Contributor: Three Wolves

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We sit together, she and I. We sit together, and the high sun is our guardian. We sit together, until time parts us, and then I sit here, together with only the memories, while the moon is our guardian.

After a while, there are no tears, but the birth of each new state of being is wet, desperate, full of wailing. Screaming does not change reality. The wall of lessons moves not as we will it.

Breathe the tears. Give time for the release. New purpose and new joys always come. Impermanence teaches us the value of the now. The future is the future's problem-- forever.


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Three Wolves is a spiritual teacher and the author of Liber Luminopticon. His works, including the upcoming book Liber Velum Voces, can be found on his website: www.luminopticon.com

Contributor: Joseph Friedrichs

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For one grueling
strange and lovely summer
I lived in the garage of an upper middle-class
American family.

I paid no rent.

My quarters were sanctioned off by large blue sheets.
We put an old twin mattress on some boxes and crates
and that is where I slept.

I drank hard every day while living in that garage.
Vodka, mostly.
Some gin.

I lived in that garage for approximately 57 days and nights.
Overall, my life was very basic.
All I needed to survive was booze and madness.

I had no woman.
I had no prospects.
I was the King of the Garage.

For supplemental oxygen
each night I left the garage door ajar about 10 inches.
In the stillness of the twilight raccoons entered the garage
scavenging like large greedy mice.
They were not friendly creatures.

One night I chased the raccoons with a huge broom.
Another time the family dog chased the raccoons away.
They always came back the next night.

I wore the same blue shorts every day that summer.
What made the days I have no idea.
There wasn’t much to do in the garage.

In the evenings the temperature cooled down.
Simply surviving another day of 100-degree heat
was enough reason to feel good.

Life was very strange
during my summer as a drunk in a garage.
It was as carefree of time as I can remember.


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Joseph Friedrichs is a freelance journalist and poet who lives in the Western United States. He is the author of three books, including "It's Good to Fish Alone," a book of poetry published in May 2013.

Contributor: Zenn Wu

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The box has been opened, the contents released, set loose to summon a future fashioned from the bones of a long slavery.

The fallout of a storm carried by nuclear fire is bright, makes the night fit for hunting easy prey. High price, high rewards, the jewels of life less fit than I. So sweet, this summer, this time, this sun. A new age, an age of freedom, the fallen shackles, broken, discarded. How many sons? How many suns? Pack the sand. Take the blades of obsidian from toughened hide and use them to slice ripe fruit from desert succulents.

The green comes soon. The dawn. The light. The signs ring clear and true, tell of trusting. Nothing left to lose. All to gain.


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Contributor: John Dorn

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When the long-denied, tempting challenges come, you will be ready. The burning ticket to prison desperate to be poached, the huntress, lions hungry for soft meats, for glory and seed, the traps of rampant spending, of wasted gold invested into future trash. For you, there will be more opportunities than you can satiate. For you, the strength of David, never to stray into darkness despite all of your power. That is the message of the ring, the rite, the sight. That is the way of the unfolding soon today (tomorrow).


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Contributor: Shawn Wunjo

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She had the spirit of a wolf, and her hands were fire. Like lightning, she would cut across the face of the sky, burn gashes of vapor and fate through rain and hail. Like water, she would spread smooth across time, weather all that rose rough against her. In my hands, she was a razor-spined fish, so smooth and elegant, vicious to the touch. In all my life, I’ll never forget her, never forget those hands like fire, those eyes, full of the spirit of the wolf.


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Shawn Wunjo is the author of a number of banned books.

Contributor: Gerald Hubbirt

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Waves from that higher sun touch the mountains where copper gods stir, shout fire into great pits of coal and laugh ringing, bellows-laughs beneath dark, ember-eyes. The hot shadows and close air boom through the darkness, echo earthy thunder to stony skies, iron forges fired with the flames of creation. Red and black have destiny in these labyrinthine halls, just as water comes only as steam, light only from fire, from the liquid of burning soul-iron poured from great crucibles into ingots of self, tools and weapons beaten, tempered and forged to be wielded against the new year, against the ever-moving currents of entropy.


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Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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I have spent hours
lying in the sun
on Joe Brickle’s farm

waiting for Pedro and Pablo
to fetch Little José
with his sickle and scythe

to cut down the high grass
so Pedro and Pablo
can roar their mowers

over the cowlicks.
I have not wasted time
lying in the sun

watching two doves
in the grass
walking in circles

waiting for a sparrow
to dance on the rung
of a feeder

Joe Brickle hung
in his Dogwood.
The doves need the seed

the sparrow will scatter.
Joe Brickle named goats
after prophets in the Bible.

He'd be happy to know
that I've named the doves
Pedro and Pablo

and the sparrow
now landing
is Little José.


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Donal Mahoney, a native of Chicago, lives in exile now in St. Louis, Missouri. His poetry and fiction have appeared in a variety of publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Contributor: Susie Sweetland Garay

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I try to live the day slowly
but it is not easy.

I see an old friend
with anchored in the now
inked forever on soft skin.
I draw two foxes by a fire
in love
and wonder about
my next addition.

My eyes won’t let me see
what the others see,
but I still stare
in the same direction.

We are all
inaccurate dreamers.

At night we listen
to the coyotes
as they call and play
outside our windows
sounding closer than they are.
He shines a flashlight
and we see a set of eyes.
They stop,
look,
wait,
and are gone.
I am envious of his patience
as I attempt to foresee my next move.

Doing is easier then feeling
but I must move carefully,
gradually,
whatever direction I go.


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Born and raised in Portland Oregon, Susie received a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Brigham Young University, spent some years in the Ohio Appalachians and currently lives in the Willamette Valley with her husband and cat where she works in the Vineyard industry. She spends her free time writing, growing plants and making art. She has been published in a variety of journals, on line and in print, and co edits The Blue Hour Literary Magazine and Press, http://thebluehourmagazine.com/

Contributor: Paul Tristram

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Come cringe for me baby
let me see the other side.
Come cringe for me baby
reveal the demons inside.
Your hidden awkwardness
all of your private fears.
Come cringe for me baby
I feel your phobias near.
I want to know all of you
I want to see your soul.
Come cringe for me baby
I want to love the whole.


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Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems, short stories and sketches 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.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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The nightmare woke my father every night
for years. He had no idea what it meant
and so he wrote the story down and hoped
some day he'd understand it.

He lost the note that night but
found it decades later in a drawer
next to the glass eye he popped out
the stormy night that Mother left.

Mom came back to "make their marriage work"
after she'd been gone for 20 years
but Father told her they had been divorced
for at least 10 years. Despite her tears,

Father told her, "Maude, after all this time,
let's agree that you were gone before you left
so let me tell you all about the nightmare
I've had every night since you rode off

with Charley on my Harley. I wrote the story down
to tell the kids but they grew up and left
before I had a chance to ask if they knew
what the nightmare meant.

Maybe you can help me understand it, Maude.
The note says this: 'What purpose does a rabbit have
other than as prey? What difference does
a rainbow make in a rabbit’s day?'

Now you say you love me, Maude,
but the kids are grown and gone
so take my Harley and go find Charley.
It's time I put my eye back in."


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Donal Mahoney has had poetry and fiction appear in various publications 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