Gardening with My Daughter 

Sun rays erect a wall
behind us,
and on that canvas
I and my daughter
paint an orchard.

The bonsai town
sprawls around.
Our garden is the giant.
I have seeds on my palm.
Our voices explaining
soil and sun sink the traffic
of the toy cars left beyond
for this moment.

An author, journalist, and father, Kushal Poddar, editor of Words Surfacing, has authored eight books, the latest being Postmarked Quarantine. His works have been translated into eleven languages. 

Water Torture                                                                                           

Before the plague
Raw hands wept

Allergy, OCD
& conditions dormant this quarter century
Skin porous

Even water
Caustic on infected eczema

Chapped & ripped as I slept

Or: the very minimum of requirements
_____(Expectations floor level)

From here to Flint, Michigan
Far more than trace elements

Allodynia
Water torture
‘Not on the face’

Stephen C. Middleton is a writer working in London. He has had five books published, and been in several anthologies. He was editor of Ostinato, a magazine of jazz and jazz related poetry. He has been in magazines worldwide, including in the US, Australia, Canada, the UK, & mainland Europe.

Visitation

White horse, red birds, and black dogs
My Aunt Betty’s favorite animals, she’d say
In a wood-paneled sitting room filled with trinkets
Each creature immortalized in painted ceramic

My Aunt Betty’s favorite animals, she’d say
As we sat sticking to the vinyl couch
Each creature immortalized in painted ceramic
Watching us while we made small talk over the blaring TV

As we sat sticking to the vinyl couch
Will this be me someday?
Watching us while we made small talk over the blaring TV
My apathetic offspring

Will this be me someday?
Talking about nothing to fill the time
My apathetic offspring
Watching the clock and eyeing the door

Talk about nothing to fill the time
In a wood-paneled sitting room covered in trinkets
My apathetic offspring:
White horses, red birds, and black dogs

Bryant Smith is Associate Professor English and Spanish at Nicholls State
University in Thibodaux, Louisiana, USA. He is a lifelong learner and
recently completed a graduate course in poetry. Various poems and a
reflective essay resulted from this course.

The Pursuit of Happiness

“Are you happy?” Felecia asked.

Vance expressed surprise. “What sort of question is that?” 

She nibbled the chocolate cake before her, then laid down her fork, gazing at the horizon as she savored the flavor. 

The aroma made Vance’s mouth water. “How can you stop at one bite?”

Her eyes returned to his. “Would you like the rest?”

He raised his palms in denial. “If I started, I’d want the entire cake.”

She smiled. “You might find a taste more satisfying.”

He huffed. “I doubt that.”

“Even after a good meal, don’t you relatively quickly want another?”

“Sure.” 

“Eating is a fleeting pleasure.”

“But natural and necessary.”

Felecia chuckled. “Not a whole chocolate cake. Reducing the urge for unnecessary things eliminates unhappiness over unfulfilled desires.”

“How do you define unnecessary?”

Felecia mused. “You’ve just released a video that went viral on TikTok. I’m wondering how you feel?” 

Vance frowned. “Happy but not satisfied.” 

Felecia shook her head in disappointment. “Your video is trending, and you can’t take more than a moment to enjoy the achievement?”

Vance leaned back, kneading his chin. “I need a second hit. Something to top the first. But my mind’s a blank, and in a week, people will forget me.” 

“You’re pursuing fame?”

“Yes, but becoming an ‘influencer’ also has financial rewards.”

“How much money would make you happy?” she asked.

“Enough for a penthouse in Manhattan, a Ferrari, vacations in Europe, and a private jet to get me there.”

“Wow. Your net worth will require a lot of zeros.”

Vance nodded. “I suppose.”

Felecia scoffed. “Society induces false beliefs about what we need. Vain desires like power, wealth, and fame are insatiable. Past a certain point, they add little happiness.” 

“I can’t agree. Anyway, what’s your answer?”

“I rather focus on tranquility and freedom from fear.”

“I don’t want to die a one-hit wonder.” 

“Fear of death causes unnecessary anxiety. There’s no Heaven or Hell. Don’t worry about it.”

“What about God?” 

“God exists but isn’t involved with humans. He has zero troubles, so why get involved with people who might bring Him down?”

“What about the ethics of doing good versus evil?”

“Live a virtuous life to avoid the pain of not doing so and the societal consequences of your bad behavior. But a fear of God causes unnecessary trepidation.” 

“You still haven’t told me your formula for happiness.”

“A self-sufficient life surrounded by friends you can count on.” Felecia’s eyes held Vance’s. “Especially, a soulmate.” She paused before continuing. “Better to dine on bread and water with a friend than to eat chocolate cake alone.”

Vance took Felecia’s hand. “I enjoy being with you.”

She squeezed back. “The mind misunderstands happiness. There’s a diminishing return on pleasure – say another viral video. Chasing yet another hit, you’ll continue to be tormented that you might lose your popularity, blunting exaltation at your achievement.”

With a sigh, Vance released Felecia’s hand. “Perhaps, I’ll never be happy.”

Joe Giordano’s stories have appeared in more than one hundred magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post and Shenandoah, and his short story collection, Stories and Places I Remember. His novels include Birds of Passage, An Italian Immigrant Coming of Age Story, and the Anthony Provati thriller series, Appointment with ISIL, Drone Strike, and in June 2022, The Art of Revenge. 

Visit Joe’s website at https://joe-giordano.com/

Sacrifice

I stood beneath the ash tree
Full of guilty appreciation
For the splendid death of its leaves,
The mass sacrifice at Nature’s behest,
Because I knew the parting must have been cruel.
Their colors were pure and liquid
(I could feel them running through my fingers)
And as I stood among them
I heard their empty veins cracking like bones,
And I felt the arrival of a new, darker season
When moons and harvests would ride the equinox
And bronze latitudes as if they were horses,
To rout summer’s honeyed inertia.

Melinda Giordano is from Los Angeles. Her pieces have appeared in Scheherazade’s Bequest, The Rabbit Hole, Lazuli Literary Group, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, and After The Art among others; she was also twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She speculates on remarkable things–the secret lives of the natural world.

Avian Dance

            In the winter my grandfather fed the birds. I followed him to the garage, my red galoshes squeaking across the hard packed snow, our breath billowing out of our noses in a fog of white vapor.

            The sparrows sat in a line, their toes curled around the wire of the garden fence, a brigade of small fluffed out soldiers awaiting their orders.

            He’d fill a half pound coffee can with little yellow seeds and fling them across the snow, dappling the white ground with tiny pieces of gold.

            The birds would rise from the fence in a gray-brown cloud, bodies swooping up and down, peeping, twittering and chirping as they fed.

            Many, many years later I feed the birds, trying different nuts, berries, and seeds to see what will come to the feeders. Where I live there are five different species of woodpecker. How many will I see?  Only three so far. 

______Bluebirds arrive in January attracted to the mealworms—also starlings–they bring their friends—fifty or seventy uninvited guests for dinner. That bright red spot against the snow is a cardinal, watching, waiting for his turn at the sunflower seeds.  Strutting across the patio is a wren, bold and sassy, loudly demanding her right to the worms.

            It’s a late winter afternoon. I sit on the couch, my favorite cat in my lap, the sun streaming through the western windows.  Fluttering up then down, feathery shadows create an avian ballet across the cream walls of the room, ethereal and beautiful.

            Attracted by the commotion a Coopers Hawk alights on the fence. A musical smorgasbord presents itself and he too must eat. Abruptly the yard is silent. The birds have disappeared. He sits for a few moments, surveying the scene, then gives a frustrated cry, lifts off, and is gone.

            Moments pass—a lone chickadee darts out of the bushes. She has the feeder to herself. The ice broken, more return. The yard is a hub of activity again.

______I am transfixed, delighted—addicted–all because my grandfather fed the birds.

Kaelin McGee Shipley is a writer from West Lafayette, Indiana. She has previously published short fiction and essays in The Persimmon Tree, The Northwest Indiana Review, and Litbreak, among others. Odd moments, interesting conversations, and unusual situations inspire her work.

Love Is Wasted On Lovers

Love is wasted on lovers –
Those childlike and selfish satyrs and sirens
Traipsing lackadaisically through the gardens of man
As the world burns around them.
Obsessed with their lusts and their feelings;
With their watered-down vision,
Prettier than fields of flowers,
Stronger in their moment than venerable oaks
And dumber than a dog
Who drowns fighting his own reflection in the lake.
Smiling their smiles of reciprocation and satisfaction,
They tapdance on the hearts of the rest of us –
Unknowingly, uncaringly:

Us mere mortals who have never felt the sting in the heart
From the pluck of the bow
And those former lovers who fell to the ground defeated
And never got the lucky breaks
To strap the gloves back on
And step into the ring one more time
For a rematch with romance.

John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.

The Search

So much of the matter that makes up the helix of our being
is neither human nor animal, but the stuff of cosmos—
stardust mangles under time’s bed, hairs from renegade comet tails,
shards from planets and stars long dead, debris from the jumble tumble
of eternity that has bonded us into one species in love with the idea
of forever. The imprint hidden in there somewhere, before the union
of sperm and ovum, before the zygote grows an alien-looking head
with closed eyes that see, before the thumb buds and mouth slits
to suck nourishment in the secret amniotic sea of dreams where we
rock until the water breaks, and we are cast upon the shores of light
where we learn to wait through the nights and days, to spend our lives
searching for who we are.

P.C. Scheponik is a lifelong poet who lives by the sea with his wife, Shirley, and their shizon, Bella. His writing celebrates nature, the human condition, and the metaphysical mysteries of life. He has published six collections of poems. His work has also appeared in numerous literary journals. He is a 2019 Pushcart Prize nominee. 

Visitation

Your spectral presence haunts my slumber from time to time.

Weaving slowly in and out of my cerebral labyrinths, you appear as a shining example of someone whose blemishes I once held dear.

I sense admiration and all our unspoken words quietly unravel in dormancy.

You have maneuvered a complicated route to find me. Don’t you know I would have gladly given you proper directions had you asked?

Or was it I who was guilty of evasion?

I no longer remember.

Sanctimony explodes as stardust bathing us in mutual exoneration.

My movie begins and concludes in seconds, the celluloid film strip exhausting itself as I awaken to unsettled disquiet.

Gratitude overwhelms.

And painful recollections dissipate,

Burning.

Ebbing with the tide.

Drowning.

No more languishing; it seems I have captured something of you.

Don’t ever withdraw from my thoughts.

Remain in my illusions; our only hope for rapprochement.

And let bittersweet evocations transform into absolution.

Dominique Stavropoulos-Williams is a native New Yorker who holds degrees in Illustration and Interior Design. Her poetry has been published in The Dark Sire, Detour Ahead, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Better Than Starbucks, The Big Windows Review, and The Voices Project. Her blog, www.dgsinteriors.blogspot.com focuses on interior design, art and architecture. Dominique is a member of SAG-AFTRA. She lives in East Harlem with her husband and rescue cat.

In the Wavelength of Light 

red is the longest color, a primary,
bold, blazoning in shades of look-at-me
daring. Embracing natural undertones
of expressiveness, it has become the face of
danger. Nature’s warning of venom’s presence,
man’s signal to cease progression. Yet its allure
remains. Tangible desire drips from its hue
as it shades our eyes with images of love.
Hearts and roses give rise to depth, the heated
center of passion, sex. Lipstick and lingerie
resonate with resilient ability to incinerate
all male defense. A fitting tribute, a reminder that
while biting the apple may have caused the fall,
Eve must have looked good holding it.

A.J. Huffman is a poet and freelance writer in Daytona Beach, Florida. She has published 27 collections and chapbooks of poetry. In addition, she has published her work in numerous national and international literary journals. She is currently the editor for Kind of a Hurricane Press literary journals ( www.kindofahurricanepress.com ).