Issue II

Via Margutta, Rome

The room is half shuttered against the light
bright at noon, and heavy, an unwanted arm
draped, a dead weight, over my shoulders.
Sounds drift up from the street below
the clatter of footsteps rhythmic beat
to bubbles of conversation.
They rise and float and burst before me,
sudden intimacy that fades in
echoes bouncing the drowsy street.

Janet Butler

Lightning in the morning

Night around us, like insulation.

The black dog is asleep

in his cozy nimbus

in the corner of the room.

Your right hand softly

holding my left in our bed.

The connection. Electricity.

Your sweet breath

rising and falling.

A sudden urge

to taste dry vermouth

without the martini.

Warm, summertime,

the hot promise

of thunderstorms

and lightning

in the morning

Harry Calhoun

Moved

North London. Hendon. Landed.

Here, the world starts earlier.

The North circular; buses from Finchley,

Golders Green, Hampstead.

City traffic buzzing, honking -

commuter noises echo from afar - the M1.

Mondays are different to Saturdays,

Fridays different still.

This Friday I can hear the chain of cars

filtering their way deeper into the city,

the weekend closing in fast.

But the majority progress, trudge,

further north, away.

Upwards and out - Barnet, St. Albans,

Welwyn, jump - Luton, Nottingham,

Sheffield, Yorkshire . . .

Christy Hall

Jump

i pull you in from the rain
kitty-san
fishhooks for eyes
bruises below your ocean
that floats two-faced chibi dolls.
you're the girl from the genba
dancing to kan & debo
a gentle wind blowing through
your palms that allowed me
to think i might be saved.
you had a reputation
for going home with the wrong
demon boys. your kites
stuck to their ceilings
by static and loose spark
they made you confess
how often you change your underwear.

but i let you in
my bed of sweet europop phrasings
because i am not death or black metal
in destiny. as i hold your body
plum wine and finished by morning
we look out the window,
the rooftops of Tokyo
the blue-black pain of sky
the rain is burning
we are always the short-lived birds
who jump.

Kyle Hemmings

Soul

Tethered to the flash of now, and now again.  I put you

in my pocket beside a pretty stone, against

a shiny wrapper with chewed gum.  We’ve walked

together long enough, you and I, and you and I

and all the world I’ve had the wit to grasp. 

You know, don’t you, that I intend to shake myself –

and soon….to hold you close, and dance with you.

To hold you closer.

Karen Neuberg

For a Skull Found on the Deck

Perhaps the skull of a deer or perhaps

of a sheep or goat, it sat on the deck

where some animal must have left it

for us to see and treasure, some mystery

of origin and place, mortality

on display for us living on the cusp

of meaning, the longing to explain

the unexpected, the arrival of now.

You even thought perhaps a small cow,

one a coyote had caught and finished

off, meal meant to satisfy if not in

its offering than at least in being taken.

Aaron Poller

Embroidery

with a tracery of Jacobean flowers
Mother decorated my dresses
French knot, laid-stitch, herringbone
couching, chain, and moss-stitch

an advance and retreat of needle and thread
in varied deployment of colour
echoing the arrangement of armies
on fields far from my understanding

I wore the hand-made dresses
focus of attention and compliment
un-willing her thrust of needle
and grief-strained eyes

Joanna M. Weston

 

 

Janet Butler relocated to the Bay Area in 2005 after many years in central Italy, and currently lives in Victorian Alameda with Fulmi, a beautiful Spaniel mix she rescued in Italy and brought back with her. She teaches ESL in San Francisco, and Italian, privately.  Some recent publications are The Chaffey Review, the 13th Warrior, Pirene's Fountain, Clarion, Clapboard House and Halfway down the stairs.  Future publications include Tipton Poetry Journal and Toyon Literary Review.  A chapbook, "Searching for Eden" is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.

Harry Calhoun’s been around the block for 30 years or so. Check out his books, I knew Bukowski like you knew a rare leaf and The Black Dog and the Road. Also his chapbooks, Something Real, Near daybreak, with a nod to Frost and Retreating Aggressively into the Dark. His upcoming chapbook Maintenance and Death, will be published next month on Pig Ear Press.

Christy Hall has had poems published throughout the UK as well as many online publications. 

Kyle Hemmings lives and works in New Jersey. He has a new chapbook of poems/prose called Cat People (Scars Publications) and another one called Avenue C (Scars Publications). He likes to listen to old sixties bands like Vanilla Fudge and Love.

Karen Neuberg lives in Brooklyn, New York. Her chapbook, Detailed Still, was published by Poets Wear Prada Press. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Memoir (and), Ditch, and The Same, among others. She’s a two-time Pushcart nominee and associate editor of Inertia Magazine and of First Literary Review-East.

Aaron Poller lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina where he teaches mental health nursing and works as an advanced nurse psychotherapist. He has recently published in Caduceus, Alba, The Orange Room Review, Puffin Circus, Wild Goose Poetry, Poetry Quarterly, Indigo Rising,Haiku Journal and Poetic Medicine: New Voices.

Joanna M. Weston has had poetry, reviews, and short stories published in anthologies and journals for twenty-five years. Her middle-reader, ‘Those Blue Shoes', is published by Clarity House Press; and poetry, ‘A Summer Father’, is published by Frontenac House of Calgary.

All copyright remains with the individual contributors and may not be reproduced in any form without their written permission.