Issue Five

Mental Health Day

by Howie Good

The pill I take in the morning
is supposed to help.
You better? everyone asks.
I’ll never be Teacher of the Year
if that’s what they mean.
I lose track of which door is which.
Alcohol intensifies the effect.
It says so right on the bottle.
Pornomaniac. A word I looked up once,
but haven’t had to use.

Delphi's Sonnet

by Kenneth P. Gurney

In the beginning, Delphi was not there.

Millennia passed before Parnassus

caused her to spring forth like so much water

and let her run down the slopes.

In the middle, Delphi walks among us

wears the faces of our choosing

and does her best to answer our questions

as honestly as possible.

In the end, she will cross the river,

the same as the rest of us

who passed along the gift of time 

as if it is a cool drink of water for the parched,

and she will take her place among the fourteen oars

that draw the boat to that farthest shore.

Dark

by John Tustin

Dark.

Dank dark black void nil blank

nothing blind.

My voice echoes

in my head.

Something drips from

the walls.

Something skitters silent

on the floor and walls

and I am naked

barefoot.

I stumble.

The somethings crawl

over my hands

and a trapdoor drops me.

I fall

fall

in the dark

dark.

Trembling

blind

ears clogged.

I scream,

no sound comes,

the somethings crawl

into my mouth.

Terrified.

Dark.

Black.

Undone.

Alone.

I scream into

the void

and know

that I am

nothing.

Issue Four

Aging

by Sandy Day

The door swings wide

with hinges oiled

like a smile

I’m open.

A lover’s body

is never old

as kindness takes a hold and

passion rises

from compassion’s well

deeply dug

receiving and giving

forgiven

forgotten

start over

it’s new

close your eyes

and remember

touch me all the time.

I need one chance

to begin again

and decide that

benevolence never ends.

The gift of age

is knowing

of stages

clinging not to the start.

Another deeper print

closer to life

sleep sex pray

and walk again.

The Old Ones In Renaissance

by Joseph Farley

Pan returned

accompanied by the old gods,

so the dance began.

A season of love followed

where the flowers all bloomed twice.

Then the year turned,

and it was the time of sacrifice.

The new believers barely looked,

too busy with their steps,

as the crying children

were stacked upon altars of stone..

As the smoke and ashes rose

the dancers slowed their pace,

but only just long enough

to wipe small tears from their face.

The Water of Life


by S.P. Flannery

Through pores in exhalation flows
liquids distilled thrice
in old oaken casks,
troglodyte barrels kept secret,
a cache dusted off to celebrate
the summer solstice,
mid-day the libations begin
to pour, sun-worshiped
faces explode with sanguine
exuberance, song and dance
appear, apprehension cast off
to allow voices to wail
in disharmony and limbs to flail
without purpose, time blurs
as sight spins remembrance
into black, into focus at
midnight when in a position
pronate, naked in sweat
licked fermented, the past.

Issue Three

Psych Ward on Christmas Eve

by Paul David Adkins

What could be idyllic as this well-lit corridor,

as mirrors made of metal,

knob-less doors

plastered with snipped paper flakes?

Cut-out Santas, sleigh and Rudolph  

deck the halls. 

On her wall, my wife’s sketch hangs:

an X-mas fir

snapped at the base,

tiny lights dangling.

Tonight the pharmacist dispenses drugs

in reindeer Dixie cups.

Tinsel is strung

by the nurse station glass.

A doctor sporting a snowman tie

walks a patient arm in arm.

She wears red stockings.

She thinks they are skating.

The tile is cold,

and off somewhere

drifts laughter.

Laying the Dust

by Steve Klepetar

Sweet empty smells: oranges, old

rooms and shelves of broken glass.

Amidst green and amber shards

my hands bleed.  Tonight

moon grins through torn scraps

of cloud.  Her melting light smears

the sky.  When have we eaten last,

broiled our meal with olive oil

and wine, or taken for drink

a golden glass of wind? 

When have we wrapped ourselves

in waves?  Tonight we see moon’s

teeth bared in shadows

on the brittle wafer of her silver

face, feel surging tides of our own

blood.  How quietly these ghosts

gather, with what tender gestures

find each others’ faces in the night. 

Beautiful and shy, they lean

into their own hearts, against

thin, transparent bones, shadow

hands, black pools of their own

huge eyes.  At last, in cold wind

and splash of stars

we have dragged our own fury

bound and beaten to the woods.

We have come home to lay the dust.

Seven Sips of Coffee

                by Eric G. Müller

A toy dog in a basket fixed on a bicycle

speeds by with its geriatric master

Still as a sculpture on the concrete floor

a green iguana with mandala skin listens

Four tanned surfers swagger along

with decorative boards and butt-crack shorts

Bikini babes with curling tattoos  

laugh to the rhythm of their flip-flops

Bored security guard plugged to an iPod

taps his baton as he walks his beat

Two plain blue nuns with homemade habits

Look hot, i.e. sweaty and out of place

A boy pops wheelies

With his bike on the pavement

This is what I spied in the seven sips

it took me to quaff my cappuccino

Issue Two

Dakota

by Kyle Hemmings
 

I buried Dakota in her favorite dress,
calico snug, said a prayer that I'd never
have another daughter born in a black blizzard.
I looked out over the clay gullies,
the impossible fossils rising like
hands. Flung her floppy sunhat over
the empty coulee. The dog barked.
In time, her pups would fetch it, bring it
back to the ranch. As if they knew something
by sheer dog sense. I looked East,
prayed for sorghum and flaxseed,
sunflower and milk-veined maidens.
Saw Dakota in the parting lips of clouds,
low and moving over drought and badlands,
saw her pantomine and sway
before the young moon,
her voice over the Cheyenne,
over cottonwood and willow
gently mocking me,the way it did
when she pressed my hands to her cheeks,
she, so numb from the cold, from chasing
the sheep that strayed. On top of this
bare hillside, I looked everywhere,
hoping for a sign of the next harvest.
It would keep me above ground,
this body of sod, mind of open spaces,
for another year. 

Your Tenth Floor Apartment

by William Doreski

Your tenth floor apartment features

glass walls and complex urban views.

No neighbor’s close enough to see you

press naked against your vista,

polishing your seamless ego.

You’re not at home today. Touring

your rooms with a friend I note

snapshots of discarded lovers

scattered everywhere with holes punched

in the eyes or groin. The atmosphere

oppresses. My friend wants to leave.

He thinks you’ll leap from a closet

and puncture his eyeballs or deflate

his already modest genitals.

I assure him that you’re a good host

and rarely attack guests who mind

their manners and keep quiet

while you’re explaining the glories

of criminal law. Defending crime

has rendered you rich as chocolate

and nearly as sweet, except when

you fork an eye or testicle.

My friend would like to meet you,

but not in your apartment among

these suffering photographs. Maybe

the three of us could dine out

some humid summer evening. Maybe

with waiters hovering about

we’d all feel safe enough to enjoy

a good Bordeaux , a dainty salad,

a piece of fish, a conversation.

In your apartment everyone

wants to press naked to the view;               

and thus vulnerable, most people,

regardless of sex, concede

their last scrap of dignity to you.

MY LAST WALTZ

by Hugh Fox
      Should I Luschei them into carefully literaried (“Moon
      sliver, you get rid of Al Power, desert extinction,
      why nineteenth century such short lives”) fragments,
      give it to them the way it is, Bachianas Brasileirasing
      it again tonight, how come Alex mixes onions with guava
      and uncooked beets, give it to me straight, how many
      more hours, days, weeks do I have left, here I am next
      to my Brazilian M.D. wife who makes $210,000 a year
      and is my Czech grandma sweet, always one more or less
      blanket, “A little honey on those cornflakes,” from the
      honey-farm down the road, all three wives hanging around
      watching me die, e-mail (Lyn Strongin) XOXO’s every
      day from Vancouver, B.C., more Carpinteria, Tampa,
      Rome, Santa Cataina ancient babes, two more novels
      coming out this month, on the edge of Steinbecking/
      Shakespearing it, you wanna year about the German
      solid honey with my oat squares and a hundred before-
      sleep hugs, or always another oncological-urological
                  smile?

Issue One

Tube Works

by Marica Szendry

 

On Sunday we are

expelled

from the comfort

of the subterranian

labrynth

into a new world

of concrete, steel

and the unfamiliar

architecture

of a nominally half-way

place.

I think I know the

city

until I walk its street,

catch its buses.

Confused, I blink

and grunt

like a displaced

minotaur.

Musician

by Anna Bilbao

We met at a bar and

began talking about

music

and stuff.

When I asked what

sort of band you were in

you told me

“deathrock”.

I paused before

nodding

embarrassed

and moving on to the weather.

Elvis Impersonator

by Ashley Fisher

 

Little Elvis is in the foyer,

entertaining the types that arrive

early to the theatre in his ill-fitting

jumpsuit and turmeric tan.

For the next twenty minutes he

is slave to the tape which presses

on regardless of the surrounding

apathy and the notes he invariably misses.

In one moment of uncharacteristic

showmanship, he gives a scarf to

the daughter of my blonde companion

who he appears to have taken a shine to.

Soon, we will take our own places on

stage in the studio theatre and our Elvis

will mourn his twenty minutes of

showbusiness down the drain.