University Press, 2008) was a semi-finalist for the National Book Award.
In the dark forest under the haze
absent the moon’s silvery rays,
when the night is black and still
the witches hold a blackbird’s quill.
THE WITCHES (for older children)
In the dark forest under the haze
absent the moon’s silvery rays,
when the night is black and still
the witches hold a blackbird’s quill.
They, merrily, jot down names
of naughty children
to beat them with disdain.
Their greenish eyes are frightful,
their ghostly hair quite dreadful.
They boil the bones of forest owls,
of hairy rats and ugly fowl,
in a large caldron as they cackle,
“Abracadabra, dung of a zebra,”
as Apollo rises from the shadows.
They cast their spells with horrid chants.
rousing frogs, toads and bats,
They aim to turn errant children,
into legions of moles and rats.
On guard, child, the witches prowl
and cast the spells I’d hate to see,
and in the morning, as you shower,
if you’re not careful, a toad you’ll be.
LAS BRUJAS (para niños grandes)
Es en el monte bajo la bruma,
donde no hay rastro de clara luna,
en lo más negro de la negrura,
están las brujas con una pluma.
Anotan, locas, los niños malos
para en la noche darles de palos.
Tienen los ojos verdes y raros
y los cabellos grises y ralos.
En una olla cuecen los huesos
de aves nocturnas de feo gesto;
“Abracadabra, barbas de cabra”
cantan las brujas venida el alba.
Encantar piensan a los incautos,
hipnotizando con su feo canto.
Ranas y sapos de niños malos
piensan hacerlos para su daño.
Cuídate, nene, que vienen brujas
a tu camita donde te arrullan
y en la mañana cuando te duchas
Sapo serás, si no me escuchas.
How long has it been, I wonder, since we’ve shared a cantaloupe?
Since I’ve stayed over night and gotten up early to sit with you?
Cantaloupes and Bananas
by Heather Terry
How long has it been, I wonder, since we’ve shared a cantaloupe?
Since I’ve stayed over night and gotten up early to sit with you?
You always rose at five in the morning, and I joined you at seven.
You called me papuga. It means parrot, you said. I called you papuga, too.
We used to sit on the kitchen step and you’d carve the fruit up for us.
You always used the same knife, black handle, flexible, serrated.
As I grew older, I was always surprised you fed the cantaloupe to me
from the tip of the knife. You never cut me. Not once.
When Nana woke up, you’d whisper “Nana Banana” and I’d giggle.
I’d run to her and give her a good morning hug.
Now I give her hugs for comfort, and I find I can’t remember
the last time I had a cantaloupe.
###
I am an English teacher, writer, photographer, gardener and devoted dog owner! I also enjoy sewing, archery and kayaking. It is my goal to build a writing career while continuing my work as an educator. I am also pursuing my Master of Arts in English at Kent State University and will graduate December 2015.
Please take off my watch
I won’t need time beyond the moment any longer
Followed by my earrings
There will be no one’s eye to catch,
No partner to impress
Slip off my shoes
Let me put my bare feet in the grass
One last time
Set my glasses for reading on the piles of books I’ll never get to
But stack my favorites near me
For they are among my closest friends
Wrap me in a sweater
In remembrance of those perfect chilly fall days
And take me outside
Let me feel the morning sun on my face
Unbutton my collar
Loosen my cuffs
That damn bra
I’ll need help with the clasp behind my back
Take off my belt
Lay all of these instruments of restraint aside
I will be restrained no longer
Why did I wait so long?
###
Gayle Kellner is a writer, an artist, a poet, and an educator. Her essays and poems have appeared in Utne Magazine, Orion Magazine, The Loop, The Beachcomber, and The Nature of an Island. She is currently a regular guest on Voice of Vashon’s community radio program The Brown Briefly hosted by retired reporter and editor of Time Magazine Brian Brown. Gayle also works as a professional artist. Her paintings have been shown on Vashon Island at the Blue Heron Center for the Arts and the Barnworks. Her work in stone has been shown at the International Museum of the Horse in Lexington Kentucky.
Gayle currently lives on Vashon Island where she is pursuing her continued interests in writing and art. She spends her days now rising with the sun; to write, read poetry and history, tend her chickens and her garden, paint in her boathouse studio, and walk the shores and woodlands that surround her island home.
Adrian Slonaker works as a copywriter and copy editor in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. Adrian’s work has appeared in Aberration Labyrinth, Squawk Back, The Bohemyth, Queen Mob’s Tea House, Pangolin Review and others.
The End of Winter
by Adrian Slonaker
In the early eighties
when we still believed in the coming Ice Age
as much as we trusted in Pac-Man’s ghostkilling capabilities,
frigid Great Lakes winters were the norm,
with Himalayas of snow sloping onto
sinister ice patches where you could
slip and split your Jordaches,
if not your head.
Plunging wind chills be damned,
recess was still held outside
while our unseen teacher likely cradled
a much-needed cigarette
between mittened fingers.
One Thursday afternoon,
between king-of-the-mountain challenges,
Traci-
the girl-with-the-pixie-cut-and-the-runny-nose-and-the-Garfield-backpack-
invited me to follow her
past the shivering Jennifers exhaling
hopscotch hymns through
chattering teeth
and under obscenely naked maples
to an outdoor crawlspace
between the scratchy red brick of
the weatherbeaten school façade and
a big khaki-colored mechanical thinggummy
that radiated heat.
Here in this gap
was the world’s smallest microclimate,
with thaw rather than Thule,
and pointing to the preposterous purple flowers
among tenacious tufts of grass,
Traci concluded, “it’s spring here.”
I don’t remember whether Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow that year,
but I was convinced I knew
where the seasons changed.
###
Adrian Slonaker works as a copywriter and copy editor in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. Adrian’s work has appeared in Aberration Labyrinth, Squawk Back, The Bohemyth, Queen Mob’s Tea House, Pangolin Review and others.
Kika Dorsey is a poet in Boulder, Colorado, and lives with her two children, husband, and Border Collie. She wakes up every morning and crafts poetry out of dreams, myths, her body, and her travels.
Your Fallow Fingers
by Kika Dorsey
Your days fall into grass and fallen suns,
no man as broken and careless as you.
So many days I felt burnt and done,
while stars stood in place and the moon ensued
its sinking truth. Autumn strips the land
of green and geese, body defeated earth.
On the shore children mold turtles out of sand
from fire you flung from skies to melt and birth
the glass that only I can break. My hips
a red hum and the garden sleeps, rests
its weary ghost, while I trace red, your lips
to build a castle, where I reach up to wrest
the weapon from your large, loud embrace,
your fallow fingers, your sun’s shattered face.
###
Kika Dorsey is a poet in Boulder, Colorado, and lives with her two children, husband, and Border Collie. She wakes up every morning and crafts poetry out of dreams, myths, her body, and her travels. While finishing her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature in Seattle, Washington, she performed her poetry with musicians and artists. Her poems have been published in The Denver Quarterly, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, The Comstock Review, Freshwater,The Columbia Review, among numerous other journals and books. . Her collection of poems, Beside Herself , was published by Flutter Press. Her full-length collection, Rust, came out with Word Tech Editions in 2016. Her forthcoming book, Coming Up For Air, comes out in 2018. She is an adjunct instructor of English at Front Range Community College. When not writing or teaching, she taxis her teenagers to activities, swims miles in pools, and runs and hikes in the open space of Colorado’s mountains and plains.
Robert Ronnow’s most recent poetry collections are New & Selected Poems: 1975-2005 (Barnwood Press, 2007) and Communicating the Bird (Broken Publications, 2012). Visit his web site at www.ronnowpoetry.com.
Something
by Robert Ronnow
Something created. Does the creator think ahead
or spill a storm. Rain happens. We supply the
reasons. Evaporation of water collecting over
huge expanses, condensed and pushed as clouds
over the land. We say it makes us sad or depressed.
We want to cry.
You describe the America you know and if you
are ashamed of yourself for what you see, you lie.
Or don’t look. Loud noises of automobiles and
fumes. Today in Riverside Park, leaning on a rail,
the dead leaves and snow reminded me how far
from nature and life I am. The snow blew
in from the west. People passed in a smooth
slow line in front of me. Dogs trailing one
another. People hiding until crises bring them
out. Their dog smells another dog between the legs.
The master runs over to stop him. Maybe he
thinks they’re going to fight. Doesn’t want his
big German shepherd to hurt her dachshund.
Guy runs past in gray sweats on his tip-toes.
Glances at me. Another passes in blue sweats. Looks
longer. They think I’m a mugger. They are not
sexually attracted. I’m an opponent. I want something
they have. I look surly. Why aren’t I out
running, disciplining myself, making myself healthy,
doing something. What brings you out here. You’re not
doing anything but watching us and staring at the ground.
Walking down Broadway I realized I’ve never lived here and still don’t. Two women
window shopping is strange to me. They talk about the clothes. They are friends. I slow down, I
don’t feel so cold. Stroll, looking at people is like a sunny day and it’s a carnival. Streets
different in different weather. Rainy nights are good. Cold rainy nights. Bars filled and warm.
Streets empty and cold. People pass and look as members of a fraternity. They need someone and
don’t hide it. They will try anyone out for one night. They have tea together. They go for a drink
in some neutral place. They go straight to bed in the dark. They can’t see the face.
###
Robert Ronnow’s most recent poetry collections are New & Selected Poems: 1975-2005 (Barnwood Press, 2007) and Communicating the Bird (Broken Publications, 2012). Visit his web site at www.ronnowpoetry.com.
O Captain my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up–for you the flag is flung for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
The summer has ended,
Peppermint men with alstormeric bouquets
And lavendar women hiding it under their arms,
leaving the scented breeze as their ransom note.
the tiny hairs creeping from the crease
of their underarms (that their mothers never told
them to shave) reeling back in the summer
never forget the face
Wandering through empty
creeks rocks and stones
the souls against the padding
under worn feet. Prayer for a flood
That Noah never knew,
to watch the veins slowly fill
Within the creek
stream through, overflowing to drown
out the sound of autumn’s shrill
winter’s chill. But still smelling lavender
and peppermint: that september holding on as
The sun dragging itself across
the floor, leaving a blood-stained path against the sky.
Ashley Farley is a Rochester based poet, finishing up her senior year in The College at Brockport for her B.S. in English Literature. Ashley has been passionate about writing for most of her life, her first published piece of writing being from when she was 11 years old. She has had work published in Poppy Road Review and forthcoming in Calamus Journal, Leaves of Ink, Strange Poetry, and Amaryllis Poetry. Ashley was also the recipient of the Calvin Rich Poetry Award. She plans to continue her passion in all things English, and hopes to one day live on the beach and write children’s books.
Milenko Županović was born in 1978 in Kotor (Montenegro). By profession he is a graduate marine engineer, but in his free time, he writes poetry and short stories. His stories and poems have been published by many magazines, blogs and websites, mostly in the Europe, U.S. and in Latin America.
Monastery of Silence
by Milenko Županović
Priest every night
says a prayer
near the church
with the blue dome,
in a dream
music the last time
an unnamed grave
silence echoes
before sleep
strange visions
music dreams
enigma forever
at the door
garden full of flowers
through the light
of faith
the music of the past
through dreams
reaching out to him
with a cross
in his hands
a requiem for
forgiveness
an unknown grave,
dream prayers
light in centuries.
###
Milenko Županović was born in 1978 in Kotor (Montenegro). By profession he is a graduate marine engineer, but in his free time, he writes poetry and short stories. His stories and poems have been published by many magazines, blogs and websites, mostly in the Europe, U.S. and in Latin America.
In 2010 he wrote and published his first book, a collection of stories, and he also written and published few collections of poems (ebooks).
In 2015 he wrote and published his second book , a collection of stories and poetry.
In 2016 he wrote his third book , a collection of poetry (published in USA, project ”Poems for all”)
His book ”Martiri”was published in italian language.
Milenko is an ethnic Croat and lives in the town of Kotor (Montenegro) with his wife and 3 sons.
