Contributor: J.K. Durick

- -
You probably remember learning to parallel park
That stumbling block beginning to drive, passing
The driver’s test, twist, turn, then straighten out,
Or the time you found that place two city blocks
Away from your cousin’s wedding reception and
Spent the whole time worrying about leaving it
Your second largest investment out there where
Likely thieves and/or vandals circled in, planning;
You discover that that’s what parking is all about
Following signs, seeking, finding, taking a chance,
We find a place for ourselves, a snug fit, or ample
We must take this time to fit in with all the others
Check the mirror, twist a bit in our seat, this way
Then that, in reverse things go by much too fast
And then we’re there by the curb, lessons learned
Then carried out; we measure and mark our place
In the world, step out, lock up, and secretly pray
That the inevitable in all this doesn’t include us
The parking ticket, the passing scrape, or scratch
An empty space, a missing car, the long walk home.


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J. K. Durick is a writing teacher at the Community College of Vermont and an online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Shot Glass Journal, Black Mirror, Third Wednesday, Thrush Poetry Journal, and Madswirl.

Contributor: Michael Lee Johnson

- -
I am drunk, isolated,
and horny,
I stumble into "The Crazy Eight
Bar" and it was not my lucky charmed night.
Flirting with Indian women, delusional
with my white ass superiority,
I am doing card tricks,
end up getting my guts
rib cage kicked out.
Métis Indians circle me in a corner
no facial war paint on
no Indian war bonnets on.
I am down eating floor dust of native history,
and the steel needle toe boots
keep coming up fast, heavy into my ribcage.
One-half lung is out, the other half collapsed.
I am seeing vision of Jesus Christ.
I am crawling to my car half-dead, barely breathing.
Collapsed lungs, head lying on that steering wheel
somehow, find the nearest hospital.
I spit blood. I puke Apple Jack wine on surgeons.
My tan suit jacket is ruined; I piss my white pants.
Life is shaded like purple summer daisies.
So I learned, when a stranger is in strange town
find a place where your color fits your face,
never cheat at cards.


- - -
MICHAEL LEE JOHNSON lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era: now known as the Itasca, IL poet. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, photographer who experiments with poetography (blending poetry with photography), and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois, who has been published in more than 750 small press magazines in 26 countries, he edits 7 poetry sites. Michael is the author of The Lost American: From Exile to Freedom (136 pages book), several chapbooks of poetry, including From Which Place the Morning Rises and Challenge of Night and Day, and Chicago Poems. He also has over 69 poetry videos on YouTube.

Contributor: Paul Tristram

- -
Onto the pavement I fall
returning its cold touch.
My shoulders fell forward
the weight was too much.
I crawl into an alleyway
and hide behind some bins.
Once more a crash landing
once more the enemy wins.


- - -
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: Steve Isaak

- -
“Why do you shred
your early story versions?”
she asks.

I shake my head,
because I can’t explain
how I’m destroying
past selves,
some better, most not,
and decades,
when I, explosive,
squandered opportunities
& hearts.

Time was kinder,
more abundant, then,
not a returning magpie flock,
each flesh-gouging beak
a fast-passing day,
each wing flap an echo breeze
of Winter’s gelid breath,
while I write, edit,
try to be better,
do more
for her, she who balanced me.


- - -
Steve Isaak, a.k.a. Nikki Isaak and Chuck Lovepoe, is the author of several poetry anthologies.

Contributor: Amy Burns

- -
She, with upturned palms,
Laid herself to crying in that cradle.
The tears, viscose, did not wet her face but
Vulcanized her yoke;
Buoyed, only then did she set off rowing.
Going nowhere fast, she hammered the waves,
There was no besting her belligerence:
An internal friction heated her lungs,
Staved breathlessness and broke casks and spilled dark
Liquor until there was no more to spill.
She stopped rowing.
Only then did we catch on.
We took up the oars, left her dry,
Free to mourn tomorrow.


- - -
Amy Burns is the Managing Editor of Mulberry Fork Review. She has recently returned to Alabama from the UK where she completed a PhD at the University of Glasgow. Amy is working on her second novel.

Contributor: David Macpherson

- -
Walking in, the bar is packed
Filled with hangers-on from a Sunday afternoon
Baby shower. People settling tabs, talking about
The Future, and those who will be there
When it finally arrives. Which is how talk is in these things.
But soon the place begins to lighten, to empty.
Several of these people are going to a
Memorial Ceremony for a young woman,
and former bar patron, who passed away too soon,
As is the way for this. I order a drink
And watch this turnstile of obligation.
The people attempt to remove their smiles
Replacing them with a more appropriate expression.
The beer is cold and sweet.
Which is the way for this as well.


- - -

Contributor: Richard Schnap

- -
The years pass unstoppably by
Like buses behind schedule
Like young girls escaping their childhoods
Like dead leaves lost in the wind

While I watch from a seat by my window
The passengers late for appointments
The lonely in search of their soul mates
The world as a race against time

And I look around my white-walled room
At a vase of plastic flowers
At a crystal ball collecting dust
At a guitar with out-of-tune strings

That someday will be someone else’s
To gather in their empty hands
To hold as they make them their own
To keep until they too fly away


- - -
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: David Calbert

- -
He plays violin under my bed
One floor below
Sharp notes stab through the gauze of sleep
Lancing cotton dreams stuffed in my ears

I’ve slept through the school day
Again
Repelled by healthy hours
Seduced in sheets of smoky indulgence

He’s coiled like a brass string
Squeezing the air from his lungs
The sleep from his eyes

Treatment is prescribed
In phrases made effervescent by
Constant cough drops that numb the tongue
His hands shake

It’s true, I launch into the night
A bottle rocket
Propelled by fizzing hangovers
And chalky gunpowder
Breaking the word “Tomorrow”
Between my teeth again and again
Like gin soaked ice cubes

His fingers crisscross sometimes
Small snakes waging war with
Jointed bodies
Fighting for hours

He plays the violin
Slowly
Climbing chromatic scales with sweet agony
Drawing out the years in steady metronome
He gets better
The strings stop shrieking

I lay in a bed of good intentions
And think about all the things I’ll do
Tomorrow


- - -
David Calbert lives in California. He writes fiction, essay, the occasional poem, and is still trying to find his place. He also tends to drink whiskey and talk about bad ideas for horror movies.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
Listen, Dad,
Mom's dead, but
you can dance
with her again.

She's waiting
in the sky, behind
a star, humming
to the music.

You and Mom
can waltz around
the moon forever.
She may even sing

that song you like.
I'll comb your hair,
shine your shoes
and press your old tuxedo.

There's no rush.
You know Mom.
She'd never dance
with anyone but you.


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

Contributor: Lori Wyman

- -
I hear echoes from the wild beckoning me to come out and play,
and whispers in the night from such sweet sounds somewhere far away.
I call to the gentle stillness of the land that can’t be heard,
I dare not to speak but hear, “Don’t you say a word.”
This silent beauty that breathes my name,
speaks to me through Mother Nature’s game.
The gift of peace that from the Earth abounds,
is but for a chosen few who don’t speak a sound.
“Only the wise,” the bird does say,
“hear my cries of my young and my prey.
I know the deaf and the blind you see,
they’re too busy hurrying to care about me.
So I sing my song to the quiet and in part,”
“and our songs in the night,” Mother natures whispers,
“are for those who listen with their heart.”


- - -
I'm 53 years old and I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I love to write and am in the process of publishing a manuscript that I've just finished and have been writing for 30 years. I live with my best friend and adore my two Siamese cats. I work as a Sales Representative at Petsmart stores.