Issue 2 brings together a diverse collection of poems from around the world, exploring themes of love, loss, memory and the human condition. From reflections on personal experience to commentary on nature and society, this issue delves into both quiet moments and broader existential questions. With voices that span continents, these poems invite readers to engage with the complexities of life in all its forms. Happy reading!
The Fourth Room from the Lift
She lies on her back
with the chiselled tautness of an effigy,
eyes wide open,
her door quickly passed,
a chill
in the blanketing overheat of the home,
a crack in the glass,
jagged
against the smudge
of the other softer
seated
befuddlements.
I glimpse her most days,
practising death,
a stretch of neatness,
the television on and unwatched
in a room too bright
as her rigor mortis is
perfected.
Only once was she kinked
upright in bed,
eating
unaided,
her movement reluctant,
wholly mechanical.
A blue dressing-gowned
clock hand,
detached
and daily left flat
on top of a duvet
without numbers to mark
or minutes to count.
His professional life mainly spent working with the terminally ill, Julian Cason lives in Cardiff. He has been published in namely Envoi, Nine Muses and The Starbeck Orion. Julian also co-won the Black Bough New Simile Competition.
Pilgrims
So many crossed the dunes
like seasons or recurring night.
As if just walking on would
bring them light or grace.
Creatures of small variations
who bend and die like grasses.
One can’t see wishes in the traces,
how tall, how fierce the walking was.
Their losses lie below the moon
like white dust on an altar.
Working with the “Activist” group of poets in the San Francisco Bay Area, USA, Patricia Nelson is a retired attorney whose fifth book of poetry, Monster Monologues, is due out from Fernwood Press in December 2024.
Jennifer’s Visit
I sit at a white kitchen table, drawing a dog’s portrait. Chrome fixtures, white walls and between-spaces to rest the eyes. Flowers with balloons, tonight’s party. I’m drawing dog portraits for this rescue fundraiser. My colored pencils scatter rainbows across the cool white table top. Jennifer bursts through the door, arms loaded. Dangling bags. That girl. She never could wait, “I can’t wait for...” her birthday, Christmas, graduation. Sun-haloed, she strides into the middle of a sentence. As if we hadn’t not seen each other in seven years. As if I hadn’t laid my heart down in her driveway. “Stop.” I say.
“Hello.” My eyes capture her wings. Pencils clatter to the floor. I shove back from the table, pull her into my arms. Hello, you. She smells like sheets dried in the wind. No surprise, no relief, just her bones beneath her clothes, colorful as pencils yellow and glowing. Tips sharp enough to rip through paper.
A 2016/18 Pushcart nominee, 2018 Independent Book Award winner, 2024 runner-up of Northwind Writing Awards, Rachael Ikins is the author/artist of 13 books. Her cats remain unimpressed with this and will sit on the keyboard if she works past their mealtimes. Her artwork has appeared in NYC, Paris, France and Washington DC.
Autumn Moth
Dark. Glass window. Flickering brown moth
with a skeleton, appears. Colder indoors
not a day we heat the house
no one has chopped firewood.
We wrap ourselves in quilts, watch TV: recount
childhood summers, catching spinning insects
under mercury-yellowish streetlights
As for moths, they are just powder, just butterflies in disguise.
It’s said they’ll burn freckles on your face
proof that combustion is granular coldness.
Are there white eggs embedded on its back?
It inserts a straw deep into the window glass, to drink the bright light,
eyes larger than its head, blank, focused,
craving bread crusts and tattered cotton fluff.
A moment of panic as if drowsiness struck—
it will spin with the cooling planet, the years and the withered trees,
keep spinning, when the house finally empties
like a thin cocoon, swaying on dark branches.
Born in 1964, Ma Yongbo has published over eighty original works and translations since 1986 included 7 poetry collections. He focused on translating and teaching Anglo-American poetry and prose including the work of Dickinson, Whitman, Stevens, Pound, Williams and Ashbery. He recently published a complete translation of Moby Dick, which has sold over half a million copies. He teaches at Nanjing University of Science and Technology. The Collected Poems of Ma Yongbo (four volumes, Eastern Publishing Centre, 2024) comprising 1178 poems celebrate 40 years of writing poetry.
through the looking glass
She turned the page of the borrowed book
Only to see the calculation scribbled from the story itself
And she wondered how many hands have turned these pages before
Anne-Marie O’Brien started her writing journey in San Francisco, shortly after graduating from university. She has since written many poems on love, relationships, choice, discovery, mental health, nature in America, Australia, Ireland and London, inspired by her travels and worldly experiences. Anne-Marie is also an avid actor, having performed in theatre and film in Ireland, Melbourne and London.
Dazzled
The gift arrived on a horse of darkness
at night over the road of bronze
before the snow, before the white:
the shimmering layer of ice.
Brought as raindrops on a saddle of gray
and flung down upon us like jewels,
before the snow came these glimmers of light,
coats of incredible shine.
The trees with their branches all iced and dramatic
stood still as statues to show their art
as the sun rose slowly not to bring such heat
that could banish the gift, send it running.
I love the freeze as I love the rain
as I cherish the snow and the bare-limbed trees,
this season is beauty like no other I know,
brilliant, breath-catching and mine, be-dazzled.
Widely published, most recently in Time of Singing, Main Street Rag, and When a Woman Tells the Truth, Cleo Griffith has been on the editorial staff of Song of the San Joaquin Poetry Quarterly since it began in 2003. She lives in Central California with Amber and Mister, her two cats.
Football
we played football in the
backyard
hour after hour--
sweated, argued, cursed, and
bled; had the wind knocked-out;
tore holes in our clothes…
We played in the dark as
ghost-players, when
the wind dried the sweat
from our faces
and the fallen leaves rattled
and clawed the street, and
the street lights--
the ones still worked--
came on one by one.
Widely published in print and online, Wayne F. Burke is the author of 8 published poetry collections and a book of short stories. He lives in Vermont, USA.
A Room for Storytelling
When darkness starts in late afternoon,
is thick by the evening,
I become most fully myself.
I need a teller.
I need listeners.
Other than that, I am okay being ordinary,
don’t need to be fancy.
A stew on the hob,
or an appley pudding, something spiced,
definitely consoling,
all these things go well with a storytelling.
Even reluctant people can be drawn in
by some candlelight, shadow-flicker,
rain against my windows.
Given over to storytelling,
I might laugh, sigh,
hold my breath, laugh again,
all the time growing warm with stories.
A widely-published poet, Sheila Hamilton has had two full-length collections published, Corridors of Babel (Poetry Salzburg, 2007) and The Spirit Vaults (Green Bottle Press, London, 2017.) She lives with her family in the NW of England.
Onto the Barrow
Your rain gaze coheres into a vial seal,
interior chimes bronze the orchids of floral air,
sand hills hawk beyond the clay roofs.
We step over a ring dish of stone grass,
corded lights firefly the trellis slats,
then the row sage and lavender gathers
to perfume the brush of your arm.
Fresh curtains skirt the doorway glass,
we rinse painted pitchers for the evening
as silk trees stream rain delicate onto the barrow.
Living in Le Perreux-sur-Marne, France, John Swain has published two collections of poetry, Ring the Sycamore Sky, and Under the Mountain Born. His most recent chapbook, From the Roof Terrace, appeared in a bilingual edition. Additional information may be found at www.john-swain.com.
Reply to Robert
Do not acquaint me with the dark of night,
or tell sad tales to rip my heart apart,
I want to see the Mourning Dove in flight
and know the healing balm of spoken art
in simple words of single syllables;
imagine that the world is at its start
when all creation’s blossoming-pull
carried forth in nature’s ragged cart
kaleidoscope of the impossible.
Do not sing about the broken heart
or tell me of the swiftly dimming light.
I know that soon enough we all must part.
So let us sing aubades to morning light.
Another day. Another start
to watch the Mourning Dove in flight.
Do not acquaint me with the dark of night.
Growing up on a farm in Wisconsin, Allegra Jostad Silberstein has lived in California since 1963. Her love of poetry began as a child as her mother would recite poems as she worked. Besides two books of poetry and three chapbooks, Allegra dances and performs with Panela Trokanski’s Third Stage Company. She also sings with the Davis Threshold Choir.
Redemption
The fallout was followed by
wrecking ball earthquakes.
The World’s dams fell,
crumpled,
washed away
Cities turned ghostly, people
disappeared. Those who endured
had lifeless eyes.
On their knees, some held crucifixes,
begging for redemption.
Tainted light was an eerie presence,
survivors reached for deeper breath,
full breathing, moisture.
The sun was beyond
recognition
Day and night were the same,
in appearance: sharp dusty winds
reared sporadically, stinging
flesh and eyes. The agony of
being half-alive, of bearing witness
left most of Humanity faithless,
despondent, standing in the ruins,
like hopeless travelers stuck
in a netherworld
of twisted thoughts
Some held crucifixes, begging
for redemption. There was nothing
but this grim reality saying:
Look around you,
this is all that’s left
“Redemption” is from “inheritance”, DAH’s thirteenth poetry collection. DAH is a multiple Pushcart Prize and Best Of The Net nominee. Born in Herkimer, New York, he has been a resident of Berkeley, California since 1980. He also spends time in Los Angeles, Montreal and Berlin, being there in 1989, when The Wall came down. One of his most spellbinding moments was meeting the writer William Burroughs, in San Francisco in 1981.
The Colosseum
The streets, dark mirrors scrimmed by rain,
endure passersby who stroll under the ancient
eyes of the Colosseum, occupied with the joys
of the moment, or its sorrows—oblivious to its history.
Those wizened ruins remember days where tyrants fed
believers to half-starved beasts. The Colosseum felt
the bowel-like movements of the Faithful’s processions
through tunnels of sanctis terra, sensed their hope of
escape into eternal life. Those streets knew the throb
of jackboots in the not so ancient past—the polished
leather that goosestepped persecuted thousands into
distant gas chambers of the leader’s fascist fratello.
The Colosseum watched as the flame of hope
flickered, once again, then faltered, extinguished
by the whims of another sadistic tyrant. And yes,
the wind-worn stone awaits the next Duce, the next
pernicious faker who promises a perfect future, but
scribes the next chapter in our tome of misery.
Charlie Brice won the 2020 Field Guide Poetry Magazine Poetry Contest and placed third in the 2021 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize. His sixth full-length poetry collection is Miracles That Keep Me Going (WordTech Editions, 2023). His poetry has been nominated three times for the Best of Net Anthology and the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Atlanta Review, The Honest Ulsterman, Ibbetson Street, Chiron Review, The Paterson Literary Review, and The MacGuffin (forthcoming)
unrequited
are the shouts then
for promises that were never made
yet ache so tender
below the surface
for the dust of dreams
that were never shared
but shined
so bright until the dawn
or merely echoing spells
that would – if could –
bind you forever
but curse me even longer
ah, if only I could shape
the shapeless
bend the heart
from its mysterious orbit
I would risk that curse
and a thousand more
to make those promises
to share those dreams
After 43 years as a professor in the cognitive sciences, Albert N. Katz retired and started a new career writing fiction. His prose and poetry have since appeared in anthologies, genre-based and literary magazines. His poem “Cracked Boulders” was a winner in the 2023 Polar Express Canadian National Poetry Contest and his poem “Along the Saint John River” was awarded a Special judges prize in the Canadian Drummond Poetry Competition (2024).
The Glimpse
From close by I behold them:
Deftly turning above the water,
Gliding in and out of it,
A blur of bluish-purple.
Blending with the sky.
Honey-hued skin beaded with foam
Catching the afternoon sun
Glowing with transient grandeur
In beauteous evaporating evanescence
The naiads take their leave.
Living in the Midlands of South Carolina, Arthur Turfa has six published poetry books (most recently Saluda Reflections from Finishing Line Press) a short story collection, Epiphanies from the Alien Buddha Press, and a literary fiction novel, The Botleys of Beaumont County on Blurb. Drawing some of his ideas from professional and personal experiences, he focuses on the concept of place and how it influences lives.
girl’s trip
the weather for our girl’s trip
wasn’t the best,
there was too much rain
and cold;
but we still managed to make
the best of it—
& the beauty of the places
we touched will always
dance in my memories and in
the photographs,
i am grateful to have gone;
the snacks and the jokes and the
laughter and the songs of
autumn i will carry with me always.
Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian writer whose poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has twelve published chapbooks. She is also the author of the novella Mates (Alien Buddha Publishing, March 2022) and published a debut collection of photography Songs of the Creek (Alien Buddha Publishing, April 2023).
A Hard Day’s Night
The Scouse accent made me think of the Beatles,
but this was no musician,
the instrument in his hand,
with its lethal little eye,
at the end of the snubby tube,
cautioning me not to sing “Help “
if I knew what was good for me.
“You from Dingle?” I asked,
reaching into my pocket for my wallet,
casual but making no sudden moves.
The kid seemed taken aback
at the mention of the Liverpool neighborhood -
“kid” but probably in his thirties.
“I remember Ringo, in the movie,
talking about a ‘bloomin’ book,”
so it rhymed with ‘juke.’
Your accent’s the same.”
“Merseyside,” he confirmed, then,
“Keep your cards.
Just give me the cash.”
When he fled, I reflected on my luck -
sounding the word in my head
like “foot” or “put.”
Charles Rammelkamp is Prose editor for BrickHouse Books. His latest collection is The Trapeze of Your Flesh (BlazeVOX).
Then, This
Whining wind died at dawn so
all devout birds sang hallelujahs.
Blue morning sky is fact not metaphor
so al fresco breakfast of heavenly apple tart
and hellishly good espresso made by hippy-
to-exist barista. Pandemics, war and climate
crisis still hang around but there’s indifference,
caffeine and pastries. How lucky to be here,
sitting peacefully in morning sun as the not-
so-fortunate queue for shrunken expectations
in hellholes. After lunch I may read or stroll
along the beach before a second coffee.
News Flash: my neighbour, who defeated
every virus, whose life seemed to mirror
my own – we do share a clothesline –
found something in all this beyond end-
urance therefore quietly (ssssh) ended
her life, which leaves me more space
on the line, once someone removes
what she left hanging there.
A migrant poet from Allover, Canada, Allan Lake now lives in Allover, Australia. Coincidence. He has published poems in 20 countries. His latest chapbook of poems, entitled ‘My Photos of Sicily’, was published by Ginninderra Press. It contains no photos, only poems.
Paying More In Tax Than The Actual Phone Price
Everyone has to contribute to the fiscus.
Listen banks, deduct mineral royalties at source
on exports of precious metals, precious stones,
base metals, industrial metals, coal-bed methane
and coal. Our money is valuable and sweet. Ours.
Cell phone traders and buyers, listen up now.
There is a US $50 levy on new mobile phones. Bear in mind
that this levy is to be collected prior to the registration
of new cellular handsets. We are smart. Are we not?
Ndaba Sibanda is a passionate and talented poet and author, from Zimbabwe.
1
mom says
a zombie peeps
from the kitchen corridor
appearing strange
a swing upside down
2
a misty figure
in the pitch dark lane
disappears
swigs of gin
to ward off fear
3
gloaming
wandering spirits
in the dark corridors
the hour hand stands still
death carriage appears
A painter and haiku poet from Malaysia, Christina Chin is a four-time recipient of top 100 in the mDAC Summit Contests, exhibited at the Palo Alto Art Center, California, winner of the 34th Annual Cherry Blossom Sakura Festival 2020 Haiku Contest, winner in the 8th Setouchi Matsuyama 2019 Photohaiku Contest. She has been published in numerous journals (including multilingual ones) and anthologies, including Japan’s prestigious monthly Haikukai Magazine.
Andrew Brindle is from the UK and has been in Taiwan for more than 30 years, where he teaches at a small university on the beautiful northern coast of the island. When he is not working with students, he helps out at an organic vegetable patch in the hills outside the town where he lives with his wife and a rather large rescued dog. His haiku are often inspired by the ocean and mountains that surround him.
Adapting
My children are scattered across the world,
where their hopes and dreams have taken them,
although they sometimes come to visit.
Their laptops and cell phones require adaptors
for the sockets to be found in European homes.
Our face-to-face conversations
are often strained and awkward,
a result of being apart for so long
and there’s no adapter to connect us.
An English writer living in Seville, Tony Dawson has published three small collections of poetry: Afterthoughts, Musings and Reflections in a Dirty Mirror, as well as a selection of flash fiction, Curiouser and Curiouser.
We Drew Pictures of Jesus in Sunday
School class today and had to color them
so I made mine green and blue and red like
blood He spilled or lipstick or our teacher’s
hair or His words in the Bible, all red
is what He said, ha ha, I just made that
rhyme and green is my favorite color
and as for blue Mother has such eyes but
mine are brown but after all these years, ten,
I couldn’t tell you what color Father’s
is and I forgot to check when at last
I came home from church, he and Mother sleep
late, but I’ll try again this afternoon
when he naps in front of the TV and
I pry one open like folks do the dead.
With hundreds of poems published in a dozen countries and having authored three books of poetry, Gale Acuff’s poetry can be read at Ascent, Reed, Arkansas Review, Poem, Slant, Aethlon, Florida Review, South Carolina Review, namely.
Columbus, Georgia
I was born a man
Lula Carson Smith
a middle class family
a jeweler father, quiet
devoted mother, siblings
a textile town with mills
a base, soldiers, Jim Crow
suffering, loneliness, poverty.
A headstrong young woman
she changed her name
lean and vigorous
a lanky colt she had
a Peter Pan quality
wild ideas and energy
until illness hit
in her teens
and again, and again
the trickery and terror of time
she later learned
rheumatic heart disease
had damaged her big heart.
Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan hides out in the lush ruins of South Florida. She writes pulp fiction, literary crime, and psychological thrillers. Her poetry has been called visceral, raw, and fearless. She has published poems in literary journals, chapbooks, and collections.
Apple
When Eve first sees it,
she thinks of a version of birth,
sees the glint of need, the possibility
of orchard, a mothered world she will run toward.
When Adam first sees it,
it is small, cargo he will not carry,
a gathering of flesh he cannot hold,
the limit in the limitless.
When the snake first sees it,
it is not the first time. It is another
unreachable circle. The snake knows
only one dimension—vertebrae and slither.
Eve is naked, Adam dressed in shadow.
Only the snake can escape its skin.
Carving in stone and riding her bike, Sarah Dickenson Snyder believes travel opens her eyes. She has four poetry collections, The Human Contract (2017), Notes from a Nomad (nominated for the Massachusetts Book Awards 2018), With a Polaroid Camera (2019), and Now These Three Remain (nominated for the Massachusetts Book Awards 2023). Poems have been nominated for Best of Net and Pushcart Prizes.
Walking Dreams
By day, post-hip surgery,
I can barely hobble a block
before my breaths gasp
like a guppy somehow vaulting
from its fish bowl; worse, a shark’s
biting down on the leg.
But for two nights now,
I walk, marveling my wind
has come back, and I can stride out
like Corot’s “The Sower,”
as I stroll block after block,
singing all the folksongs
I can remember,
like I used to, warm spring nights,
walking Ocean Parkway
with its bike path, and swanky
private homes with gardens,
driveways wide as football fields,
b-ball hoops, and mansard roofs.
I amble like John Chapman
tossing apple seeds
in good spring weather,
until I wake, not so much gasping
for breath and reaching
for pain medication
to make my hip stop aching,
but groaning that the dream’s
been snatched
and it’s still frozen winter.
Robert Cooperman’s latest collection is Steerage (Kelsay Books). Forthcoming from Finishing Line Press is the chapbook August 24, 1957.
The Disappointment
It wasn’t long after we’d moved into our new house
that I went digging in the backyard near the redwood tree,
and when I got down between two and three feet I hit
something hard.
Shoveling away the dirt around this something I discovered
that it was a wooden box, and so I excitedly cleared around it
until I was able to lift it out.
Opening the top, what I found was the remains of a cat,
which, of course, was not only disappointing but a bit scary.
Being a fan of pirate tales I was hoping to find a bunch
of gold coins and jewelry.
When I told my parents the story, they both thought it was
an interesting adventure, and I recall that my father asked
whether I put the box back and filled in the hole.
To which I answered in the affirmative, and that I probably
wouldn’t be digging in the backyard again any time soon…
Jeffrey Zable is a teacher, conga drummer/percussionist who plays Afro-Cuban folkloric music for dance classes and rumbas around the San Francisco Bay Area, and a writer of poetry, flash-fiction and non-fiction. He's published his writing more recently in Corvus The Amazine Community, Dark Winter, Ranger, Hibiscus, and many others.
a butterfly
against the cold morning rain
swallows will soon leave
pulled bulbs ready
for next planting
raindrops ripple
the old temple pond
windfall lies about
extra income
from picked cloves
all the things
we’d planned to do
leaves of fall
swirl among
golden koi
From the UK, Andrew Brindle has been in Taiwan for more than 30 years, where he teaches at a small university on the beautiful northern coast of the island. When he is not working with students, he helps out at an organic vegetable patch in the hills outside the town where he lives with his wife and a rather large rescued dog. His haiku are often inspired by the ocean and mountains that surround him.
A Good Year for the Roses
her voice was honey mixed with
barbed wire, pleasure
and pain
better than any poem i'll
ever write
even better than the one
i wrote for her, before
which she claimed i
stole
as if a black man wasn’t capable
of creating beauty
i was offended, but maybe
i should’ve taken it
as a compliment
that the words weren’t really
mine
just as that voice i heard that night
wasn’t really hers
but merely, the speech of
angels
A two-time Pushcart nominated poet from Lynn, Massachusetts, Erren Kelly has been writing for 32 years and has over 300 publications, print and online, like in Bitterzoet, Cactus Heart, Similar Peaks, Gloom Cupboard and Poetry Salzburg. She received her BA in English-Creative Writing from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
On the Seventh Day
my work has ended
I go rest in the garden
and write some haiku
reclined in hammock
motorcycle’s roar recedes
birds chirping return
on this day of rest
music plays (all is well
with my De La Soul)
healing from breakup
plus congestive heart failure
literal heart-break
morning sun rises
(dark night of the soul goes down)
slowly but surely
practicing stillness
(while internal war rages)
when will peace be found?
what if they named Hell
the same way they did Iceland:
is Heaven Greenland?
Johns Hopkins University Press Blog describes M.A. Dennis as “a hilarious but also heartbreaking performance poet.” His work has been published by the New York Times, great weather for MEDIA, Newtown Literary, Northern Otter Press and many others. Dennis (formerly homeless) is an advocate for the unhoused. He resides in Staten Island, NY with his four pet rocks (Chris, Fraggle, Gibraltar & Plymouth). Follow him on X (@M_A_Dennis) or IG (@m_a_dennis575).
Petrified
At the town square
stands the statue
of a war hero.
He looks ahead
as if he looks to the future
as if he looks for a time without wars
a time of worldwide peace
—but his eyes are petrified.
Germain Droogenbroodt is a Belgian poet living in Spain, translator and promoter of international poetry. He wrote short stories, literary critics, 17 books of poetry and translated and published over 35 collections of international poetry, including two collections of the most famous Japanese haiku poets. His own poetry collections have been published so far in 30 countries. He is editor of POINT Editions in Belgium.
Testimony
Shades of green, some brown
A hint of black
some white enveloping
the gurgling waters below that flowed
between the sides
Dividing and holding together
Testimony to battles
Fought and won
Battles little known
Hidden in the folds
of the valleys
the mountains and the waters
Testimony to life as it flows on
nestled amid the mountains
that reach up, hidden by white
Testimony to life’s struggles
of broken dreams and mired wails
of the slush and the mud
that slips and moves
Dreams… Hopes… Smiles…
An academic, author, poet and translator, Nishi Pulugurtha writes short stories, poetry and non-fiction and has published works including the edited volume, Literary Representations of Pandemics, Epidemics and Pestilence (Routledge, 2023). Her co-edited translation work and a fourth volume of poems are forthcoming.
This Morning I Read About You
I consider how your obituary speaks of you.
A kind resume for someone I loved,
a list of your accomplishments. With clemency,
omits your list of hard lessons. It overlooks
your worry with opaque jokes, concerned only
with punch lines – not how you rushed them.
And today would have been your birthday.
A celebration like those I assisted when
we were unblemished, without regret.
Hemlocks scold a pale skim of low clouds.
Sunsets of many kinds moved between us.
Nothing hard-grown matters now.
Seeing me alone in the porch swing, a starling
gives all to sky, heaving chest announcing
unfair flying. We sat on this porch once
enjoying lunch. Admired coppering sugar maples.
You wore a yellow dress, white ribbon in your hair.
I squint and see color of sky and clouds above
our picnics and hikes. A weave of gray
would not have become you.
I debate grinding another batch of coffee.
Years without you shadow much I hold close.
Time teaches to expect its cruel creep.
Later, I’ll read this month’s New Yorker.
Toss it on back issues stacked with dust
and fireplace ash, sad for how
our favorite magazine has changed.
Sam Barbee grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina, and studied creative writing at UNC-Wilmington. His poems have appeared in numerous publications.
Crossing the Rubicon
Like popcorn
The mysteries of days unfold
While the green people still wait
With eyes gleaming with anticipation.
The creaks of the rickety bridges
Of toil and misery
That connect the shimmering peaks of arrival
Have always been a sign
That a fruitful final destination
Is a figment of imagination.
Hope and desire, noticing man’s greed,
Enchant him to step more ahead
Until he realizes that the rickety bridge of toil
Is stretched over a destruction-filled chasm.
Everything is a phantasm.
In the middle of this broil
A devilish playful sound blasters
The swaying bodies of the survivors
Goading them to wake up
And to behold the tormented last seed of popcorn
Forcibly dancing on a hot surface of oppression
Announcing to the fools
That they are crossing the Rubicon.
An ex-Fulbrighter, professor and published scholar in the field of translation theory as well as cross cultural theories, literary criticism and ethnic studies, Naeema Abdelgawad is also a professional translator, published fiction and non-fiction writer. Furthermore, her interest in physical culture and interdisciplinary research are her zeal to underline the role of sports in all aspects of life.
Almost Time to Harvest
We wake to a cloud storm,
the dogs silent,
step outside to a garden
where everything has gone right--
the tomatoes are huge on their vines,
the cabbage patch greening,
carrot tops rising to the occasion,
okra growing fatter
and the dogs come to walk us to the gate.
Make sure you lock up, my friend says
and then we're on our way.
We return hours later,
the sun graying the sky,
and everything is not right--
the dogs are giving a dozen deer a tour,
a family of rabbits are harvesting carrots,
and raccoons are deep into a watermelon.
Who forgot to lock the gate? my friend asks.
I answer, I thought I did.
Did you check? My friend's getting angry..
The gate is locked, but a few yards down
three pieces of fencing have fallen.
Sorry, my friend says.
I forgot to fix the fence.
Michael H. Brownstein's latest volumes of poetry, A Slipknot to Somewhere Else (2018) and How Do We Create Love (2019) were both published by Cholla Needles Press. In addition, he has appeared in Last Stanza, Café Review, American Letters and Commentary, Skidrow Penthouse, Xavier Review, Hotel Amerika, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review, Poetrysuperhighway.com and others.
Primed
think of smiths and joneses
the makers and the yearning
shaping hands through display windows
monkeys with laser knives
I don’t wait for the amazon truck but hijack it
liberating the Krispie Kreme take-out window
my faucet runs hot coffee and cold beer
AI’s given me a hundred valid credit card numbers
worming back to scam masters
in India, Nigeria and Moscow
I’m too busy accumulating to eat
all these unopened packages
and not a trace of door or window
I choose a random point on my inflatable globe
and dress for their weather
feeling that island moving toward me
expiration dates? Overdue notices?
who can repossess the wind
the sun’s addicted to the mirrors
on the roof of my shipping container home
the rain falls directly into bottles
pre-sold and ready to be sealed
with my unique, irresistible spit
Dan Raphael’s last two books are In the Wordshed (Last Word Press, ’22) and Moving with Every (Flowstone Press, ’20.) More recent poems appear in Umbrella Factory, Concision, Brief Wilderness, Spare Parts and Unlikely Stories. Most Wednesdays dan writes and records a current events poem for The KBOO Evening News.