Contributor: Suez Jacobson

- -
The head
the body
the thinking
the doing
easier doing
just a body
on a bike
in the water
moving.
But the brain
intervenes
the thoughts pester you
challenges
expectations
you must respond
the brain never sleeps
the dreams persist
the shortcomings
the failures
the insecurities
all there
long after the body
finds rest.
But then the body
begins to crumble
left with a brain.
Please, no.
Too demanding.
Too close.
Too loud.


- - -
professor
trying to live lightly
and write

Contributor: J.K. Durick

- -
Lighting up on a day like this
Is a precarious business at best,
Of cupped hands sheltering our match
As we snatch at the flame in hurried gasps
That move to soothing, if done right, soothing
Puffs we linger on;
With backs turned to the thrust of the wind
We whisper to our hands something about desperation
Smoothed over, made right, a panic checked.
Even the uneven burning, the accelerated turning
To ashes can’t dampen the moment plucked from…
The moments we move through with this satisfied look
On the way toward the anticipated end
When we can finally flick our butt
Into the wind.


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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 Eskimo Pie, Pacific Poetry, Ink Sweat and Tears, and Muddy River Poetry Review.

Contributor: Eric Carl

- -
She misses all the wrong boys
He kisses all the wrong girls
She makes love to all the broken men
Hoping to fix them
Just as he takes in all of the shattered women
Hoping to mend them.

She cooks for the men who beat her
He pampers the women who scream at him
She does anything
Just as he does anything
Hoping to make them happy
Hoping to make the broken faces smile
Just one more time
Just one more time.

Love heals all
And yet all are broken
But he and she
Might yet meet
Might yet take each other in,
Might make up for all the wrong boys
Might make up for all the wrong girls
With a single kiss
With a single snuggle
That might launch a string of sweetly silent nights
That might last for the rest of their lives.


- - -

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
I've fed Old Tom for many years
with never any thanks,
not one meow.

He arrives at night with eyes ablaze.
I crack the door and slide a tin
of Fancy Feast

across the deck toward him like a puck.
He hunkers on the railing till
I lock up. Then he pounces.

The tin's a mouse, you see,
and now he knows
it's time to eat.


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

Contributor: John Ogden

- -
I wish I could move like her.
I wish I could dance
through crowds
with all the grace
that she does

I wish each step I took
could be as careless as hers
as free of guilt
as lethal
as hers.

The shards of my heart
are sharpened
by all the friends
all the family
who thought I could tame her
who thought she was a ripe and easy
target
even for such a fumbling
broken
man.

One by one, their backs turn.
One by one, they give up on me.
So easy, she,
they say.
so easy, and even still,
she got away from you.

They just couldn't see
that it was only
me needing her
never she needing me.


- - -
John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.

Contributor: Sudha Srivatsan

- -
The evening sky gleams
A beautiful easing sun
At home, geese cackling

Jellyfish surface
white bodies in amber haze
hug the oars warmly

new ivory cranes
downy amber feathers fluff
tangerine sundown

Jackfruits on a cart
heat, intoxicated bees,
who would taste sweeter?

cows grazing at dusk
chessboards in watercolors
painted thin, shaky

Lightning cracks at night
window hinges croak in turns
the frog falls silent

Oak leaf knocks beetle
still, immobile, feigning dead
blink! the dry leaf walks

green caterpillar
a tit eyes right opposite
slips, falls alow, coils


- - -
Sudha was born and raised in India. A daughter, wife and sister, she has worked in the Middle East and London. Sudha aspires to be known in the space of poetry as someone who weaves magic into language and combines unique design and strong color to her work of art. Her work is due to appear in Commonline Journal, the Indiana Voice Journal April 2015 issue, she has been a winner of poetry contests and was recently shortlisted for the Mary Charman Smith November 2014 Poetry Competition.

Contributor: Julie Guirgis

- -
Hot man, leaning against the bar
dressed in leather, studs and velvet
I see you undressing me
detached gaze, pursed lips.

Like a vampire, you're waiting to devour me
I can see your sharp teeth behind your grin
and still I fall in the gutter
too weak and blind to get up.

Here's your cue to play the gentleman and help me up
but you pass on by aloof to my pain
ready to move onto the next victim
indifferent to the tears searing my face

Deception is your friend
lies your companion
but in the end you will die alone

You despised my innocence
envied my purity
taking great pleasure in crushing me
like an ant under your pointed cowboy boot


- - -

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
Poetry by priests?
Who gives it more than mock attention?
We read their poems, yes,
author first, then the title,
finally the verse itself.
Not much, except for Hopkins.
We wait for Rome, you see,
to give us in addition to its saints
one more decent poet.
A sot once said
“When things get bad enough,
you will see a Celt,
armed with a quiver of poems,
ride flaming out of the hills,
soaring over the lakes,
wearing a rainbow for a Roman collar.”
Things are bad enough right now by half.
We need to hear his gallop soon.


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

Contributor: Paul Tristram

- -
The day that changed my wife
I just sat there upon the floor.
As she walked by me quickly
on her way to the front door.
There was no need for goodbyes
as her cold eyes had said it all.
Her body which once oozed love
was now as cold as a toilet wall.
Not once did I try to stop her
I just let her go on her merry way.
I let her have her bright future
as my heart slipped into decay.
I did not eat for four days
and I hardly slept a wink.
But now that I’m up and mobile
it’s time to find myself a drink.
The day that changed my wife
happened quite a few days ago.
Of course I thought of suicide
but that would please the whore.


- - -
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: Nowan Yoono

- -
This
Is not
A poem

But then again
Maybe
(maybe)

it is.


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Nowan Yoono wrote this. Nowan Yoono also wrote this bio.