Upon Audrey Munson Looking Down by Paul Tristram

It is but a soulless gaze,
a marble reflection only.
A mirror image stolen
from the early 1900’s
and imprisoned within stone.
Not quite high enough 
for vertigo
but just enough
to be mostly ignored.
104 is far too long a life
with over two thirds spent
rotting alone in an asylum.
‘All New York Bows Down
To The Real Miss Manhattan’
or rather a concrete replica.
Delusional and demented
after mercury plotting.
She survived a murderer’s
attention only to be spat
into the uncaring arms of ruin.
Buried in an unmarked grave
and people still stop to admire
her perfect features
in many places around the city
but never where she truly is.








Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems, short stories, sketches and photography 
published in many publications around the world, he yearns to tattoo porcelain bridesmaids 
instead of digging empty graves for innocence at midnight; this too may pass, yet.
Buy his book ‘Scribblings Of A Madman’ (Lit Fest Press)  http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1943170096

Dead Sisters by Jennifer Calvert

Image courtesy of Jezebel.com

Two sisters dead,
And a knifes edge,
Unblinking in the cold air,

The secret was out –
Concealed by the gravesite,
Dug up on dawn,
The cemetery a detached place, of brittle bones,

Blood on the leather,
Torn gowns,
And shadow puppets –
Dancing on a screen;
Without sound,

One sister alive, heart-beating light,
Covered in blood,
She wipes it away,
A thousand and one faces, taken to the grave,
She begged them to stay,
Here they lay,
Two sisters of sleep.

I’m an Australian poet, pouring my heart and soul into each piece I write. Finding beauty in everything, and hoping to inspire, provoke and stir the reader’s feelings and emotions. I like to test the boundaries, explore the possibilities and open my work to the reader, for interpretation.

Website: jennifercalvertwriter.com

Death a Bear by Donal Mahoney

Odd the way the very old

pick a winter day to fall,

break a minor bone,

be assigned to bed

and death a bear

napping out the winter

rises in his lair,

instantly aware

here is Spring

and ultimately honey.

Nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes, Donal Mahoney has had poetry and fiction published in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Some of his work can be found at  http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-locksmith/donal-mahoney-poet.html

Angry Moon Mermaid by Linda M. Crate

you denied any wrong doing,

but the sirens in your eyes

told me otherwise

still luring maidens and their dreams

to death;

but love is the greatest power we could have

or hope to know

i won't let you turn it into a perversion

because your lust

is enough to break hearts and maybe even souls—

i fly with the wings of ravens

dance with the fae

swim with the mermaids,

and i am a daughter of the moon;

i will not be afraid to cross you in the sunlight or in the heart

of the darkest night

the rabbit hearted girl you once knew is gone

i am a battle ready warrior

the vampire with the foolproof plan couldn't foresee me—

i know you think you're oh so clever,

but for you that would be a difficult endeavor;

mermaids can be every bit as dangerous as sirens

i will drown you in the hurricanes of my rage.

Linda M. Crate is the author of the Magic Series and has many poems, short stories, reviews, and essays published both online and in print. Her third poetry collection Sing Your Own Song is forthcoming from Barometric Press Series.

Synergist by Michael Keshigian

All day 

I’ve listened to the song

of a single cardinal 

 

ripple stillness

just outside my office window.  

An opera in red tux

 

his throat is a spring

stretching an aria 

through the cluttered house

 

of sound, awakening memories

of events since past.

The timbre enlivens my heart.

 

I can almost touch 

what once was 

as it floats between 

 

song and wind.  An inflection 

so crisp, that I’m convinced

the cardinal sings for more

 

than to merely texture 

the commotion.  His tune

incites another gift.

 

He performs daily,

tireless and without hoarseness,

to make sad hearts flutter.

Michael Keshigian, from New Hampshire, is a musician, writer, runner  published in numerous national and international journals most recently including Red River Review, Blue Pepper, and Tipton Poetry Journal, appearing as feature writer in over a dozen publications with 6 Pushcart Prize and 2 Best Of The Net nominations. (michaelkeshigian.com)

Unpacking by Martin Willitts Jr.

"We are creations’/property, its particles, its clay” — Jane Kenyon, Winter Lambs

During the past three days, we unpacked

what we do not need. One life is gone.

Now we are selling what belonged

and what is left behind.  Some is of little value, 

even to a garage sale for a dime. 

We give up what we have accumulated

over life. We leave behind a body

and it will break into particles,

combine with light and dust. 

We return to red clay, earthward-bound, 

merge with grass and nitrates,  

unpacking one life for another. 

Someone will miss us, 

opening battered suitcases of memories.

They will open the latch 

whenever they need it, and it begins again —

all of this coming and going. 

Martin Willitts Jr is a retired Librarian. His poems appeared in Blue Fifth, Centrifugal Eye, Stone Canoe, Kentucky Review, Poppy Road Review, and many others. He has 11 full-length collections including "How to Be Silent" (FutureCycle Press, 2016) and forthcoming "Dylan Thomas and the Writer Shed" (FutureCycle Press, 2017).

In the Realm of Dreams by Richard Schnap

Graveyards are gardens

Where the dead are planted

To bloom in better worlds

Gardens are temples

Where the faithful flowers

Sing hymns to the sun

Temples are oceans

Where the lighthouse of deities

Guides the lost through life’s storms

Oceans are highways

Where the counsel of stars

Leads the homeless back home

Highways are stories

Where travelers find endings

Unmarked on any map

And stories are graveyards

Where epics are concluded

As new ones begin







Richard Schnap is a poet, songwriter and collagist living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His poems have most recently appeared locally, nationally and overseas in a variety of print and online publications.

Surrender by Erin Wilson

lakeside again, no longer wanting to wait at the door,
the woman begins unlatching her earlobes and bra straps,

all of her mythed-out rememberings and imaginings,
steps out of her delicate skin with a flick of her toes,

lets down each book she's read and held in her milk glands,
sets out her turtle-slow sorrows to crawl off eternal,

unfastens her hair, murmur of blackbirds turned fast to fire,
and sends each cell off to simmer and simper

out over the surface of water.
the morning has called her this one last time,

and finally the woman has stopped trying to answer.

erin wilson's poems have recently appeared in Rust + Moth, Autumn Sky Poetry, and Up the Staircase Quarterly, among others. She writes, runs, and takes photographs in a small town in northern Ontario, where she sometimes encounters a wolf or two when crossing the bridge at night.

Sadly, We Die by Michael Lee Johnson

Sadly, we die in little black suitcase boxes,

cave into our fears and the top falls down.

Save the laughter, celebration, thunder clapping,

rats experimentally test shed light at end of life's tunnel.

Death is a midnight stoker, everyone living goes home.

All windows bolted, all smiles switched off.

Sad on examination tables,

in little rooms, red, with lightning we die,

move on.

Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. He is a Canadian and USA citizen. Today he is a poet, editor, publisher, freelance writer, amateur photographer, small business owner in Itasca, Illinois.  He has been published in more than 880 small press magazines in 27 countries, and he edits 10 poetry sites.  Author's website http://poetryman.mysite.com/.  

The Sun by Stephen Roche

The backdrop of the sun

Is like art to me, but I

Don’t know much about it.

Down behind the mountains

It goes to sleep another night.

Warmth I’ll hold until tomorrow.

The backdrop of the sun

Does not return to the sky

And we below are lost.

And no matter how far

I walk behind the mountain,

I’ll never find where it went.

Stephen Roche lives in Tralee, Ireland. He studies Creative Writing at the Institute of Technology, Tralee, and is currently on a 3 month Internship with a local online news outlet. He has previously been published in Three Line Poetry, Haiku Journal and The Literary Commune.

The Ocean by Penelope Yagake

An unpredictable life,

wave after wave.

Moving without a clear direction,

flowing relentlessly

up past rocks and sand,

then back, pulling whatever will come with it.

The storm follows

with clashing, thundering arguments

each louder than the last.

Fear brews in eyes

caught within its fury.

No one knows what’s there

in the deep darkness.

Penelope Yagake writes poetry and short stories from her home in Southern California where she works while her cat judges her from afar. When she is not writing, she draws and creates digital art. Her work has appeared in Eskimo Pie, Leaves of Ink, Fifty Word Stories, and Forced Entries.

Removing the Self by Steve Klepetar

“How to remove oneself from oneself

(without unknowing oneself totally):

                Neruda

I remove myself from myself

one shadow at a time. I pull and

a curtain of cloud fills the room.

By now, something is leaking,

a blue tarpaulin flaps in the breeze.

My eyes have faded from white

to yellow to red, and then to ash.

I have burned myself in the furnace

of my fears, baked in the oven

of desire until steam rises from

my skull and the hungry eaters,

called to table from an upper

floor, descend to their plates

and bowls and forks and knives.

I disappear down a hundred throats

and my sighs are lost in the green wind.

Steve Klepetar’s work has appeared widely, and several of his poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Recent collections include My Son Writes a Report on the Warsaw Ghetto  and The Li Bo Poems (forthcoming) both from Flutter Press.

The Thinning Darkness by G. Louis Heath

was filled with compulsion, with fragrant,

exotic confusion. The scent of bougainvillea

and jasmine floated through the live oak,

draped in Spanish moss, lit by the gibbous

moon now etching a dawn.

He leaned against the tree, holding her. She

felt his strength, and felt protected. Yet the

prehensile way he embraced shadows

of a childhood no moon or sun could dispel

sounded the silent alarm.

She felt him as a fastness. Yet he was holding

to her as a two-year-old might cling to a

mother’s shoulders in the dark, after the

night light had failed.

The tension in her spine, bone-words, spoke

to him. Under the tanned skin of vacation,

the long night of partying around the island

tingled, simply heaven, the finale of a honey-

moon that should have been a vacation for two,

not a sandy, conchy extension of a sacrament

that would begin a life together,

but mostly apart,

and only for four months, and two days,

till in the final hours the bone-words found a

translator.

G. Louis Heath, Ph.D. Berkeley, teaches at Ashford University, Clinton, Iowa. His books include VANDALS IN THE BOMB FACTORY, LEAVES OF MAPLE and LONG DARK RIVER CASINO. His interests include writing poems and short stories, hiking, and serving on the Clinton, Iowa Human Rights Commission. He can be contacted at gheathorov@gmail.com.

Thrift Store Meanderings by Wayne Russell

The thrift store is dank and dusty, 

full of relics of someone else's past.

Chipped china sets and discarded 

tube style televisions.

Rusted wrenches and toolboxes,

broad stripped neck ties, and VHS 

tapes marked .25 cents each.

Over in the corner hangs a tweed

suit coat, it's ghost beckon me to

try it on for size, alas vintage 70's 

checks were never my thing.

I stroll past in a daze, books seated 

upon dilapidated pine shelves seem

to be reaching out for me.

I can hear the echos of Hemingway

and Wilde reverberating throughout 

the isles of my thrift store oasis.

"The Old Man and the Sea" and "The 

Importance of Being Ernest" are both

on my book shelf at home. 

I sigh and pluck them from the obscurity

of the bottom shelf anyway.  

The voices have been silenced, I meander 

towards the till to make my payment.

Wayne Russell is a creative writer born and raised in central Florida, he has been doodling with words and art since the age of five. He was first published at the age of nineteen in 1989 via snail mail, fast forward to 2007 he was published via 21st century technology. 

Chiaroscuro by Shinlynn Kuo

you gave me a poem

when I asked for an essay—

with you, I am home

we lie still in bed

lying through our teeth

hold each other’s breath

together we wait

for a train never coming

running from silence

you’ve left ghosts behind

of cigarette burns on the

limbs of vintage films

Shinlynn Kuo currently lives in Southern California creating living paintings through the medium of game design. She can be spotted on library rooftops, drawing dragons on paper airplanes she flies out.

The Darkest Night by Ryan Stone

The mind has many defences, she wrote

in her award-winning essay. Glowing,

she stood in front of her school;

movie tickets her prize. 

Painted in shades between girl and woman

she kissed me goodbye with bright red lips

and joined her friends in line.

The mind has many defences, she wrote. 

Maybe that's why, in police reports,

many claimed they'd heard fireworks.

Odd in a cinema; the alternative

too grim to believe.

Ryan Stone is a freelance writer from Melbourne, Australia.  He shares his home in the blue Dandenongs with his wife, two young sons and a German Shepherd.  A selection of Ryan's poetry, prose, haiku, art and flash fiction can be found on his blog - www.daysofstone.wordpress.com

A Lost Cause by Natalie Wallace

My bones ache,

with the waves of a tide,

wanting to stay ashore.

And my joints crack together,

while being carried away.

My body is dragged through the wild ripples,

going further out to sea.

Then the chaos calms,

and I float.

The water

surrounds me and hums a soft lullaby.

While I watch the sky

change from pinks and oranges,

to a rain of gold stars.

I drift and drift,

mesmerized by

the lost dreams in the sky.

Where I can

hear the hushed whispers,

of strayed star-gazers.

Natalie Wallace resides in Southern California. She is a cheerful spirit who enjoys reading, writing, and drinking Jasmine tea. You can find her work on Eskimo Pie, Leaves of Ink, Forced Entries, Cadence Collective, Silver Birch Press and the Cerritos Library Website.

Sick Day by Ag Synclair

I fixed the bed with our best sheets
checked now and then on a sick child
and wrote a poem about old men and women
about love
and stripping down to your scars.

I heard my ghost whisper to me
that I haven’t quite figured out 
this love thing
this tangle of guts and wonder 

that finds me bruised 
like November apples
my skin blued to the bone
my peace
otherwise undisturbed.

© 2015 Ag Synclair

Ag Synclair publishes The Montucky Review and edits poetry for The Bookends Review. A Pushcart Prize nominee, he is widely published around the globe, yet flies under the radar. Deftly.

Spring's Solstice by Jasmine Wilson

The in peak of spring...

pink eviction notices bloom,

watered by sorrow.

As dawn creeps closer—

your hopes, your freedom—thrown in

a cardboard prison.

The sunset is harsh...

casting hues of red upon

a half-empty home.

Night blackened the sky—

stars shone brighter than headlights,

homeless once again.

If there was an award for consecutively going outside, Jasmine Wilson would probably come in last place. She’d be too busy constructing blueprints for global conquest from her little suburb in Cerritos California. Or—searching for pet shelters to adopt from. In addition to plotting world domination, she has been published by Leaves of Ink.

Arctic Expedition by Dane Karnick

Stupendously alone

The Franklin vessel sleeps

Beneath the fathoms

 

Of Victoria Strait

As sonar reveals 

Its old resting place

 

With its crumpled bow

Snatched from the world

When ice ingested the ship

 

Forcing its crew to walk

Across miles of fatigue

Stuck between their bones

 

While each man fell into

The mausoleum of snow

With fierce inertia.

 

Dane Karnick grew up by the Colorado “Rockies” and lives near Seattle.  His poetry recently appeared in Here/There, Bookends Review, Eunioa Review and Indiana Voice Journal.  Visit him at www.danekarnick.com.