Before You Knew What it Meant by Alexi Milano

I swirled my feet in the bare, uncut

Florida grass at thirteen years old.

A sturdy turf with a thick blade, beckoning

a barefoot walk, so unlike the flesh, the real things.

The things that were almost never pretty. The things

that made you accustomed as you grew, to avoid

the eyes of strangers, that made you tear out

old diary pages, ashamed of who you thought

you once were, that wrote the definition of family

as a perplexity, of unclear mixed messages,

that caused age to come with victory

and forced you to learn

what’s made you grow.

The things that taught you

to let words go

and how to say

goodbye, before

you know

what it

meant.

Alexi Milano is a writer and artist born in New York, raised in Florida. She teaches her students how to push boundaries and entertain with their own pieces of writing.  She is co-editor at Varnish Journal.  Her poetry has appeared in Red Fez and In Between Hangovers.

Stupefried by Ken Allan Dronsfield

Sitting by the old juniper bush

nursing an iced tall whiskey sour.

Waiting for the seasonal changes;

the hourglass ready to be turned.

The North star burns so very bright

while the summer candle smolders.

Here in my slice of tranquil heaven;

a cool autumn night by the junipers.

Laugh as a kitten plays with leaves

Forgetting today's dragooned folly

licking wounds with a hollow tear

degenerates breathe the same air.

Driving to the left, wrong or right,

the seasons grasp on the soulless

whilst I dream of another eclipse;

stupefried and high by the juniper.

Ken Allan Dronsfield is a disabled veteran and poet from New Hampshire, now residing on the southern plains of Oklahoma. He has one poetry collection, "The Cellaring" and is Co-Editor for 2 anthologies, "Dreamers of Yellow Haze" and "Dandelion in a Vase of Roses". His work has appeared in The Burningword Journal, Scarlet Leaf Review,  Black Poppy Review, The Blue Heron, The song is..., EMBOSS Magazine and more. Ken has three Pushcart Prize nominations and two for Best of the Net 2016-2017.

York Beach, 2006 by Marianne Szlyk

On a summer night without even
a ceiling fan to stir sludgy air,
I open the window to ocean,
the susurrus of waves and cars.
People almost my age weave home.
They’ve been drinking at Long Sands,
watching the moonlight shatter high tide.

Lying on the couch to escape
the stifling guest room, I dream
I’m back in my grandmother’s house
where, at 107, Gram’s still alive,
a tall woman shrunken
to an abandoned rag doll
on a beige mohair armchair.

Clutching the railing, fearing the stairs
will not bear weight, I climb
to where now only spiders live.
I open windows to flashing sirens,
fire trucks racing down Lunenburg Street
over the bluster of men walking
home with cans of malt liquor
from Minit Mart where Gram bought
hamburger and pink tomatoes.

I spring awake to the quiet
of an oceanfront house.
My elderly parents sleep below.
I lie back down, wondering what
my grandmother would have told me,
what I would have done next
in this other world.

Marianne Szlyk is the editor of The Song Is... Her second chapbook, I Dream of Empathy, was published by Flutter Press.   Recently her poem was selected by Red Bird Chapbooks for its Weekly Read.  She encourages you to send work to her magazine. For more information about it, see this link: http://thesongis.blogspot.com/ 

Two Poems by Sarah Russell

Indian Summer



I hike the ridge on the last warm, tousled day, 


speckled as a partridge egg, 

sun already stilting 
shadows in early afternoon.  

The leaves 
are October butterflies, crimson, gold.  


I want to stop earth's tilt-a-whirl right here, 


hold this moment that feels so much like love 

before the winter’s swordsmith hones his blade.

On Kebler Pass 

dust the ferns with my ashes --


there, among the aspen


trembling gold against the sky.  


Let them settle, sighing, 


on the still warm earth of autumn 


where the next peak calls your name.  



Snow will come. The wind will show me 


paths only does and vixens know.

The moon will call me with her crescent mouth 


and share stories of the embered stars.


Sarah Russell has returned to poetry after a career teaching, writing and editing academic prose.  Her poems have appeared in Kentucky Review, Misfit Magazine, Red River Review, Ekphrastic Magazine, and Black Poppy Review, among others.  She blogs at SarahRussellPoetry.net

Cut You Out by Linda M. Crate

the pale blue whisper
of day
sings to me 
of clarity and vision
so i cut away the lie of your eyes
they were far too distracting

forget-me-nots have no place here
because you said we ought to be strangers
nothing would give me more pleasure
than dropping your bones
in the river
watching them wash away

so i cut out my old heart and grew a new one
remembered i am a warrior of love and light
magical and strong i will never be
shattered by lust and nightmares
i am the dream giver
full of dreams, light, and intensity no one will take from me.






Linda M. Crate's works have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies both online and in print. She is the author of the Magic Series and four published chapbooks. She is a Pennsylvanian native who loves nature, art, literature, anime, and spending time with loved ones.

Two Poems by Dane Karnick

El Pintor

After the watercolor by Amado Peña, 1983

The painter is secluded

Yet accompanied

By los fantasmas

Phantoms who inhabit

Pueblo sun-dried bricks

From a thousand years

Assist the artist with 

Canvass mutterings

To guide brush hairs through

Turquoise and ochre

Lucid as sky above land

In contemplación

Between living and dead

This plain shared together

In adobe corridors

By Red Willow People

Still painting in flesh

Around bones of yesterday

Their sombreros above time

Unhurried as specters 

Woman With Oranges

After the painting by RC Gorman, 1983

A Navojo woman is

Confounded by fruit

That leaves when she exits

And appears when she arrives

Usually half-dozen

At home or anywhere else

Their shadows in ripe sun

Ready to be eaten 

But gone upon puncture

Their petite goodbye

On the heals of another

Manifestation

For her quizzical look

At silent companions

Consuming her time

As if expecting her

To make spherical sense

Of friendly still life

Dane Karnick grew up by the Colorado “Rockies” and lives near Seattle.  His poetry recently appeared in Treehouse Arts, Scarlet Leaf, riverrun and Gravel.  Visit him at www.danekarnick.com.

In the Hours of Love by Grant Guy

She found love in a sad hotel north of Ponoka

But she did not trust unguarded instincts

She listened to the scars of others

To her bandaged wounds

She tossed the fragment hopes of time

Out with the alarm clock that failed to warn her

Still she lingers in the sad hotel north of Ponoka

Because just maybe just maybe . . .

Time has little interest in the hours of love

It never offers promises beyond the moment

Yet offers the grace and optimism of the future

But she had no time for time

She was not listening 

Bandages don’t stick forever

Grant Guy is a Winnipeg, Canada, poet, writer and playwright. Former artistic director of Adhere + Deny. His writings have been published in Canada, the United States, Wales, India and England. He has three books published. He was the 2004 recipient of the MAC’s 2004 Award of Distinction and the 2017 recipient of the WAC’s Making A Difference Award.

Two Poems by Jeanine Stevens

Canterbury

Wind blows stiff from the White Cliffs. 

Along the road, rape seed fields 

gleam florescent, like Van Gogh’s colors 

in his warm weather mania. 

First, I visit the Cloisters, 

protected from swift gusts, 

then downstairs to the shadowy

11^th century Crypt and sullen dust, 

a place for quiet, prayer and reflection. 

I brought my travelers lamp (really just 

a tiny book light from Blackwell’s).

On ornate carvings I read 

some good history and some bad. 

Of a sudden, walls reverberate, earth heaves, 

sound lodges in my bones. 

A quake? No, darker, 

like a rumbling night mission. 

Is it because I’m here with no real intent?

Someone gives a small cry. 

I hurry upstairs to diffused light—  

a vast choir on temporary bleachers 

rehearses the Verdi “Requiem.”

                                                    V-E Day, 2015 

Under the San Gabriel’s: A California Ghazal

A dry October. Sitting by the hotel pool, fan palms stand 

stalwart as if rooted in iron, yet a cool off-shore breeze. 

I remember banana trees ravaged by the Santa Ana’s,

leaves startled, split, then separated into prophecies.

Two girls in string bikinis talk of Las Vegas and college. 

One says the name of her black toenail polish –“Jaguar.”

Air fills with the scent of coconut oil. Light on their feet,

I admire the easy way they spring from bright lounge chairs.

Golden lilies and creamy yucca bring warmth and beauty. 

The handsome man in the turban says his name is Nick.

Camphor trees near the pool seem unnatural.

Someone says, “The Red Sox will play in The World Series.”

At the reunion yesterday, Ralph flew in from Hawaii, hibiscus 

shirt and pukka shells. He remembered me from English 1-A.

Evening, violet hills obscure in haze, the fountain spews 

blue and orange lights, white tents hoisted for a wedding.

Even in overcast and smog, beauty can be measured,

the milky Star Jasmine twining, crimson parrots flit of wing.

Jeanine Stevens, Sacramento, California is interested in brief moments that may find their way into a poem. The ragged squirrel by the side of the road, green figs on a white plate, a sudden burst of melody, the cricket's song. Besides writing, Jeanine enjoys Tai Chi, collage and Romanian folk dance.  

Two Poems by Tobi Alfier

Ode to a Winter Night

These hands.

Tea-stained, arthritic,

stubborn as the stars

that bloom night after night.

Neither rest easy or well.

What is time in the face of all seasons?

Fall turns to winter. 

Trees gleam auburn

before turning bare.

These hands beckon:

come closer friend.

Set with me by the fire.

Let’s toast to a life full-lived.

Our merlot flickers shadows

over our faces. Whispered secrets

trace the echoes of night.

Calm hands, smooth skin—

I kiss your closing eyes.

Sand-Colored Smile

He says her neck smells like butterscotch.

Not cinnamon,

not sadness,

not sweat, but butterscotch.

Her father always used to carry that

in his pocket, in his car, in his briefcase—

that was his trademark.

Her mother complaining about the dental bills,

her special secret with her father,

and now her neck smells of remembrance

and sweetness.

His neck is that perfect smile

of skin beneath a short haircut.

She normally prefers long hair on men

a little curly, a little wild,

she thinks it may be the sign of an artist,

but this man, she can run her fingertip across

the back of his neck, the sea of salt and pepper

along the shore of sand-colored skin— it causes her

to think differently about men who care to show

this part to her.  Like a woman’s ankle in the 1800’s,  

she understands the obsession of a little skin.

She exhales.

Tobi Alfier (Cogswell) is a multiple Pushcart nominee and a Best of the Net nominee.  Her current chapbooks include “Down Anstruther Way” (Scotland poems) from FutureCycle Press, and her full-length collection “Somewhere, Anywhere, Doesn’t Matter Where” is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. She is co-editor of San Pedro River Review (www.bluehorsepress.com).

On Navy Seas by Barbara A. Meier

The one lonely gull above the navy sea,

flickers of light from the offing, the curvature

of earth a degree below the horizon,  smoky haze

from the stack and the wake - a path to twilight.

The silence lies about peace and brings to mind

the loneliness of one amongst the ghosts.

Death lives forever in damaged cells,

missile silos, and burning C130’s.

War makes mutes of men, the gas of tears

searing the lining of their throats.

The fellowship of the dead,

the silence of the navy sea

and one lone gull.

Cum tacent, clamant!  

When they are silent they shout!

Cicero

Barbara A Meier is really just a farm girl from Kansas who now looks at Pacific waves instead of waves of grain. She teaches Kindergarten and First graders in Gold Beach, OR, how to write phonetically and draw pictures to match their writing. She has been published in Birds-Highland Park Poetry, Nature Writing, Poetry Pacific, The Poeming Pigeon, and Cacti Fur. Click here to visit Barbara at her blog.

Letter From My Father the General by David Spicer

I don’t mean to intrude, the courier interrupted

us at prayer in the Baptist shack with no

stained-glass windows and too many cobwebs

and dust bunnies, but I have a letter from your

father the general. Outside, the sleet broke

the sky and then melted. She handed me the letter

and left, the schoolgirls, veterans, and cowboys

hushed. I dismissed choir practice with a Bless you

and have a good summer, climbing the stairs

to my room. Poured champagne and ate a banana 

after I pulled the letter from my pocket,

reading it by lantern light. Son, it began, 

I know you’ve regarded me as superhuman,

and think I’ve shunned you for choosing

the ministry instead of genetics or geology.

You’ve conquered icebergs with more

grace than I have with massacres

and slaughters from a government plane.

My victims’ blood seeps from my heart

to the boots that lackeys have licked. 

But I’ve learned, as I scrape through this

last day toward death and damnation,

that the loveliest reality I’ve known

is an orchard of cherry trees. 

May you blossom.

David Spicer has poems in Chiron Review, Alcatraz, Gargoyle, Easy Street, Third Wednesday, Reed Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, Midnight Lane Boutique, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. He's author of Everybody Has a Story and five chapbooks, his latest chapbook From the Limbs of a Pear Tree, from Flutter Press.

Two Poems by Steve Klepetar

The Green Lighthouse

Bright morning, a few cars crunch up a gravel road. 
Behind the green lighthouse, a white sail and the bubbly 
wake of a powerboat skimming parallel to shore. 
Blue sky, blue sea breathing as summer slowly slips away. 
At night, the moon, almost full now, near the month’s 
middle days, shimmers in long, pearl-white streaks, 
and night birds call from the edges of town. 
Ghost time now in shadows behind the moving lamp 
and in deep notes of warning moans. I have come 
to meet you again, to watch you rise through seaweed 
and muck, your empty sockets deep and long as tunnels 
to another world. They tell me you have migrated 
far away, tossed your passport on ocean’s salty skin, 
but here you are, arms full of weeds and shells. 
When the wind blows, your shape flutters and shifts, 
dragging over rocks. Your body is bereft of bones and blood. 
You have no muscles, no skin. You float silently, more 
felt than seen – cold fingertips along my neck, and a wordless 
pressure against my ears. On this cool night, I would lay you 
to rest as darkness swallows the land and the ancient sea.







When He Returns

There he is again, trailing behind 
in the sand, green eyes floating 
in his wide, round face. Maybe 
he’s talking on the phone to an 
old friend in a country far away, 
or maybe he’s muttering to the wind. 
It’s never so clear when he returns 
as summer climbs into the sky, 
and his white hair burns. I wanted 
to show him a book I wrote, but 
I know better than to look directly 
into his face, which will shimmer 
and be gone. If I leave some pages 
torn out in the garden, where his 
berry bush has grown tall and green, 
he may find some words to understand, 
though likely he will smile and shake 
his head. Already he looks like smoke, 
and his gentle hands glide through their 
farewell as if they would never touch the earth.







Steve Klepetar lives in Saint Cloud, Minnesota. His work has appeared widely in the U.S. and abroad, and has received several nominations for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize, including four in 2016. Three new collections have appeared in 2017: “A Landscape in Hell;” “Family Reunion;” and “How Fascism Comes to America.”

Two Poems by Byron Beynon

The Tree

The tree I planted
twenty years ago
has been felled
along with its shadow.
Birds that paused
on its branches
have melted away.
The wind no longer vibrates,
its notes pass by
with an undulating silence,
a silence that blooms
with the dignity of night,
as its memory reaches
towards the splintered
gleams of the most secret stars.

Transient

Frost hardened snow,
a settled whiteness frozen
on inscribed stones
slanting towards light,
the echo and call of rooks
high above a shifting graveyard.
A father empties a pistol,
speeds a bullet
from a morning window.
An addict dreams of the solid
Black Bull.
The skeleton at the foot
of the bed summons
red-haired Branwell
from sleep.
This portrait artist with poems
published in the Halifax Guardian
paints himself out
between Emily and Charlotte,
a crowding which disturbed
the luxury of balance
transient in the Haworth air.

Byron Beynon's work has appeared in several publications including Poppy Road Review, Agenda, Santa Fe Literary Review, Crannog and Poetry Wales. Collections include The Sundial (Flutter Press), Nocturne in Blue (Lapwing Publications) and The Echoing Coastline (Agenda Editions).