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Kislay Chauhan - Five Poems

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Afternoon Desert 

Tides in absorbed sunlight, dry sand desert
Whitish glare, seeking mirror boats
Where time is dried, moments sweat
Music in flames, days on the roots
Dewdrops of morning search shadow
Where sun is more leaned, cleaned but hard
The outsized branches, curvy eyes of leaves
Stony feet the sharp fingers digging surface
The labors with spades mining the place
Small spiders with sewing tensing wounds
Blocking airs impelling to breath high
With black and white scenes and sky
Turning years of hooks and scissors without rain
Striving bones, sore throats of birds and beasts
And then steady rocks of bronzed silence
Little weeds the waiters of years
And no one dares, no one hears
Only the tails of trees bounding water
Spongy blue ribs spread out of chest
The boats only mirages peeping far away
Forever a mirage alone never gets any meet
Dazzling waves decorate them hanging mirrors
The last storm all forgot but still the signs there
Desert fencing borders far of the crowds
Where only cheerful nights smile
And afternoon songs are tired unto evenings
When all the stars dine together
On sand-sheet, sand with resting eyes



An Old Age

A mechanical heart, desolated
Standing solemn around weaving silky water
Water of eyes, inveterate healer
On grass of sorrow by wind directing ways
Lifted breath burden on the lungs
Frightened gazes of nerves hugging heart
Dripping sights of memory in front of legs

The day of last heartbeat of his words
Dissolving in fog of all directions,
Peeping shadows of memories from cloak
Someone almost lost the grace of life
And somewhere pulses thunder to get out
Rotten skin with blooming sights and spirit
The layers of irregular breath stiffened

Where every valley is not straight to cross
Distinguished desires without any complaints
Certain limping stick in hand for way
Every step, summing up a journey
Dull head, digging shoulders, wide glasses
Which seems something binocular badges
Lost quartz of teeth, shrugging expression

Occasional smiles filling lonely times
He just needs help to cross that road
And lakes of sorrow and solitude
And listening last seasonal singing of birds
Every step with folding calm days in arms
Preaching eyes of life need assistance of love
An old man carrying belief of life, belief of life



Seashore Witness

Slowing prints, waves take a walk
With numbed faces for one end
Once again looping fear was formed there
Over still eyes of snails by offshore wind
Some striding crabs around coastline
Tear-stains the patches by seaside
Along wet sand I would like to retire
Stillness of darker truth and my life
The misty colors in straight sun strings
Inaudible songs of seagulls and seabirds
A misty silence, a moving street
The drops steal my back footprints
Two lonely rooms, my soul, my shadow
Over and over, many times through my breath
Thick peeling off earth’s surface under feet
Setting up a dream-house through seashore
A single dream, floating with every ray
Rising different gleams, different dreams
Over and over till end to end
A breezing ghost, with siren sound by ears
And in far away blue waves
Binders of my breath—
Many things unsolved there spread stones
The diaphanous destinations change stations
With every tide, with every wobble
A dried log of life witness there from years
Broken both sides and dubious eyes
That was the last meeting with that log
At that last night, when dreadful wave came
Then all witnesses were ended forever



Face of The Nature

A painted face of nature, flashing sun
Feeble walks of days and nights on the face
Eyes the trees, mountains of different shapes
Our visionary guides for our journey

A little temple appears in dawn and dusk
Holding life to show us god for every question
Sounds of small bells bounded in the temple
A brilliant echo of nature and its voice

Street lights the stars for night to dream
The sleeping nature with a guard, the moon
A fortnight duty of moon caring all the ways
By tender lullabies of breeze and sea-waves

Smile, the rivers with radiant water and falls
Hairs the fringes and fragrance of the flowers
Forehead the horizon, emotions rise and set there
Ears of temples, churches and mosques where

Elusive brows of sun and moon rays on eyes
Watching shyness with garden of red roses
The attempting joy and sorrow, gardens and grays
Anger seems little creepy with craters and bays

Foggy sights and seasonal feeling ever-changing
Snowing teeth when eyes raining or autumnal hair
Beautiful nature different in different regions
But same in all aspects, to care, love and inspire



Heart Of Wood

Somewhere a box filled emotions
Of wood, built round bit for life
Different cherishes keeping in
Supplying sets of dreams’ belief
A lock of ego, anger and hate
With key of help, kindness and love
The sides varnished with tender
A sort of wood flinching in fear
Slanted, corners of silence, spiritual
Stiffing to ground, burns in fire
Fire of love, hurt and desires
Wrapping cloths of seasons boiling
Lonely narrow boxes...
Strange boards made of wood
Devouring colors of surfaces
Edges broken, steeping to ground
An old tomb, with torn boundary
A monument lasts for a breath
Breath that unlocks lock, loneliness
Wooden box, clouds, rains and keys
Sunlight heals it up, an artifact
Parallel conditions, stars run above
May be one day, we put it as monument
Lonely, only memory of old swarms
When it used to have everything
Heart of wood, now in a museum
Motionless, a show for strangers
Having life, all of wood, to be painted
Or to be burned to warm some





Kislay Chauhan is a computer engineer, 25 year old, He has written four poetry books “ Takhir,” “The Vague,” “Once And for All” and “The Edges of The Spirit."


Ryan Quinn Flanagan - Two Poems

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The Phone Cord from The Wall is a Twisting Snake of Wonder

It has been very quiet, of late,
the brown bag wisdom of half-eaten sandwiches,
much dish soap on the window sill without comment,
me, sitting here in my undershorts
on the couch
watching a carpet beetle rediscover America,
Columbus of the many legs,
a favourite of buckwheat whores,
and there is no telling how the knives in the wall
got there,
I hear life is unpredictable, that’s what they say, right?:
expect a mudslide and a yellow parakeet arrives,
drain flies in the margarine, and
all that?...
Not to worry, though,
I’m as sane as the next bed
wetter,
still defecating in the bowl
and hanging postcards on the fridge
like felons...

Which reminds me,
I must remember to check the flashlight
for batteries
so there will be shadow puppets
on the wall
tonight.



Bald

Less than 20 000 kms
and his tires
are already bald.

And he is balding too.

Prematurely.

We are both 30
year old men-
reasonably healthy -
but he
is somehow
less.

Baldness
seems to come to a man
all at once.

Often
after wife
and kids.

He combs over
some of it,
but we both
still know.



Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a happily unmarried proud father of none.

Richard Schnap - One Poem

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Black Vinyl

He believed that churches should all be burned down
And women were either stupid or mean

As he filled his loft with a thousand recordings
Of punk rock idols who had early deaths

But when he heard the toll of Sunday bells
Or the lilting laughter of a passing girl

He knew he could never collect enough noise
To drown out the echoes of his homeless heart



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.

John Harper - Two Poems

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Joyous Range

now among a question
i can’t ask,
and in seeming more so than waiting,
there’s something larger
inside this being, getting nearer—

softly let it ask of me, then,
conflagration angel—whom i thought
as but a pausing desire from my lips—
what of which needs buried, and what of me needs burned
in opal air held high,

unlocking the rounds of peace and war
from tunnels of vast, darkened messages
i’ve scratched out, and cried into,
from the heart of a cold statue watching
space go by, in the moon’s silver light—

in feeling done, or tired, or blinded,
with waiting for an incandescent
answer to come,
what else can i do
but naturally fall within a joyous range—



Mr. Moment

i’m waiting for the true moment to happen,
but sometimes i do see how so very much
it doesn’t occur to me why i believe
it’s actually not already

happening right now, and only right now—
like when letting go a spot
i’ve been gazing at on a stream,
it feels as i’m itself sliding along clear rivulets,

without any focused particulars,
or boundary between—
i tend to heavily stick around, hovering
at either frustrating extreme of best and worst

self-fascinations; and i will do this
till i see what really counts; all of me
must come through the parting thought
that i’m any more than a moment—



John Harper is a graduate of the Writer’s Workshop at Iowa, and has published his poetry in literary journals like Diagram, Mid-American Poetry Review, Cutbank, Spinning Jenny and Zoland Poetry. He was a book finalist with Four Way Books, and has a chapbook called PEEK-A-BOO TERRAIN.

Matthew Wilson - One Poem

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Apollo's Kin
                               
Stars are the sun's stubborn children
that broke off piece by piece
burning up too fast
in their quest to be independent.

Some will lose their way among the angry asteroid
and others, mere children, will smash
themselves to dust
on the surface of dead worlds.

Some will reach the home of men,
and warm wet cheeks.
Some find vengeance and burn the eyes
of their admirer

or scorch their home because they have none.
Spiteful, beautiful energy lighting the cold, dark
of space.
Running at impossible speeds.

Trying to find its way back home.



Matthew Wilson, 29, is a UK resident who has been writing since small. Recently these stories have appeared in Beyond Centauri, Starline Poets Association and Carillon Magazine. He is currently editing his first novel.

John W. Sexton - Four Poems

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Corrugated Sky

gold-winged Garuda ...
thy lime droppings
sterilize the heavens

clinker accumulates
the length of his throat
grey hoarse cumulous

fingernails hammered black …
the corrugated sky
rattles down



House of Un

airplane made of straw …
in the upper skies
he flies asunder

cockerel does his trumpet
in the dawn crack ...
the roof trees shake

from the priest's fingers
a procession of skin-mites
... communion wavers

at the House of Un
in Shoes Without Purpose ...
immortal standing still

nine micrometeor stigmata
... Laika appears
at Fatima

riding a stream
of consciousness ... the
ness-ness-nesstronauts

verily a voice
came unto the fishmouse ...
"bibble bibble bibble"



Nomerica

a sinew rope tight
through the grey clouds ... Kiowa braves
haul in the sun

toad he a-courting
pistolled spawn-shot 
his warty toxins a-ha

woked up dis mornin
Mista Saytin …
E Lee's Nomerica



Fathoms

the circus of Dr Now …
wings of hair
plume the perfect plummet

the x-ray cows
go oom …
sunflower nova

drowned sailors absorbed
by the ice shelf... now
the fathoms fathomable

that acid tongue  ...
sulphuric rains
reign

an egg with two yolks ...
Issa and his shadow
eat their light and dim meals

does darkness age? …
faint yet
the stars in twilight





John W. Sexton lives in the Republic of Ireland and is the author of four previous poetry collections, the most recent being Vortex (Doghouse, 2005) and Petit Mal (Revival Press, 2009). His fifth collection, The Offspring of the Moon, is due from Salmon Poetry in spring 2013. In 2007 he was awarded a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in Poetry.

Jean Amery - One Poem

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Speak, Write Say, Hope, Do, Move.

Speak, write say, hope, do, move.
Say there is still something left to fight for.
Write these few lines a sad tribute.
Hope that every second I've spent has not been in vain.

Say, that each day I feel a little stronger.
Write that my convalescence is nearing its end.
Hope that I have enough strength in me to fight again.
Do not fail, do not fall, 

Write that I see myself reborn in that reflection.
Hope that those cold blue eyes will be rekindled with fire.
I do still believe in all of this I swear I do.
Move forward, once more to the barricades.

One more time I will speak,
I will say I crossed the long chasm of despair.
Say I knew there was something on the other side.
Say that there is always more.

Write that I don't have all of the answers. 
Write that my revolt is far from over. 
I have so many days left to live so many fights left in me.
Write these lines down as I feel my heart pump.

And I hope I will keep up the fight.
And I hope that my words will not fall on deaf ears.
And I hope that I am not alone.
And I hope that you have not forgotten who I am.




Jean Améry received a Masters Degree in Arts, in History. He's been previously published on The Cynic Online Magazine.

L. L. Kelly - One Poem

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Stark Reality 

Unfair,
the memory of
your impatience
with the grim reaper
splattered on the stair way.
New paint and carpet
is no disguise for
such a desperate act.
Etiquette dictates
we must wait our turn.
Budging in line is considered to be
the height of selfishness and rudeness.
In this instance,
with selfishness and impatience
being the cornerstone of our relationship,
I understand your reasons.
I must forgive you.
It seems the soul collector needs an assistant.
His workload has become unmanageable.
Too many suffer, waiting in the queue,
while others are taken too soon.



Lorna Kelly uses the pen name L. L. Kelly, and makes her home in Denver Colorado.  She lives with her daughter and her cat who often unknowingly serve as muse. Lorna has been sharing her poetry on: http://l-inque.deviantart.com/    https://www.facebook.com/LLKellypoetry 

Robert P. Hansen - Three Poems

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Auschwitz, 1945*

The midnight mass-
Acre of five thousand
Candles wrought from the
Changeless essence of Descartes’

Wax, a fitting tribute
To the unnumbered dead
Layered in ash and dust.
My lips seek words whose spirits

Have been swallowed up by God,
& my prayer sounds as
Hollow as I feel.  I spit
Epitaphs on nameless mass

Graves.  I curse Nazis
To fight the cold numbness
Of fragmented fingers
Crawling down my spine.


*After reading Yusef Komunyakaa’s Talking Dirty to the Gods



Park Bench

It is a cold October day:
     the ground lies
frozen in the dust, and
I sit as still as death
     and wait for
the afternoon edition.
My breath clings like rust
hanging in the air,
     hanging,
swirling around the center
of the universe of
blowing trash and
tinkling wine
bottles.
Soon,
too soon,
it will snow.



Stem Cells

The embryo may be alive,
but does it have a soul?  I'd give
the claim a chance if I could see
and touch a soul.  Is faith in the
existence of a god enough

to make it true?  If I believe
in unicorns, will they, too, live?
It's pure irrationality.
                   The embryo

cannot become a human life
outside the womb, but can divide
and grow.  So, when does it achieve
its personhood?  Answer that, and we
would know the moral status of
          the embryo.



Mr. Hansen currently teaches philosophy and ethics at a community college.  He has had over 60 poems and 16 short stories published or accepted for publication.

L. Kinney - Two Poem

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Classical Splatterpost

Relative antiquity.
Starbust inanimate
joyfully in the third degree.

All over the walls,
a child covering the halls
with a matchbook crayon.

Red in color,
black in sight,
just like a fiend
creating an agent
who roams only at night

to carry more of the curtain
and alarming the sound
on free verse and antiquity.

It's only relative, you see,
in the eyes of what used to be
a smiling understanding.
Contorted and distorted now
into classical splatterpost.

Tears will not run for you
when lies are what you hand out.
Destruction for power
in a manipulated population.

If that's what the prize is
then smoke is what you dance with.



B Side Track

Too tired
for the game.
The unscrupulous
rat race
plastered in the masses.
Give me a rest
from the crime.

But no,
I found more,
this hatred
cheap envy
hidden behind smiles
and inside the eyes
of drowning liars.

These strange hearts
beat bad, a bitter song,
an infection
that cries out
for more glamour
more vanity
to last for a life time.

The swindle still rings
in my ears
with the beginning underfoot,
confusing the connections
waiting and turning,
while yearning
for an end.

Unsuitable players
bounce life in a game.
Blames one thing for another,
replacing the light
consuming commercialism
to fabricate what was once
actual reality.

I am not blind
to side wind on the B side.
I listen
to the opinions

of life
while waiting for truth
to come alive.



L. Kinney is a metrical and free verse poet, writing in diversity and classical distance.

Holly Day - Three Poems

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Words of Wisdom Concerning Water

You can never see your reflection in water pooled in the palms
Of your own hands. Try it. It’s impossible. I think
Your hands would have to be deep as oceans and wide as canyons
For your face to show up in the water you've cupped in your hands.

There are myths about people falling into the water after falling in love
With their own reflections, that the face they saw peering out at them from the
Rocky depths of fish-fouled water was so fucking beautiful that
They just had to try to kiss it, but no, I don’t believe it
No one could be that stupid, to not know what their own face looked like
to have not seen their reflection a thousand times before
in dirty run-off ponds, in a wooden bowl filled with still soup,
In a TV cop’s mirrored sunglasses. I just don’t believe it.

If it’s cold enough that the water pooled in your hands begins to freeze solid,
You should go inside. You’ll catch your death from that kind of cold.
If it evaporates from exposure to the wind and the heat
You should get more. You can’t have too much water
On a day like that.



The First Bite Is Obscured

all I can remember
first bite of food after a 30-hour fast
peach, a sandwich, I think, but I don’t remember
or sweet mustard and glazed ham
store-bought white bread
is that peach.
or just peanut butter and jelly on soft
whether it was salty pastrami on black rye
filling my throat. I know I ate more than that
a ripe peach, flesh firm, dripping sweet nectar.



A Solution to Illiteracy

Pope Boniface VIII made it illegal to boil the bones
of any man who had died abroad, so during his criminal
papacy, all corpses had to be carried intact, or in bloody pieces
from whatever holy battlefield they met their end.

Anatomists of the day had to make their drawings of bones
of skeletons from the burnt or impaled corpses of criminals
interred above ground as a warning to their countrymen, pieces
ripped clean from their dangling corpses, of what sort of end

waits for dissenters, an end written in the lengths of exposed white bone
in the scattered pieces of criminals left at the crossroads leading out of town.




Holly Day is a housewife and mother of two living in Minneapolis, Minnesota who teaches needlepoint classes for the Minneapolis school district and writing classes at The Loft  Literary Center. Her poetry has recently appeared in The Worcester Review, Broken Pencil, and Slipstream, and she is the recipient of the 2011 Sam Ragan Poetry Prize from Barton College. Her most recent published books are "Walking Twin Cities" and"Notenlesen für Dummies Das Pocketbuch."

Bruce Edward Litton - Two Poems

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Remembering Fahrenheit 451

Coldest depths of space,
Remote and weightless darkness,
Void between relations
Surrendered to indirection—
No fire could burn
As absolute zero would seize
Functions meant for a world.

Tight money clenched
Until girders break
Holding up ceilings and bridges,
Vanguard endures unknown.

A child emerges
From the stars’ womb
And begins to shape the world anew
As suitors of the old vanish,
Penetrated by arrows of an Odysseus
Vagabond and bare, peer of the father
Tending to his son.
Knowledge and art fills the child
As does bread and water.

Light is added to darkness;
Air stirs in light’s heat.
Wind resembles world’s whorl.
And the moon’s appearance,
Fragmentarily appearing behind a cloud,
Is like the father’s shattered face
When smoke shifts over a lonely fire.



Flood of Dreams

Forests drain darkness, leaden light pours
Onto plains pursued by molten flames.
Omaha shimmers a steel suit.
Downpours dropped from tiers
Of eastward roaming thunderheads
Glaze a merchant gazebo like pottery.

The dark insides of purses and wallets
Complement knee sockets above wet concrete,
Pedestrian sway approaching day’s work grind.
Bodies feed a beast of energy—
Wood fires here once warmed settlement hearths;
Electronic signals extend the city globally.
Supercell hailstones like littleneck clams stripped,
Eaten, their broken shells discarded
Like wampum on a stone floor—
Rain flows over pavement and through soil beyond
The open door, swallows and reproduces stone
Like the calcium armor of mollusks,
As if fluidity at once seeks
Dark of oblivion and light of being,
Form mineralizing, time suspended,
Ground stable in gravity’s equilibrium
As fingers’ presses link an electrical storm.

Confused in Omaha’s lit glare, desperate
For a drink as if rum will dissolve the constellation
Of neon inspired illusions within himself,
A banker sits at the raw bar,
Forks a living clam, and douses
Horseradish and ketchup, slamming the rum



Bruce Edward Litton's poetry appears in Ocean, Small Brushes, The Fauquier Poetry Journal, other journals, and will soon appear in Columbia Review.

A.J. Kaufmann - Three Poems

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Transfigured Sailor

show me, great sailor
a womb of dismay
unconquerable African dusks
w/ which maddening tyrants
play, chaos drags them, lords
of bagpipe orbits; midnight masters
grading flame, ashes of every
forest

breathless zeal to give what’s never renewed
back to the cloud fleet: soarings, circlings
native rhyme bulks

from eternity springs ancient sting w/ flesh
peoples, grace, Dante's rapture
kind crime of mourning

are you still heralding the fire
now that sun's been betrayed
moon quartered, last quiet carcass,
once the fruits I could smell through me
in ecstatic prayer

brave Spanish master, show me
flocks of mind, your arrogant
blinding religion, can you soar on such
throne? hell’s cataract you climbed
spilling legislatures

pendant minds? inspiring lightnings?
today’s transfigured ruins



Soul's Eagle God


whirl yourself where
planet's sunrise takes it to the mountains
gloats in huge brains, rising from Earth's trashcan

black cosmic blood wings chant: to hell with fortune & generations
finger head & liberty
let’s blend the larks w/ weeds

this nadir-based
bone nation horror
no man's embrace
that chaos of a city
once great lionic soul, human lung ice field
boasts the flies
on & above ocean breaths

starry justice's spirit
shoots out
boa-like ages
sparks, blood-eyed tramps, 
mines, days, flowers: apex gory nights
luminous palms
must-have caves of the region

to all the monsters of America ghastly, of and about
the guns, thyme, false love, heaven feed columns – all that
& more, the subliming slime teaching me
w/ hastened dreams of every slain child
I lit up words that warm it
when demons slain saint’s people, okay,
what have I forgotten, by stagnant milk 
& hamburgers, I merged w/ what destroys me
souls echoed love
freedom’s columns said goodnight

true were those ages
now sun attunes my freedom
to invaders’ simple tongues:
wing-whir blood church floorshow



Great American Novel (Condensed)

chapters you read – surface that
American spirit – on mechanical
bloodstained
tools
of control
face the doctor
who seems to come
from lower breed
of fake ignored revolvers
& stranger covered
machine guns
obedience to the devils
and rare submissive crew
putting your beard
through outvoted peering
military
rush
pamphlets you read – inside that
UV joint
in kinetic print
assure you
that images fooled you
big time



A.J. Kaufmann is a young Polish poet, songwriter and traveler, the author of "Siva in Rags" (KSE, 2008), "Broke Nuptial Minds" (Virgogray Press, 2009), "Love Lions of Paris" (KSE, 2011), "The Golden Elephant" (archive.org, 2013) and other poetry chapbooks.

Gregory Liffick - Five Poems

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Hood
 
A
good block.
More
chalk
on the
sidewalk
than
blood.
Seniors
in lawn
chairs
and kids
jumping
rope
not targets
in a
drive-by
shooting
gallery.
 

 
Special
 
Looks
and taste
hidden
by her
job
and a
hair net.
A
hot dish
turned
cold
in the
waitress
uniform.
Street
clothes
and let
down
mane
outside
of the
coffee shop
reheat
her
like a
microwave.
 
 

Tab
 
Drinkers
hold
glasses
with
both
hands.
Afraid
to fall in
and go
under.
A slice
of
lime
is not
a
life raft.
Ice cubes
are
bergs,
sinking
them.
 
 

Realistic
 
Not
asking
more
from the
moment
than it
knows.
Not
believing
it can
give
above
its means.
Knowing
that
anything
from it
is
a form
of
charity.

 
 
Seek
 
A
rusty
hinge
on the
mind's
attic
door.
Have to
oil and
turn
the
doorknob
gingerly
to let
wit
out of
its
hiding
place.



Gregory Liffick has had several poems published in print and online journals, as well as two chapbooks. He is also a teacher, artist and musician.

Benjamin Joseph Biesek - One Poem

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Stib

i peer at black panes with merry awareness of the dead

a neon pack stuffed with idioms adorns me i once

docked in the bay area and ate out a girl at a diner with a
waitress hotter than etude nine

i might attempt to i might remain awake and elude violent
dreams but the source of her depression rages below the
surface oh at night mister gandhi

might have ben



Benjamin Joseph Biesek is a bastard poet who claims that time is just a concept and doctors are magnificent, and he is available to talk via Skype if needs be.

Maurice Devitt - One Poem

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Dreamless

Is this what
you were born to:
the sound of thunder
in an upstairs room,
the apology
of mirrors,
family tree
smudged
on the palm
of your hand -
sweat of blue ink
running
to reveal
a childless life -
hopes
set to zero
and in this fixed fragment
to hear
only the silent song
of a passing bell?



Maurice Devitt has just been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and in 2012 was runner-up in the Cork Literary Review Manuscript Competition, short-listed for the Listowel Writers’ Week Poetry Collection Competition and had poems accepted by Orbis, Abridged, Skylight 47, Southword, Moloch, Revival, Boyneberries, Paraxis, Weary Blues, thefirstcut, Red Fez, Spinoza Blue, The Galway Review, Other Words: Merida, Stony Thursday, Ofi Press, Bluepepper, The Weekenders and Smiths Knoll.

James Shrader - One Poem

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When She Comes

First one I remember
it is Christmas Eve. Outside
my bedroom window colored lights are strung
along a bending length of fence in the cool Florida night.
In the morning there will be fog.

Her knees are saddled
against the plates of my pelvis,
anchoring her. Each time her back wall—
where it tents—clamps down on me painfully
her eyelids flutter and her lips part vacantly. Beautiful, she falls
backward a bit, arching as if against a headwind. Impaled
on my modest length of mast, her arms lift outward
as if to catch the wind. Lifting outward
as if crucified. Each time
I have to shake
her awake.

In old Dallas,
in a converted Victorian,
pink curtains filter streetlight
like a scarf draped over a tiffany lamp,
like an ancient house of burlesque.
Atop me she swells.

As an athlete she
excelled, all points of her body
graded on the curve. She leans forward, clasping
her hands behind the base of my skull, elbows finding purchase
in my collarbones. A Muay-Thai fighting clinch. Her wails resonate
through the groaning, antebellum building, and when she spasms, the hiss
and spit of a lawn sprinkler spigot, a warm spray in choppy bursts.
When we rise to survey the damage the pink sheets are stained
wet with the negative impression of my form. The lighter,
dry trunk of my torso forking into two legs.
A crime scene outline,
a massacre.

Central New York
in winter. The frozen mouth
of the Mohawk Valley. The most beautiful, married
mother of two, a born-again Baptist in a town full of Catholics.
If her balding husband were a better Christian
she wouldn’t be doing this,
she says.

Her icy blue
bedroom eyes and swollen,
clichéd lips say otherwise. With me
above her hoisting her hips, the sweetest nectar
branches along the peach fuzz of her lightly scarred navel
then converges in a narrow torrent between her breasts. With her
above me we ruin my roommate’s air mattress, the stuff pooling in the seams,
to my wrist where I support my weight to sit up. We flip over couch
cushions once, then again. Eventually we burn wounds
into our knees and along our spines from the old,
rough carpet. The floor there is wet for days
and cold as outside the snow
piles man-high.



James Shrader's nonfiction has appeared in the Florida Review and Awosting Alchemy.

Carol Oberg - Three Poems

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Entertainment...

Did you see me fall against the house
When I put my cigarette butt in the pop can
And after popping back up from my knees
Fall, back, again, on my butt;
I wasn’t drunk at 9 a.m.
Nor still tipsy from the night before
But it hasn’t happened again
So it’s hardly even a thought now-
Unless someone, like you,
Saw me fall, pop back up
Only to do it again that
Plop plop
On the dry deck
In my winter jacket
Scarf, hat, the gloveless hands
Of a serious outdoor smoker
And called all the neighbors
Your entire widespread family
Then posted the video of it
On your facebook page
Then it would be a thought
Worth my sweaty alarm
Because you could be anywhere
Everywhere I am falling next
One time after another
Picking myself up all alone
Unless I am broke can
And can not pop up.




Sunshine Makes Rain Impossible

The first green grass
Is that linguini piece
Growing behind the wood stove
That exhales wide tubes of smoke
Without inhaling ever and
The thermostat’s set at 67
But its 75 inside again with
Most of the windows open.
It’s time we let the
Fire burn out and in bed
Before dawn decide
To make that long trip
To town because
There are not enough
Blankets in this house.




Wisdom Runs

On the opposite wall the cheap print looks
Remarkably like you hanging for real
But lifeless, the fake eyes bulging wet-like
Above the proud manipulations of your generous
Head and long neck sawed off, glued tight to
An oak board nailed sturdy onto knotty pines
Someone ages ago went searching the virgin woods
To cut down, hand saw and plane, varnish yellow
The walls and ceilings with deep grooves for winter flies
And spiders to nestle their own in safe hiding
As the years turn the cabin planks shiny orange
Waiting for others to go back out
Search deep in the quiet November forest
For your kind my dear. You poor deer
God made smart enough to grow, to even crown
Your head with a mighty rack for all to wildly pursue
The glorious boast-- Got One
to take and eat then show the rest of you off
No knife no fork scrapes anywhere, you’re magnificent
Alive in multiple memories, some of you buried in white
Forever hiding, collecting inches of freezer burn
but with us. Still.



 Carol Oberg has published widely with Blue Mountain Arts, Inc.; was one of three featured poets( ten poems published) in Ancient Paths Literary Magazine, issue 16, in 2010; in the fall will have a poem published in The Fourth River (Chatham University).  She and her husband are retired on a small inland lake in Michigan's Upper Penninsula.


Anna Gaccione - One Poem

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Upon a Neglected Wall

The sun’s gaze lands
Upon a neglected wall
Usually hidden by darkness.
Light wakes the colors.
Rosewood and russet greet each other.
They begin to dance
Back and forth across the bricks.
Dust stretches towards the light
Having been confined too long
On sills and awnings.
People rush back and forth
Like mindless worker ants, blind

The sun slowly turns its gaze.
Darkness gradually gains power,
Once again suffocating the wall.
The secret is lost in the dark
Until the sun grants it life again.

Maybe then someone will stop
And find the joy in stopping.



Anna Gaccione was born in Virginia in 1992. She has a black belt in Taekwondoe and attends Shorter University. 

David S. Pointer - One Poem

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Beat Writers of Humanity Remembrance

Kerouac must have heard the atomic bomb as it was being bottle fed leading to his honorary double speaking medically discharged conscientious objector-type exit-special from the Navy

Ginsberg may have tossed and flopped as the civilian bombing campaign caught inextinguishable fire and his inner spirit started to howl

Burroughs kept hallucinating horses fitted with antiquated gas masks galloping over the globe into mechanized armor

Corso was excited about his new life until he heard what American bombers were doing in North Korea

Kerouac though about how undercover economic thinking pulled a lot of triggers all the way to Viet Nam

Ginsberg saw the best superpowers of his generation being manipulated by high money and political madness destroying others both foreign and domestic

Burroughs kept hallucinating the asylum self-examination mirror as expanded global empire

Corso watched banana clips morph into aerial bombs then fall to earth as thirsty field embalming machines

Ginsberg sadly saw his generation bury Kerouac and then later witnessed Nixon and Kissinger flying to China giving away more than they ever got

Burroughs kept hallucinating that damned 3rd rate actor, Ronald Reagan as our President, and resumed his target practice

Corso saw the AK-47 multiply like hubcaps and join all the American and other international armament around the constant reloading process

Ginsberg saw American Star Wars declaring victory as Russia remained silent sitting atop their untapped geographical and geological goldmine waiting for future technology to catch up

Ferlinghetti said goodbye to some of the greatest literary minds of his generation

Ferlinghetti knew that Kerouac was holy. Ginsberg was holy. Burroughs was holy. Corso was holy. The academic English Professor getting paid and well awarded for his/her silence was holy. The stalker-murder victim David Kammerer was holy. Lucian Carr was holy. Burroughs deceased wife was holy. The small press was holy.

Ferlinghetti passed the generational literary torch to the post beat generation because they were sacred, blessed and holy, and ongoing war wasn’t.



David S. Pointer has recent work included in Volumes V & VI of the Southern Poetry Anthology Series for the states of Georgia and Tennessee. He also has work included in Indiana Crime 2013, at James Ward Kirk Fiction and Noir Erasure Poetry Anthology at Silver Birch Press. 
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