—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

There’s a Nest in the Purple-Flowered Tree

Sore throats and ear infections, stomach
flu, dislocated collar bones, one broken arm,

chickenpox, a brain tumor, injuries on bikes,
skates, Flexi-flyers, car accidents, trampled-on

feelings, and from none of these was I able
to protect my children despite my vigilance,

so yes, I understand the mockingbird’s
fierce guarding—his swoop from the roof

to nip the dog’s ear, racing across the brick
fence when we open the gate by the tree—

those are his babies he’s keeping safe,
and he has yet to find it’s impossible.

I can send the dog out back, and we can
use our side entrance, but I can’t help him

with the hawk crouched on top
of the lamp post or the crows circling the yard.

There will always be a cat
sitting beneath the purple-flowered tree.

Victoria Melekian lives in Carlsbad, California. Her stories and poems have been published in print and online anthologies. She’s twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. For more, visit her website: https://victoriamelekian.com/

After

Your religion speaks
a different religion to mine,
yet they speak, they speak.

Surely, we can teach them
to learn those words
we don't understand,
those movements of hands
and mouths, of offerings
and imaginings?

And isn’t that a thought
so foolish and childish
that only a religion could
shape it into being, or
even hold up into the light
and claim that it is not nonsense,

or, perhaps, a blasphemous mind
could do so too,
simply hoping to shock
their life into some meaning
that did not exist until
some meaning was needed,
as meaning is needed
in this suddenly quiet existence of mine?

Edward Lee’s poetry, short stories, non-fiction and photography have been published in magazines in Ireland, England and America, including The Stinging Fly, Skylight 47, Acumen, The Blue Nib, and Poetry Wales.  His play Wall received a rehearsed reading as part of Druid Theatre’s Druid Debuts 2020. He also makes musical noise under the names Ayahuasca Collective, Orson Carroll, Lego Figures Fighting, and Pale Blond Boy. His blog/website can be found at https://edwardmlee.wordpress.com

The Hermit

Down an endless decrepit trail
In desolate covered mountainsides
Lie remnants and tales of self-imposed isolation
In my own mind, visioning his existence
I only see religious seclusion
Wrapped with a hint of perseverance
In a solitary life renouncing worldly concerns…

My perception of a mangy, gray, long-haired fellow
Something next to extremely weird
Deliberate, sensitive and mellow
Running dirty fingers about his beard
His intentions only of survival
Cultivated from a dark social past
Bushy eyebrows, eyes of fire, a heart of gold
Most certain, a communal outcast…

Basic instincts cultivating this land
Forging bonds with a higher power
Alone, not lonely, a spiritual stand
Existing solely in hushed silence
Communicating among sacred tones
Finding excuses for his disposition
Socially inept, chilling to the bone
Ghastly suffering years of dissolution…

Calloused strong hands carry the burden
Leaving little room for comfort
Desires for solitude overcome
Worldly and selfish aspiration
Somewhere between reclusive and torn
A creative creature is born
His heart is thirsty and yearning
For a life of super-natural conviction…

Charles Pease: born and raised in Chicago, a long-time Californian, retired/widowed who has been writing poetry for several years. His first two publications appear in October Hill Magazine, as well as BlazeVOX, The Blue Nib, North Dakota Quarterly, Calla Press, The Voices Project, and Vagabond Books.

Bess 

She was wearing a white button-down shirt
with snap buttons, waiting for me
to unsnap them. But I was shy and she was
in the driver’s seat. So she started unsnapping them
herself. She was 18 and had her own car already,
an old-fashioned Volvo named Bess. She had named it Bess
because Bess was an old-fashioned name. I was barely 16
and didn’t have my permit yet, but I had permission
as far as the snaps. We were parked in Bess with the lights off
idling in a green place somewhere in the twilight
of my childhood. Its real name was the Volvo Amazon,
derived from the female warriors of Greek mythology. But I don’t think
I knew that yet. And I don’t think I knew
she wasn’t wearing a bra. She’d already unsnapped
2 buttons, to show me how it was done and to show me
the little hollow between her breasts called cleavage,
an old-fashioned word that somehow also applied
to my busty grandmother living in Florida. I gingerly
unsnapped the third button. Someone inhaled audibly. Maybe me.
It felt like unwrapping a present that I’d only seen advertised
in magazines. Suddenly she unsnapped all the buttons,
impatiently ripping the wrapping paper right off.
“Thank you,” I whispered gratefully, then just sat there
staring stupidly. Bess made a ticking sound
that filled the silence. It could have been
the spark plugs–you’re supposed to replace them
every 100,000 miles or so. Or it could have been
the oil was low, or the valves were maladjusted,
or the drive pulleys were worn out. What did I know about
what was going on inside of Bess, in that moment,
16 years old, stupidly staring, something like time, ticking.

Paul Hostovsky’s latest book of poems is Mostly (FutureCycle Press, 2021). He has won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net Awards, and has been featured in Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac. Website: paulhostovsky.com

Again

Say it again
Those words you swore
You would never say again

During those late-night conversations
For years
When we would laugh
And say that it was a good thing
That we never tried to date
Because now
We could tell each other anything

During those conversations
When you told me about the ones
Who made your heart
What it had become
And I told you
That even if it wasn’t going to be me
(Please let it be me)
You shouldn’t give up
Cause she was out there

During the conversations
About what it all means
After you kissed my hand over brunch
And kissed my mouth
In the backseat of your truck
Like you had spent all of those years
Waiting for this moment too
Say it again
Those words you swore
You would never say again

Jodie Baeyens is a single-mother, poet and teaches to support her writing habit. When she isn’t trying to find the pen she was just holding, she can be found in the forest dancing beneath the full moon. Originally hailing from New York, she now considers herself a citizen of the world because she has never settled into one place. Her poetry has recently been featured in Door is a Jar and in Peregrine’s Fall Journal. Her forthcoming Chapbook, Conversations We Never Had, was the Winner of the 2022 Vibrant Poet Award. Follow her writing at WWW.Mylifeincoffeespoons.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Mylifeincoffeespoons.