Contributor: Tobi Cogswell

- -
A long wait for the bus,
he buys two bananas
and a bottle of rum.

Sounds like a sea shanty
but he has not seen a ship
in a long while.

He’d turned toward a journey,
not away. Not because of love lost,
but a pilgrim’s need

to find something—
indescribable and worthy, and he did,
so now he returns.

The rum to warm and to cool him,
a rag to dry tears, sweat,
and the day’s rust and relief

from his face. In his pack
he moves a spare shirt
and two books to make room

for his gifts of food and fatherly
things. And husbandly things.
We see him from our window

and we love him for the story
of the man that he is, wish
him a safe return, a life full

of all the love he has found within,
and who he has become—a blessing
for his family. A lesson for us all.


- - -
Tobi Cogswell is a five-time Pushcart nominee and a Best of the Net nominee. Her seventh and latest chapbook is “The Coincidence of Castles” from Glass Lyre Press. Her collaborative full-length collection, “The Color of Forgiveness”, is forthcoming from Mojave River Press. She is the co-editor of San Pedro River Review (www.sprreview.com).

Contributor: Paul Tristram

- -
Inertia baby get over here
come straddle my tired face.
Get your lazy arse over here
come dim this depressing place.
Let me feel you pressing down
as we feed upon each other.
Inertia baby get over here
straddle my face and smother.


- - -
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. You can read his poems and stories here! http://paultristram.blogspot.co.uk/

Contributor: Joanna M. Weston

- -
tarmac streams away
under turning wheels
on one side
of double yellow
that keeps me
focused in the moment
the clock the distance
both leading
to the half-hour
when my meeting
will begin on time
or late depending
on members held up
by domesticity
traffic vagaries
of personality
while I ponder agenda
speed limit
weather and the time
it takes


- - -
JOANNA M. WESTON. Has had poetry, reviews, and short stories published for twenty-five years. Her poetry, ‘A Summer Father’, was published by Frontenac House of Calgary.

Contributor: Lyla Sommersby

- -
Sometimes I dream
that we've mingled genes
that we've grown so close
our hearts now beat
with the same blood
thunder
with the same soul.

Sometimes I dream
that traits from you
merge and meld and mold
with the traits I see
(in me.)

Sometimes I dream
that my body is a sea
that you are the sky
that your soul is rain
falling,
falling into me
deepening
my depths


- - -
I am a student in Miami, Florida. Painting is my other love. My first book, Sketches of Someone, is available through Thunderune Publishing.

Contributor: Julia O.

- -
Five years
you reached for me
you listened to me
you looked into me
you wanted to talk to me
you wanted to spend every second
with me.

Now,
for the crime
of loving you,

Now,
I am in exile
I am a pariah
I am waiting
patiently
for you to want me
near you
again.


- - -

Contributor: Scott Thomas Outlar

- -
Put the pen on the paper,
even if you have nothing to say,
trusting in the subconscious fire
to bring up its roaring flames.
Trust that all you’ve ever read,
all you’ve ever heard,
all you’ve ever been witness to,
is stored somewhere in the
mass of electrically charged neurons
that make up your brain.
Trust that millions of years
of ancestral DNA are swarming
in a cosmic soup of sorts,
creating something meaningful to write.
Trust in your instinct as an artist.
Trust in the habit energy
that has been established
over the past fifteen years of work.
Trust that when it’s time to deliver,
you can, and you will,
because you must, because it’s
what you were born to do.
Trust that when you knock on
the door, it’ll fly open, with wise
words streaming out in alliterate fashion.
Trust in the vital energy and passion
that propels you, that urges you,
that demands you put one foot
in front of the other, to write
one letter and then the next, to live
one moment at a time.
Trust that there is a purpose.
Trust that it is being fulfilled.


- - -
Scott Thomas Outlar lives simply, spending his time writing poetry, essays, rants, and experimental, existential, prose-fusion screeds dedicated to the Phoenix Generation. He can be reached at 17Numa@gmail.com.

Contributor: John Swain

- -
The sea nor’easter reveled in its madness wrath,
I held a black scallop
as my leather boots sank into the changing dune
where the wind blew
to unearth the carapace of a shark-bitten turtle.
The tower of a broken ship rusts above the waves
gathered in a grey siphon to create a separate island
of common reeds swaying.
As the blue dark began to swallow,
I watched the tallest lighthouse candle
a mausoleum hall.
Salt, grit on my skin, sweat like a marooned horse
washed and in love
as the water calms
before the fog roll white with the roosting gulls,
I pledged my joining silence to tremble within.


- - -
John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Red Paint Hill published his first collection, Ring the Sycamore Sky.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
Would the death in Ferguson
have been as black and white
as many seem to think it is

if the victim had been
white as anthrax,
and the shooter

black as tar?
Would the aftermath
have been the same?

Would Pastor Sharpton
have flown to Ferguson
to address the masses

while the President
spoke gravely from afar?
Would businesses

have burned as bright
long into the night while
frozen cops watched?

I watched it on TV
with a cup of hot cocoa.
I’m the one to ask.


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

Contributor: Richard Schnap

- -
A weak light filtered in
As he looked around his room
At things that once were others

A blue shirt in the shape
Of someone else’s bones
Slowly melting into his

A book with creased pages
As if read over and over
So not a word was missed

A pewter statuette
Of the majestic Eiffel Tower
Rising like a tiny grey dream

Then he wondered just what
They all meant to their owners
Now unknown or underground

And whether whoever
They would pass to in time
Would feel the same way


- - -
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: Joanna M. Weston

- -
barely visible to the naked eye
these pale green creatures
thrive on the sap of trees
and touch my lips so lightly
giving birth continuously

wondrous light-framed beings
in their strange winged forms
hover on the edge of breath
like wilted leaves or flying seeds
that tickle prickle startle

each one lies on warmth of skin
small soft-bodied pear-shaped
secreting a substance called honeydew
that tastes like summer evenings
though a sooty mold may flourish

and form a roof over their backs
which will curtail flight
and stifle whole populations
halos burned and wings dried
to airy nothingness against blue


- - -
JOANNA M. WESTON. Has had poetry, reviews, and short stories published for twenty-five years. Her poetry, ‘A Summer Father’, was published by Frontenac House of Calgary.