Contributor: Paul Tristram

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Together in tenderness
married by a kiss.
Floating like a whisper
upon a breeze of bliss.
Born unto the universe
children of the night.
To roam God’s graveyard
spirits hungry for flight.

Beneath a cloak of wishes
I wish for you no more.
As we step away from sanctuary
through the nights velvet door.
I echo you with laughter
I share you with a smile.
Along the road of daydreams
we enjoy every mile.

Transfixed to delirium
addicted to the chase.
with purple wings of wonder
I eject sobriety’s slow pace.
Eager for the adventure
promised within your eyes.
I circle squares of reason
to where your passion lies.

The stars beckon us skywards
normality waves farewell.
As we leave behind the nightmare
of this living hell.
Souls winged and ready
eager to break free.
Civilization’s Changelings
re-shaping our destiny.

Hold on to the dreams
for tonight we fly.
On the tail of the impossible
invincible you and I.
This is no flight of fancy
we’re higher than the sky.
Past the moon milestones
yes, tonight we fly!


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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.

Contributor: JD DeHart

- -
The stage is now bare,
the audience has gone home.
Actors sit there, not sure
which way they are supposed
to go now. The lines have all
faded away. A single naked
bulb hangs over, refusing
to offer them a darkness.
Someone still has a prop, but
no one remembers what it
was used for now.
Then the stage itself is no more.


- - -

Contributor: Adam Levon Brown

- -
Constant discomfort
while changing positions

The cold penetrates all
as you shiver to your very core,
hoping that the sun will rise

Knowing that at any second
someone could scream at you,
telling you to leave or the police
will deal with you

Sleep and food deprivation
makes for a bitter morning
as you wander to the next
spot, hoping it will be
better than the last

The constant threat
of violence is ever on
the mind, as you think
criminal action is the
only way to get through
to the next day

Stared at, mocked,
ridiculed, beaten
You are yesterday's
news and no one is
reading
Pariah of society,
nameless and forgotten

These streets don't cry for us.


- - -
Published Poet & Fiction Author
Student of Life
Cat Lover

Contributor: Gayle Newby

- -
Rowing to the Horn on a spectral silver dawn;
rations in the prow,
blankets to ward off the cold,
necessity prodding him on like a fierce fire brand.
Outer voices vanquished, inner voices stilled.

To get the whorls just so,on a painted ocean shell,
to catch, as in one's hand, the muted shade of a perfect gull
breathing in the gulf until the aching pain retreats.
Lovingly replaced by nature's soothing hand.


- - -
Gayle Newby has been published in Grit Magazine and The Pontotoc Progress Newspaper. Her work is forthcoming in the Spring edition of the Hiram Poetry Review.

Contributor: Russ Cope

- -
I have been made
and fashioned out of old
drapes and spit and polish,

out of daddy's booth leather
and the stuff at the bottom
of whiskey glasses after a
long evening

I have been made from the
matter on the bottom of boots
mingled with the substance
of heaven

I have been made.


- - -
Russ Cope is a writer from West Virginia. He's been in food service, janitorial service, and many other jobs. His poems have appeared on Poetry Super Highway.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
Things reach a certain age,
an age at which
things don't work
the way they once did.

The battery in your car,
the battery in your phone,
the battery in your laptop die
but these can be replaced.

Not so the battery in you.
But today your battery's en fuego
so you tell the wife tonight's the night.
Dinner and a movie first, of course.


- - -
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Contributor: Kushal Poddar

- -
I cease to accept words
for an answer. Someone
says, love you. Show me,
I say. She shows the black hole
and a time capsule. I say,
let me adjust my antigravity.

I know the mathematics of time
I need to turn this yard from white
and grey to a world of fireflies.

From here I see the slap framed in pane
opens his ballooned mouth and liquor
hits the wall causing a bad red stain.

I hate seeing blood, and this-close enough.
Some beast scurries in the bush. A light.
A plane I hear, cannot see, and that
makes it God I pray for hush and
fireflies. More fireflies.


- - -
Kushal Poddar is widely published in several countries, prestigious anthologies, authored ‘The Circus Came To My Island’ (Spare Change Press, Ohio) and “A Place For Your Ghost Animals” (Ripple Effect Publishing, Colorado Springs). The forthcoming book is “The Mood Study Of A Cold Cup."

Contributor: Richard Schnap

- -
I am the outcast
Following the orders
Echoing in my mind

I am the student
Begging the outcast
To please spare my life

I am the mother
Answering the phone call
That freezes my blood

I am the doctor
Fighting tears as I decide
Who will live or die

I am the preacher
Wondering if my words
Do any good at all

And I am the outcast
Watching the coverage
While fingering my gun


- - -
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.

Contributor: J. "Ash" Gamble

- -
We packed our suitcase in the night
but still could not prepare.

We put our house on the market, but
still nothing could help us.

In the upstairs where our children
collected their cars, slept their nights,
then left, we stayed huddled and peeked

below as the level we lived and loved
on filled slowly with grimy water, our
dreams filled with splashing sounds.


- - -
J. “Ash” Gamble is a late in life poet from Florida.

Contributor: Canyon Bates

- -
We are wet and heavy
with the world around us,
which seems to swirl
away. I watch it
wash into a nearby drain,
all that I thought was real
and true, only to be
replaced by an ugly new
thought until the rains
come crashing again.


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