Layers and Layers

open sky
heavens weep
curtains of rain
random drops
on stones
where time began
welcoming wet
slipping into soil
recovery
feeding layers
to roots
webs of connections
underneath
warming
pushing up
forever growth

Dr. Roger Singer is the Poet Laureate of Old Lyme, Connecticut. He has had over 1,000 poems published on the internet, magazines, and in books and is a 2017 Pushcart Prize Award Nominee. He is also the President of the Shoreline Chapter of the Connecticut Poetry Society.

There Is Madness in the Iodine

there is madness in the iodine
buttercup mystery
an enigma of grayish-white
entrails or slice brains
without the blood
blanched cross section
the sky full of fat unfolding clouds
after the rain
looking like body parts on Gray’s dissection table

Peter J. Dellolio: Born 1956 New York City. Went to Nazareth High School and New York University.  Graduated 1978: BA Cinema Studies; BFA Film Production. Wrote and directed various short films, including James Joyce’s short story Counterparts which he adapted into a screenplay. Counterparts was screened at national and international film festivals. A freelance writer, Peter has published many 250-1000 word articles on the arts, film, dance, sculpture, architecture, and culture, as well as fiction, poetry, one-act plays, and critical essays on art, film, and photography.  Poetry collections A Box Of Crazy Toys published 2018 by Xenos Books/Chelsea Editions and Bloodstream Is An Illusion Of Rubies Counting Fireplaces published February 2023 by Cyberwit/Rochak Publishing.

river

There are still
those notes
you can hit.

There are still
the girls
who do smile
back.

Time is softer
than water.

All who swim
are bound
to drown.

Jacob Friesenhahn teaches Religious Studies and Philosophy at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio.

—gathering of small things—

Brown-gray leaves
caught in wind
tumble across parking lot,
get stuck under worn tires.
Drink coffee
that cools between sips
steam rising.
Hawks circle owls watch
mice dart under empty cars,
under carriages covered in spider webs.
Nature gets by
despite humanity
trying to shut it down.

David E. Howerton is a part-time programmer and lives in the American River Canyon outside of Auburn, CA. He has done landscaping, sign painting, cooking, and made jewelry to pay the bills. He and his wife live with two bossy cats. He has three adult daughters and eight grandchildren. His hobbies include type design, soapstone carving, walks in the woods, collecting dragons, and a growing library of Science Fiction.

Longing

Today, I am keeping a true course, Mother!
I swear, I will wash your lustrous black idol with my blood,
And, invoke millions of your incarnations
If you absorb my white skin, NOW.

Don’t you know?
I have a need to finding patterns,
More than your ghouls.
Come, Mother!
Come to my body tonight,
No more foot-dragging
I am standing at your doorstep,
Ready to be crushed by your LEFT foot.

My heart is your cremation ground
Surrounded by jackals, corpses and girdle made
Of treachery.
Slaughter, mother!
I am what exists when time is transcended.
I am Shiva, I am Sati! I am ‘Maharatri’!
Don’t wait too long to take me
Back in your womb!

Nidhi Agrawal’s writings have been featured by Quadrant Australia, Girl Talk HQ, eShe Magazine, University of California, Riverside, Say it Forward, Chicago School of Arts, Lewis Clark State College’s literary journal, St. Francisco University’s journal, The Elevation review (Kneeland Poetry Inc.), The Dillydoun Review, Xavier Review Press, California State Poetry Society, Signal Mountain Review- The University of Tennessee, Chronogram Magazine, Letters (Yale University), Setu Journal, Spill Word Press South Asian Today, Indian Periodical, Rising Phoenix Review, Life in 10 minutes press, Ariel Chart, Women’s Web, Women for One, Lekh, Garland Magazine, and Muse India. She is the author of “Confluence.” 

Death Is Wide

Death is wide.
Wide like the mouth of a whale,
Sucking up the ocean and filtering it through
Where we all eventually get caught in the baleen.

Death is wide.
Wide like the nights
When you can’t sleep
Or like the days
When you’re stuck at work until it’s dark outside.
You go outside to your car
And the road is so vast it swallows you as you drive.

Life is narrow.
Life is narrow
Like in that dream
Where you can’t fit through the door
And you get jammed in there
As the tiger or the masked gunman
Advances upon you.

Life is narrow.
Narrow like the shaft of sunlight
That peeks into a closed room.
Narrow like the shiver of temporary excitement
That is love.

Life is narrow
And most of us cannot fit through
So we meander in one place

Until the day death arrives
So forcefully that it pushes us out the only other door
And we exit –
Entering something so dark and wide.

Wide like the open mouth of a whale.

John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. His first poetry collection is forthcoming from Cajun Mutt Press.  fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.

Patricia Nelson has worked for many years in the “Activist” group of poets in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is completing a book of poetic monologues by monsters and seers.

Erin Jamieson (she/her) holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Miami University. Her writing has been published in over eighty literary magazines, including a Pushcart Prize nomination. She is the author of a poetry collection (Clothesline, NiftyLit, Feb 2023). Twitter: @erin_simmer & @EJAMIESEE