Contributor: Linda M. Crate

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you want tired eyes
closing for sleep
to tell you that you are beautiful;

we all look for validation in all the wrong
places, trying too hard to push
a square through a
circle—

we are committed to being offended,
tv dinners, and misery.


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Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. Her fantasy novel Blood & Magic was published in March 2015.

Contributor: d0ll

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We speak these words
We sing these songs
Holding hands we chant along
Don’t know the meanings
Don’t care for the thoughts

Smear our faces with lipstick
The colour’s faded
But we don’t care
We say the words
Which are exaggerated
No one knows the meaning
But they’re all there
They stick along

Plaster over the bruise
Bandage over the wound
Baby you will heal so fast
Tonight you’re full of hate
Feeling used
Tomorrow you’ll crave
For love again
So save your empty words
Shut up and dance away
Shut up and dance, anyway


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Student, translator, post punk Djane and DIY enthusiast from Slovakia.

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
Were she here with me now,
by the waist I would raise her,
a chalice of wonder.

I’d bellow hosannas
and whirl her around,
tell her again that I love her,

press my face moist
in the pleats of her skirt,
ask her to sprinkle

phlox on the curls
of our children
if they are with her,

ask her to stay a while longer
while I do so much more
were she here with me now.


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

Contributor: Richard Hartwell

- -
Evil, dark-brown snake-tangle,
some as thick as your thumb,
naked and bleak in the winter sun,
yearning to regulate the inner fire.

Balled atop an arbor pole
champagne grape vines
await season’s change without
shedding, emerald skin appears.

Blossoms, buds, orbs of
clear tang, bursting from
tangles to be plucked and savored,
sumptuous bulbs of sugared venom.


- - -
Rick Hartwell is a retired middle school teacher (remember the hormonally-challenged?) living in Southern California. He believes in the succinct, that the small becomes large; and, like the Transcendentalists and William Blake, that the instant contains eternity.

Contributor: Ben Riddle

- -
O fey child of Olympus,
son of Ares, not of Zeus,
what have you become?

Sipping coffee in a coffeeshop,
spitting stories of wars you didn’t fight;
of lives you sought to heal.

My traitor son,
you have forgotten
the way of the warrior;

For what reason now
will people remember
your name?

You are no longer my son,
and I have never been more proud.


- - -
A fourth year student of English and Politics at the University of Western Australia, Ben Riddle is a founding member of the Said Poets Society.

Contributor: J. Yoder-Gorram

- -
One by one
we clear the trees from the land

One by one
we roll the rocks from the ground

One by one
we stop up the streams from the hills

Until there is nothing left
Until there is only room to grow
and no reason left to do so.


- - -

Contributor: Wisen Erlach

- -
Aiming for perfection
Aiming high
Aiming for an angel
All shades of blue and black.

Aiming for an angel
Aiming for the one
Aiming for a bladed babe
Who never turns her knives on me.

Aiming for a bladed babe
Aiming for a queen
Aiming for a future
All shades of smiling and dance.

Aiming for a future
Forever falling short.
Aiming for an angel
Always only wakening
To the bites of black widows.


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Contributor: Ray Miller

- -
I just don’t know what to do with my self
and it’s seldom I can locate it.
I’m circled on maps but when I stop to ask
a dust has covered the traces.
In living rooms and in limbo,
on all fours and on tiptoe I’ve chased it.
I’ve read the self-help literature,
Bergson et al and etcetera:
the brain is but a filterer
and in theory all can be heard and seen,
what is now and what has been.
The world is on my fingerprints,
its garbage overflows the bins
and I am blown by violins
to search my self to smithereens;
down half-remembered alleyways
the detritus of all the days
has settled on our counterpane.
Let’s fumble locks and zips and lips
too intimately intricate,
let’s laugh and listen to the drips
of a viscous blue percussion.
Let’s steal a ball with a private invite
and dare the world to pursue;
then at daybreak when the dust has flattened
and the great birds hover and squawk,
I’ll shrink smaller than invisible
and beg you to turn on the dark.


- - -

Contributor: J.K. Durick

- -
(For Nathaniel)

We don’t ask for days like this
They come to us in due course

Effort, luck, and persistence
Come into play to make the day.

We just finish one thing to begin
Yet another, they all become

Notches to mark our progress
Like the pencil marks we made

In all those kitchen doorways
A way to measure our growth

One overshadows an earlier
Then is overshadowed in turn;

On days like this we smile and
Take pictures, shake hands and

Hug, we cheer and say goodbye
Like tourists off on a cruise, or

Like our ancestors ready to sail
To a new world, or astronauts

About to blast off into space;
On days like this we smile a lot

And promise ourselves that
All the things we did add up to

Important measures, like these
Diplomas, notches, penciled lines

And then we turn to look for any
Friendly faces in the confusing crowd.


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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 Camel Saloon, Black Mirror, Milo Review, Eye on life Magazine, and Leaves of Ink.

Contributor: Steven Jacobson

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the spirit moves one to realize the truth,
and the heart propels one to see and become love.
the spirit transcends all earth-like feelings,
and the heart renders one to be joyful and open.
the spirit pushes to ponder the moment,
and the heart yearns to be free, heartfelt by the soul.
the spirit guides away from the mind and body,
and the heart gives and girds in earnest to one another.
the spirit gains and grows giving life cause,
and the heart perceives and pushes one to sail upwards.
the spirit proclaims an abundance for life,
and the heart wishes, waits in the moment forever.


- - -
Steven Jacobson was born and raised in the Midwest. He has attended multiple classes from the Loft Literary Center, promoting all levels of creative writing. His goal is to write a second book. His first book is called “Spiritual Gait” and was published in 2014.