Issue #16

This issue asks a lot of questions. “What am I searching for?” “What lies around the next bend?” “What am I really witnessing?” “When is my lunch coming?” I think winter is a time of considering the past and questioning the future. Each new year brings a new set of hopes and goals and fears, especially this year with much uncertainty on the horizon. We may find ourselves reflecting on what we did and wondering where the coming days will take us. Like the questions in our poetry selections, we don’t necessarily have the answers. We just have to wait and see or, in some cases, we may never know. It could be that the true value of the question lies not in the answer, but in the pondering.

Words waft into my window
like secondhand smoke.
Anger curling like a cough
in the back of their throats.
I smell the cancer.
Inhale the poison. Cough it out
with tears for a stranger.
She’s crying, he’s yelling,
an abrupt gunshot crack
that might be a slap–
it’s a familiar song, almost cliched,
just got to put
the lyrics into a slightly different order,
maybe change up the chords.
In another century
they would call it a crime of passion.
Sure. There’s passion
in evoking tears, making someone small
and weak and afraid. Love to aspire to.
I’m making assumptions
the way I make poetry.
Maybe she hit him.
I know too often it happens the other way.
My heart’s stood up and taken notice,
beating like a prey animal, fight or flight response
when I am already fled,
behind my own locked door.
Dump him, I want to tell this woman
who doesn’t know me at all, knowing she won’t.
The story’s too familiar. It plays
like a requiem mass streaming from a Starbucks,
background music lit in the darkness of
another woman’s funeral.
Another day I’ll see her
walking quickly on the street somewhere,
hurrying I don’t know where, hurrying out of my life,
reminder stuck in my head like a stranger’s cigarette butt
stuck to the bottom of my shoe.

Joanna Howson is a student at Lafayette College and a member of the college English Club. She has written poetry for most of her life, but this is her first publication! Thanks to everyone who made this possible.

I can taste the copper flecks of your ghost
along my tongue
as I stroll around the lake
you linger in the shadow
your hunchback I know all too well
crouched on one knee you spy my soul
I smell the hollow gorge of your hunger
mixed with rust and dirt
centuries old

Feel the quake in the road – the road
is always terrifying on a night’s trek
to find you
the brush dense and thick like oil 
it gurgles along the branches
licks my face in eagerness

I am alone
so are you
and here we are
along the plain of two worlds
some insane rip 
and you floated back in
and I
always so eager to please
held the hole wide open.

Donna Dallas has appeared in a plethora of journals, most recently The Opiate, Beatnik Cowboy, Tribes, Horror Sleaze Trash and Fevers of the Mind.  She is the author of Death Sisters, her legacy novel, published by Alien Buddha Press. Her first chapbook, Smoke and Mirrors, launched in 2022 with New York Quarterly. Her latest chapbook, Megalodon, launched in 2023 with The Opiate. Donna has served on the editorial team of Red Fez and NYQ.

I should have run when I could
but I placed my order instead.
One, overworked waitress
in a crowded pub
brings condiments like a promise 
the Messiah will come someday.
Godot in the kitchen.
Methuselah in a corner booth
with a spider web between shoulder and jaw.

I’m a child in August waiting for Christmas morning,
a writer waiting for Marty to call me about my screenplay,
a UPS driver waiting for that lottery ticket to hit.

I sip a craft beer that tastes suspiciously 
like PBR, memorize the menu for something to do.
It mentions, “our rotating desserts.”
I wonder how many RPMs the apple pie spins at.

By now, the waitress hasn’t been seen
since mastodons roamed the earth.
Last time I’ll ever trust a Yelp review
from a stegosaurus!

Jon Wesick is a regional editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual. He’s published hundreds of poems and stories in journals such as the Atlanta Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, I-70 Review, Lowestoft Chronicle, New Verse News, Paterson Literary Review, Pearl, Pirene’s Fountain, Slipstream, Stick Figure Poetry, and Unlikely Stories Mark V. His most recent books are The Shaman in the Library and The Prague Deception. http://jonwesick.com

Everything has a common name that devolves from the legend of clowns.  There is Clown’s Foot Bridge.  A Bowler Hat Ridge.  The Exploded Daisy Swamp.  Anyone stepping from hard patch to hard patch to traverse a muddy stretch is said to be clown walking.  Mythology lives, and perhaps yet a few clowns.  At night, an unexplained pop can be an exploding cigar.  A rustle in the brush could be clowns frolicking.  No matter how comical the usage, the mythology is not always comforting.  There is still the worry of encountering a water daisy in the real.  Obnoxious ties arouse suspicions.

Ken Poyner’s four collections of brief fictions, four collections of speculative poetry, and one mixed media collection, can be found at most online booksellers.  He spent 33 years in information systems management, is married to a world-record holding female power lifter, and has a family of several cats and betta fish.  Individual works have appeared in “Café Irreal”, “Analog”, “Danse Macabre”, “The Cincinnati Review”, and several hundred other places. Find out more at: www.kpoyner.com

You can’t talk to Beethoven
on a bus stop in Chicago
because you’ll just get lost.

Lauded as a genius,
he can’t give good directions
because he’s dead. 

Ask Fred about Beethoven
his hands waving wildly with excitement like
the vibrations coming up through his feet.
conducting symphonies in an empty room.

Fred will tell you how planets hum 
give directions to angry flocks of pigeons
lecture on string theory
like harpsichords, and how Beethoven was more
of a transcriber than a composer.

I picture the two sitting together
lost in deep conversation.

Holly Day’s writing has recently appeared in Analog SF, Cardinal Sins, and New Plains Review, and her published books include Music Theory for Dummies and Music Composition for Dummies. She currently teaches classes at The Loft Literary Center in Minnesota, Hugo House in Washington, and The Muse Writers Center in Virginia.

Every morning, I start my study of you 
To learn you inside and out
To know you as well as you know yourself
I watch the way you move, predict what you might say
And every day you surprise me

Dr. Rachel Turney is an educator and teacher trainer. Her poems and prose are published (or are in press) in The Font Journal, Nap Lit, Ranger, Through Lines Magazine, Bare Back, Lobster Salad and Champagne, and Teach Write Journal. Her photography appears in By the Beach and Ink in Thirds Magazine. Blog: turneytalks.wordpress.com Instagram: @turneytalks 

I have read many poems
About fresh fallen snow 

On the fields
In the trees

How its beauty inspires awe
How it makes us happy

How it affects us
In so many positive ways

But few think about the weight of such things
On the world around us

On the branches 
On the blades of grass

And how hard it is
For some to bear

How leaves bend
How branches snap

And how recovery 
Can’t begin until spring

Darrell Parry loves to create and curate everything under the sun. As a bookseller, artist, poet, crafter, event host and proponent of all things indie, you can find him in and around Easton, PA. shopping at punk rock flea markets and local small businesses, selling books at the Lafayette College Store and attending a slew of online and in-person poetry events including the Lehigh Valley Poetry Virtual Salon (which he cohosts quarterly with E. Lynn Alexander) and the Easton Book Festival held every October. His book Twists: Gathered Ephemera is available from the usual sources, Bookshop.org, Amazon, B&N etc.

I’m a poet who drinks only red wine.
When inebriated with earthly
delusion and desire, I crawl inside
this empty bottle of 19 Crimes Red Wine,
lone wolf, no rehab needed, just confined.

Here, behind brown tinted glass
and a hint of red stain, I can harm no one—
body squeezed in so tight, blowing bubbles,
hidden, squirming, can’t leap out.

My words echo chamber, reverberating
back into my tinnitus ears.
I forage for words.
Search for novel incentives.
But the harvest is pencil-thin
the frontal cortex shrinks and turns gray.
Come live with me in my dotage.
There are few rewards.
My old egg-beater brain is clunking out.

I lay here, peace and quiet in prayer.
I can hardly breathe in thin air.

I’m a symbol of legacy crumbing
stored in formaldehyde. Memories here
are likely just puny, weak synapses.

“I’m not afraid of death, I just don’t
want to be here when it happens.”
Looking out, others looking in at me.
Curved glass is a new world intangible dimly defined.
I no longer care about cyberspace, uncultivated
wild women, the holy grail of matrimony.
I likely will never write my first sonnet
with angels; I only fantasize about them in dreams.

Quiet in osteoarthritis pain is this poet
who only drinks 19 Crimes Red Wine.

* Quote by Woody Allen.

Michael Lee Johnson is a poet of high acclaim, with his work published in 46 countries or republics. He is also a song lyricist with several published poetry books. His talent has been recognized with 7 Pushcart and 7 Best of the Net nominations. He has over 653 published poems. His 330-plus YouTube poetry videos are a testament to his skill and dedication. He is a proud member of the Illinois State Poetry Society: http://www.illinoispoets.org/. His poems have been translated into several foreign languages. Awards/Contests: International Award of Excellence “Citta’ Del Galateo-Antonio De Ferrariis” XI Edition 2024 Milan, Italy-Poetry. Poem, Michael Lee Johnson, “If I Were Young Again.” Remember to consider me for Best of the Net or Pushcart nomination!

Lines of thought broken apart
by days devoid of hellos, goodbyes,
goodnights, I love yous,
leaving you lusting for a glass smashed
against a wall after an argument
about socks left on the floor
again, and the yearning to sweep up 
afterwards reminds you how much
you fear your own blood,
especially as your unsaid words write 
a love sonnet to someone
you haven’t talked to in years.

Of course, you compose a poem
about your anger instead
of plagiarizing the silence,
while still afraid of the colour red
because both blood and love smell
like a half empty jar
housing uncounted pennies,
waiting for someone to die.

Richard LeDue (he/him) lives in Norway House, Manitoba, Canada. He has been published both online and in print. He is the author of eleven books of poetry. His latest full length book, “Sometimes, It Isn’t Much,” was released from Alien Buddha Press in February 2024, and his latest chapbook, “Mourning for the Petals,” was self-published online for Kindle in November 2024.

Impoverished child—
for nickels, dimes— 
bought by beauty. 
Taught grace, 
not from love—
but life confined.

Glamour-touched teen—
trained to speak—
to walk 
for lust-filled eyes.
Stripped of name,
wrapped in robes,
to the highest bidding price—
child purity sold. 

Woman fully realized—
through fog of an aged mind—
drifts upstream
from cherry-colored Kyoto
to childhood slum 
on a seaside,
the missing sister,
the parents long passed. 
All gone—
without goodbye.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Michael Roque discovered his love for poetry and prose amid friends on the bleachers of Pasadena City College. Now he currently lives in the Middle East and is being inspired by the world around him. His poems have been published by literary magazines like Cholla Needles, The New Yorker, The Literary Hatchet and others. 

I grab the tree but its branches don’t care
I’m walking through the cemetery looking for life
I cry about the living because the
dead are indifferent to everything
I don’t find anyone alive anywhere in this world
Only photographs on graves speak to me of love

Mykyta Ryzhykh Ukraine-Norway- Nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Published many times in the journals Dzvin, Dnipro, Bukovinian magazine, Polutona, Tipton Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, Divot journal, dyst journal, Superpresent Magazine, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Alternate Route, Better Than Starbucks, Littoral Press, Book of Matches, TheNewVerse News, Acorn haiku Journal, The Wise Owl, Verse-Virtual, Scud, Fevers of the Mind, LiteraryYard, PLUM TREE TAVERN, ITERANT, Fleas on the Dog, The Tiger Moth Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Angel Rust, Neologism Poetry Journal, Shot Glass Journal, QLRS, The Crank, Chronogram, The Antonym, Monterey Poetry Review, Five Fleas Itchy Poetry, Ranger magazine, PPP Ezine, Bending Genres Journal, Rat’s Ass Review, Cajun Mutt Press, minor literatures, Audience Askew Literary Journal, Spirit Fire Review, The Gravity of the Thing, Ballast Journal, Star 82 Review, The BeZine, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Synchronized Chaos, boats against the current, The Decadent Review, Corvus Review, American Diversity Report, Unlikely Stories, Triggerfish Critical Review, The Moth, Ripple Lit, Rock & Sling, Meniscus, Rabid Oak, ZiN Daily, Stone of Madness, The Cortland Standard, Quarter Press, Schredder, Wilderness House Literary Review, Poetry Porch, Chewers & Masticadores, The Big Windows Review, Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Third Wednesday, Cosmic Double, Dialogist, Consequence, Cool Beans Lit, Poets Choice, BarBar.

Snow is a force
Telling you to slow down
To get into the moment
And appreciate what you got
To give rest to your mind, your body
And your spirit
To nourish the things
That bring you laughter and joy
It encourages you
To deepen your level of comfort
And it inspires me
To become a little bit more enchanted

Sean Harrison of the Lehigh Valley, PA is a craftsman of several art forms, including but not limited to, music, guitar making, poetry, photography and sketching in his notebook. When he is not performing, you may not find him deep in the wooded solitude of the mountains, conversing with the wind and the crows only.