November Dusk by Martha Christina

Raking under the maple,
I unsettle two small moths
the color of light brown sugar
and sweet to my sentimental eyes.

One rises, undamaged,
disappears over the fence.

The other drags its torn wing
into the beige shadow
of a dried fern.

Winter Moths, the field guide tells me;
their life cycles short and destructive,
maple trees their common victims.

I breathe in the cold air.



Martha Christina is a frequent contributor to Brevities. Longer work appears in Innisfree Poetry Journal, Naugatuck River Review, earlier postings of Red Eft Review, and most recently in the anthology Ice Cream Poems from World Enough Writers. She has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press).

Taken to Heart by Martha Christina

Our mail carrier’s
on medical leave: not
a dog bite; not a fall.
“Worse,” a co-worker confides.
“Political news got to him.”

In the local paper
the middle school’s
Student of the Month
smiles at the camera.
Our mail carrier’s son,
cited for his kindness
to a boy with special needs.



Martha Christina is a frequent contributor to Brevities. Longer work appears in Innisfree Poetry Journal, Naugatuck River Review, earlier postings of Red Eft Review, and most recently in the anthology Ice Cream Poems from World Enough Writers. She has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press).

between four & six by Justin Hyde

first
the fire truck

density itself
blazing through
a canyon

then
the ambulance

the retirement home
parking lot
bathed
in candy cane light

always
early morning

between
four & six

i think
they wake up
feeling
that absence beside them

for what?
the hundredth
the thousandth time?

they reach over
to that absence

across starched sheets
washed
by strange africans

on the
third floor or
the fifth floor

feet
touch the ground

a window

looking out at trees
they did not plant

maybe
they walk back
to those starched sheets

reach across
that absence

& let
go.



Justin Hyde's books and other poems can be found here: http://poets.nyq.org/poet/justinhyde.

that summer by Justin Hyde

we'd cut the top off a pop can

one of us would steal a little gasoline
from our father

out on the west edge of the trailer park
tucked up under the highway overpass
like hobos

we'd drop one of our
g.i. joes in the
gasoline bath with
a lit match

silent full

attention

swirling the acrid burning fumes
with wooden sticks

squatting there
that last summer before our dicks got hard

women came

simple truth disappeared

& we turned inscrutable

like our fathers.



Justin Hyde's books and other poems can be found here: http://poets.nyq.org/poet/justinhyde.

Haiku by Stephen Toft

winter trees
blossoming
with birdsong



Stephen Toft is a poet and homelessness worker who lives in Lancaster, UK with his wife and their children. His first collection "the kissing bridge" was published by Red Moon Press in 2008 and in December 2016 Scars Publications released his chapbook "naming a storm: haiku and tanka."

Haiku by Stephen Toft

train at dusk
the smell of the country
on a stranger's coat



Stephen Toft is a poet and homelessness worker who lives in Lancaster, UK with his wife and their children. His first collection "the kissing bridge" was published by Red Moon Press in 2008 and in December 2016 Scars Publications released his chapbook "naming a storm: haiku and tanka."

Haiku by Stephen Toft

deep in snow
breathing warmth
into my scarf



Stephen Toft is a poet and homelessness worker who lives in Lancaster, UK with his wife and their children. His first collection "the kissing bridge" was published by Red Moon Press in 2008 and in December 2016 Scars Publications released his chapbook "naming a storm: haiku and tanka."

Before Afghanistan by Matthew Borczon

I didn’t know
coffins came
in children’s sizes.



Matthew Borczon is a poet and reserve navy sailor from Erie, PA. He has published six books of poetry. His most recent is The Smallest Coffins Are the Heaviest from Epic Rites Press. He works as a nurse for the developmentally disabled.

Hurt by Matthew Borczon

The soldier said he didn’t know
what hurt worse, stepping on the IED
or telling his wife about it the first time he called home.



Matthew Borczon is a poet and reserve navy sailor from Erie, PA. He has published six books of poetry. His most recent is The Smallest Coffins Are the Heaviest from Epic Rites Press. He works as a nurse for the developmentally disabled.

Leaving by Matthew Borczon

On the day I left for Afghanistan
I felt like a kid
in my father's clothes.



Matthew Borczon is a poet and reserve navy sailor from Erie, PA. He has published six books of poetry. His most recent is The Smallest Coffins Are the Heaviest from Epic Rites Press. He works as a nurse for the developmentally disabled.

Sense Less by Edward Lee

Depression,
the great multiplier;
one hour becoming two,
one day
becoming three,
a night lasting forever,
the only end
that makes calming sense
the one that makes
the least sense,
akin to the period at the end of the sentence
that encapsulated a life
of oil-black despair.



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 and Smiths Knoll. His debut poetry collection "Playing Poohsticks On Ha'Penny Bridge" was published in 2010. He is currently working towards a second collection.

Interplay by Mark J. Mitchell

Your shadow watches
every mirror you pass,
hoping—one day—
to have a reflection
it can name.

Each mirror looks back
at your vanishing
shadow, hopelessly
jealous of its grand
mobility.



Mark J. Mitchell’s latest novel, The Magic War just appeared from Loose Leaves Publishing. He studied writing at UC Santa Cruz under Raymond Carver and George Hitchcock. His work has appeared in the several anthologies and hundreds of periodicals. Three of his chapbooks— Three Visitors, Lent, 1999, and Artifacts and Relics—and the novel, Knight Prisoner are available. He lives with his wife, the activist Joan Juster and makes a living pointing out pretty things in San Francisco.

Untitled Poem #2 by Mike Meraz

The
Gashes
The world
Cuts
Into
Poets
Are only
More
Exits
For poems
To seep
Out
Of.



Mike Meraz lives and writes in Whittier, CA. His latest book "She Poems" is available at Epic Rites Press.

Untitled Poem #1 by Mike Meraz

Uniformed
Artists
Going to
Work

At 8am
In the
Morning

Probably
Hung over
From
Painting
Writing
Partying

Waiting
For that
Time clock
To hit
5

So they can
Go
Back

To their
Real
Jobs.



Mike Meraz lives and writes in Whittier, CA. His latest book "She Poems" is available at Epic Rites Press.

Sodden by Richard Martin

Only yesterday
I'd been struck by the beauty
of autumn trees
on the hillside –
now,
as cloud and drizzle
veil the landscape,
sodden is the only word
that comes to mind –
as though memories
had been blotted out,
the past no more
than empty words
and soaking woods.



Richard Martin is an English writer who lives in the Netherlands close to the point where Belgium, Germany and Holland meet. After retiring as a university teacher in Germany, he turned his attention to writing, and has published three collections of poetry and numerous poems in magazines in England, the US, and Austria.

SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) by Ben Rasnic

Life has lost
its luster.

The trees have shed
their multi-colored leaves,
now languishing in shades of gray.

Looking back
begets a painful reminder.

Looking forward
leads me closer to death.

Standard time
has deprived me
one hour of daylight.

My father once told me
“Son never grow old.”

It was his way
of saying
he loved me.



Ben Rasnic currently resides in Bowie, Maryland. Author of four published collections (three available from amazon.com), Ben's poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize.

Family Visit by Mark Danowsky

End of the first days off this year.

Two days, one recovery, it’s July.

One thing I know, there is a report
waiting for me, still, from last Thursday.

My oldest friend, like an older brother, once
told me you need to take long vacations
because that’s how you know who you’d be
if you didn’t have to work.

Probably, like a brother, too
he doesn’t remember telling me this
or any other sage advice I’ve taken to heart.



Mark Danowsky is a writer from Philadelphia who lives in West Virginia. His poems have appeared in About Place, Cordite, Gargoyle, Right Hand Pointing, Shot Glass Journal, Subprimal, and elsewhere. Mark is Managing Editor for the Schuylkill Valley Journal and Founder of the poetry coaching and editing service VRS CRFT.

The Bald-Headed Wrestler by Michael Chin

Used to have flowing golden locks, if you can believe that.

Used to have a six pack. Now he drinks one a day.

Used to evoke high pitched squeals from the girls in the crowd, and used to lure ring rats back to his hotel room. He's resigned himself to jerking off on his futon now.

Used to move merchandise effortlessly because everyone wanted a piece of the man. He hardly gets a line at the conventions now. Yet sometimes, when the spotlight hits his chrome dome right, it glistens, it shines, it blinds it's so bright. Those times, he's not the only one who remembers he was once a star.



Michael Chin was born and raised in Utica, New York and his hybrid chapbook, The Leo Burke Finish, is available now from Gimmick Press. He has previously published with journals including The Normal School and Hobart. Find him online at miketchin.com and follow him on Twitter @miketchin. 

The Wing Dam by Paul Ilechko

Upstream from the wing dam
all is calm, all is placid.
Ducks and geese abound, perched on the rocks
that dot the shallows, bobbing for fish
in the deeper waters.

Downstream, though, is a seething torrent,
vastly alive, where the river
rips through the narrow straits
between the dam itself
and surrounding rocky outcrops.

Downstream, too, the land
climbs sharply. Fall colors already glowing
on the flanks, a brilliant backdrop
to the ghastly, ghostly monochrome
of the river.

The dam curves south, widening
at its tip, and here is where the fishermen
work the stream, moving side to side,
searching for the perfect spot
where tides and eddies coalesce. 

As shadows stretch out
under the fading evening light,
teenagers appear, clustering
beneath the dead white skeletons of washed up trees
to smoke, relaxing into their freedom.

And now, the sun begins to set
behind the hills of the western shore.
The clouds begin their pilgrimage from white to pink;
the river darkens and thickens,
turning itself from water into wine.



Paul Ilechko has always lived by a river, although he sometimes dreams of forests and mountains. He currently lives in Lambertville, NJ with his girlfriend and a cat. Paul has had poetry accepted / published recently by Oberon Magazine, Dash Literary Journal, Stickman Review, MockingHeart Review and Saint Katherine Review, among others.

Bury Me in a Redwood Forest by Joe Cottonwood

May redwood roots tickle my bones.
May my blood rise as tinted sap.
May my arms lift as limbs to sunlight,
          may I embrace the rain.
May these muscles bear massive growth,
          may they bend and flex
          through squall and storm.
May the over-abundant hair of my body
          become filaments of shaggy bark.
May fingers and toes become needles of green,
          may the chickadee clutch with tiny feet.
May my dreams flow to cones, become seed.
May my words whistle with the wind
          spreading stories, tall tales.
May my unworthy spirit surge
          with the glory of sequoia.
May the hawk build a nest at my crown,
          may the fox hover at my hollow.
May I resist the rot, repel the insect,
          and when at last I fall
May I be sectioned, milled, notched and nailed,
May I become the soul of a house
          peopled with children,
          crafted with love.



Joe Cottonwood has worked as a carpenter and general handyman since 1976. Nights, he writes. He lives with his high school sweetheart in La Honda, California, where they built a house and raised a family under (and at mercy of) giant redwood trees. More at joecottonwood.com.

Therapy by David Hanlon

I unrolled
          my tightly closed
                    life map
                              & began
                                        navigating
                                                  my way
                                                            through the ruins.



David Hanlon is from Cardiff, Wales, and currently living in Bristol, England. He has a BA in Film Studies and is training part-time as a counsellor/therapist. You can find his work online at Ink, Sweat & Tears, Fourth & Sycamore, Eunoia Review, Amaryllis, Scarlet Leaf Review and One Sentence Poems.

The Going-In Bell by Robert Demaree

Still tacked to the closet door
At the cottage that my parents built
On Rust Pond in ’56:
The daily schedule of the tutoring camp
Where my father taught,
Dittoed purple letters faintly legible.
Rising bell 6:45 a.m.
He would walk along the shore
For breakfast and then his class,
Joined with kind, unbookish lads,
Now, too, long departed,
In their struggle with the preterite.

He returned from Puerto Rico in 1926
A teacher of Spanish,
And so he remained the rest of his days,
Never seeking to do anything else,
Not department head or dean—
Well, I don’t know that,
Ambitions, disappointments
Not evident to a child.

A Republican from Indiana,
Of a kind no longer extant,
He once made a small donation
To the campaign of Gerald Ford,
But in the ’30s had passed out leaflets
For the Lincoln Brigade,
Which has made us admirers of
Aaron Copland.

Going-in bell 7:15 a.m.
My parents came back from Mexico
In 1936 with postcards by
Diego Rivera.
Years later, Dad explained to me
The moral roots of the
Inheritance tax.
He would enjoy a glass or two of sherry
And talk about Miguel de Unamuno
And the Generation of ’98.
He was sent by the Chicago Tribune
To cover a gangland hit in
Cicero, Illinois,
And played the horses in Paris in the ’20s.
So in the years of my growing up
In boarding school dormitories
Those days of excitement seemed
Behind him.
We did not toss a baseball
Back and forth.
We did go to Shibe Park
To watch the A’s,
Those sad second-division heroes,
The occasional double play—
Joost to Suder to Fain,
Their pictures taped to my window.

Sitting-down bell 7:20 a.m.
The apartment at The Hill School
Was our home, part of my father’s pay.
So the cottage in New Hampshire
Was the first real estate
They’d ever owned.
I cleared the land
The summer he had a hernia.
The pine paneling has darkened
As if from the pigment of memory.
Our grandchildren are fixing lunch.
Beth sits by the window
Where my dad used to sit,
Drinking coffee,
Smoking his cigarette.

Lights out, 10:00 p.m.
These are not good days in boarding schools,
Learning little, it seems, from the church.
I remember some of Dad’s colleagues
As a bit odd but surely not predators,
Though that could be the naiveté of the time
Or of a son.
Girls finally came to the school and to the camp,
His last classes were co-ed,
Changes coming, in which he would not take part.

He continued to fish
(Small-mouth bass, which my mother
With some reluctance fried in deep fat);
Played the piano by ear,
In the manner of Jelly Roll Morton;
And smiled sweetly at my mother’s kin.
I remember the morning when
He could no longer balance his checkbook.
For several years
We tried to hold at arm’s length
That most outrageous of diseases.
In the hospital, he held on
For his granddaughter to return
From Europe. Oh, goody, he said,
And the wavy amber line went flat.

I recall being miffed
When the school history did not make more
Of his service. I have come to see
His great achievement was in doing
Small things quietly and well,
And with the great kindness
Of which Nemerov spoke.
The limousine approached
The small graveside service,
My mother frail,
Clutching my arm.



Robert Demaree is the author of four book-length collections of poems, including Other Ladders, published in June 2017 by Beech River Books. His poems received first place in competitions sponsored by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and the Burlington Writers Club, and have appeared in over 150 periodicals. A retired educator, he resides in Wolfeboro, N.H. and Burlington, N.C.

USS Wasp (CV-18) by Susan L. Leary

It’s December and easier than you thought
to watch yourself die.
Your hands rest beside you on the bed.
You’ve forgotten how to lean forward.
Out front the sun exits the yard in neatly-timed
increments.
Trees are clean-shaven: soldiers
lining the street.
You are spared precision,
spared the grace of birds that smell of cedar,
find heat in the fluff of their self-generating bodies.
Pointing to the vanity:
Let’s play a game, God says, where you try to un-see
yours—
thawing into the sheets: struggling
to eat soup: eclipsed by the backs of heads expecting
one thing of you.
Except your granddaughter is five and you call
her Miss America.
She doesn’t know there’s something called
a pancreas,
isn’t listening for planes.
There was a time you would’ve bayoneted
‘em in the stomach—not thought
twice about it, but you’re bloated now …
and it’s snowing:
the ash of bodies torpedoed in the Pacific
blanketing your undershirt.
Everything tastes
of gunpowder.
Your wife, you think, has never held more perfectly
a spoon.
In a few afternoons, no one wins—
though God will bear down His teeth on every fired
bullet the Heavens knew to save for you.
Coming home,
how many men upon seeing the harbor
beg to turn back to sea?



Susan L. Leary is a Lecturer in English Composition at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, FL. Her poetry has been published in many print and online journals, including most recently Gyroscope Review, The Christian Century, Crack the Spine, Malevolent Soap, and Dime Show Review.

Our Hallway by Gareth Culshaw

The scythe rests against the wall
along with forgotten jackets
and a riding helmet last worn
when she was interested.
Dust has painted all we know
in the hall. Bird food slips
out of a hole in a bag. Nails
and screws, taken out but never
used, wait to punch and turn.
A pair of gloves wrinkle like skin,
haven’t pulled a weed in months.
The hallway is the back alley
of the house, like the brain,
where you leave certain things.
And hope they fade away.



Gareth Culshaw lives in Wales. His first collection will be published by FutureCycle Press in 2018. 

Plymouth Rock by Sarah Henry

The rock is ten
tons of granite.
I saw it years ago
and figured out
the story--
the pilgrims hustled
down a gangplank
from the Mayflower
and landed on the rock.
They schmoozed
the Indians and made
Thanksgiving dinner
without electricity.
They couldn’t
flick a switch
as we do.
We spend
Thanksgiving
watching football
on TV
and eating turkey
from a store.
We can google
Plymouth Rock
and get a surprise:
historically,
the pilgrims didn’t
land there at all.



Sarah Henry's poems have appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Soundings East, The Hollins Critic and many other journals, as well as six anthologies. CheapPop and Donut Factory featured her humorous prose.

knock at the door by Justin Hyde

farro
boiling on the stove

large

handsome man

blue slacks
widow’s peak

my eyes
find his eyes
they find

the ground

his eyes again

please

don’t take my wife
from me

his adam’s apple
moves up
it moves

down

my hands
find the
front of my jeans

find each other

calluses like
muted pyramids

he turns
& walks away.



Justin Hyde's books and other poems can be found here: http://poets.nyq.org/poet/justinhyde.

Nocturne by Steve Klepetar

The sun has turned away.
Now comes a season of tall corn
browning in fields, and darkness
dropping earlier each day.
Nobody sleeps on the beaches,
and wind cuts through the hills.
Dark valleys echo with sound.

By now, all the doors have closed.
Through windows, faint blue
ghosts of TV light.
There’s a walker in the chill.
Leaves swirl at his feet
as he steps across the bridge,
water below black and heavy as lead.



Steve Klepetar lives in Saint Cloud, Minnesota. His work has appeared widely in the U.S. and abroad, and has received several nominations for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize, including four in 2016. Recent collections include: “A Landscape in Hell;” “Family Reunion;” and “How Fascism Comes to America.”

Friday by Ronald Moran

is the prelude for a widow's weekend of long,
                         quiet days,
like Saturday, with couples coupling all day
                         in or out

of the suburbs, holding hands on walks around
                         the block
in warm weather, or planting, harvesting, raking,
                         bagging,

or just sharing the same air indoors on a couch,
                         like Sunday,
sitting alone in a pew, still grieving the loss
                         of her spouse,

or maybe she's saving a place for someone
                         to share
a hymnal, to lean easily against a shoulder
                         again.   



Ronald Moran has poems in current or forthcoming issues of Asheville Poetry Review, Southern Poetry Review, and Tar River Poetry. In March he was inducted into Clemson University’s CAAH Hall of Fame.

Waiting by Martha Christina

What’s your name?
the woman beside me asks.

We’re each waiting
for a bus in this small town’s
gift shop and bus stop. We’re
standing next to a display
of plastic bears clasping
painted hearts: female
names from Ann to Zoe.

Before I can answer,
she says hers is Linda,
. . .but the Ls are all gone.

She tells me how long she’s lived
in this town I’m just passing through;
where she works, how many years
she’s worked there, and that she has
the weekend off. She tells me
her coat is new, and she hasn’t
put the hood up because
it knocks her earmuffs off.
She tells me she has a cat: black
and white. His name is Kitty
but there’s only Kathy and besides
he’s a boy and besides he wouldn’t
like a bear and besides he can’t read.

She tells me she likes the bus,
takes it every Friday to a dance
two towns away where
friends will meet her,
and bring her home.

When her bus pulls up,
she claps her hands,
gives the driver her ticket,
asks his name, and if he
remembers her. He nods,
smiles a kind smile.

She waves as her bus
pulls away, leaving me
still, unnamed.



Martha Christina is a frequent contributor to Brevities. Longer work appears in Innisfree Poetry Journal, Naugatuck River Review, earlier postings of Red Eft Review, and most recently in the anthology Ice Cream Poems from World Enough Writers. She has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press).

Outside of Eastham by Martha Christina

1
a digital sign alerts drivers:
CONTROLLED
BURN AHEAD

2
The firefighter
directing traffic
waves us on. “No
worries,” she says,
smiling, “Everything’s
under control.”

3
Smoke drifts
across the road.
Memory follows.

4
My mother
at flash point. . .
with access
to matches.



Martha Christina is a frequent contributor to Brevities. Longer work appears in Innisfree Poetry Journal, Naugatuck River Review, earlier postings of Red Eft Review, and most recently in the anthology Ice Cream Poems from World Enough Writers. She has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press).

A New Song at Stop & Shop by Martha Christina

2008
The young clerk at register 3
counts herself among
the lucky ones: working
in a resort town, plenty
to eat, money to send home.
She sings and sways
as the conveyor belt
presents its bounty: Over. . .
running over. . . .My cup
is full and running over.

2017
She keeps
her H2B visa
on her person.
Going to work,
at work,
coming home,
she keeps
quiet.



Martha Christina is a frequent contributor to Brevities. Longer work appears in Innisfree Poetry Journal, Naugatuck River Review, earlier postings of Red Eft Review, and most recently in the anthology Ice Cream Poems from World Enough Writers. She has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press).

Summer Cold by Ben Rasnic

It’s 90 degrees out
but I am holed up inside
with the mother of all colds.

My head swollen
as a blue ribbon pumpkin
at the county fair;

puffy red nostrils
perpetually dripping
like leaky faucets.

Find myself
on a sofa filled with quilts
time travelling to Andy Griffith reruns

sipping chicken noodle soup;
lemon, rosemary & peppermint oils
boiling in the kitchen        

my mother singing off key
to the country music
radio station;

slipping once again
into sweet
slumber



Ben Rasnic currently resides in Bowie, Maryland. Author of four published collections (three available from amazon.com), Ben's poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize.

Closing Exercises: Summer Boarding School (Wolfeboro 2017) by Robert Demaree

The tents by the teaching grove are empty,
Will be coming down soon.
I walk along the lane
And listen to echoes of the summer.
What has been gained here,
What will be remembered
Of these five weeks?
Friends they may not see again;
The confidence to start afresh
At new schools in different places;
The teachers who persuaded them
They could write, or draw, or succeed.
The teachers will file their reports,
Take their own kids
For a last look at the pond,
Lash kayaks to the tops of their cars



Robert Demaree is the author of four book-length collections of poems, including Other Ladders, published in June 2017 by Beech River Books. His poems received first place in competitions sponsored by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and the Burlington Writers Club, and have appeared in over 150 periodicals. A retired educator, he resides in Wolfeboro, N.H. and Burlington, N.C.

Off and On Tinty's Racetrack (Plainville, CT, 1952) by Ronald Moran

My best friends, Dick and Roger, asked
me for five bucks so we could buy a car,
purple, with the number 54 fading, sitting
in weeds on Zack's lot next to the pumps
in his gas station, and I said OK before
realizing the three of us had to pay for it
by pumping gas at Zack's, a fee for our
new stock car to vegetate on his side lot.

This was after I found out the car had no
engine and no prospects of ever racing
at Tinty's, our distant goal in buying 54,
where we went Friday nights to the races
on its short track, and where Dick wormed
his way into the pits, trying to con drivers
into letting him take a car out on a Friday.
One did and Dick came in third, more
glory than we could have hoped for then.



Ronald Moran has poems in current or forthcoming issues of Asheville Poetry Review, Southern Poetry Review, and Tar River Poetry. In March he was inducted into Clemson University’s CAAH Hall of Fame.

The Horrible Thing I Did by M. Stone

Recalling it
makes my stomach take a leap
the way it does when I miss the last step
and lose my footing.

It is the pain of a rough poke in the side,
leaving tender organs smarting,
but later I will find no bruise.

It makes me crave my lost religion
and the stern bogeyman in the sky
who can dole out retribution.

Decades have passed,
and I can only try to atone;
the gravity of the act
will not be erased. 

Now when I am tempted
to fetch a stone the size of my palm
and hurl it at some guilty party,
a person I find more wicked than myself,

the memory of the horrible thing I did
stays my hand.



M. Stone is a bookworm, birdwatcher, and stargazer who writes poetry while living in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in San Pedro River Review, SOFTBLOW, Calamus Journal, and numerous other print and online journals. She can be reached at writermstone.wordpress.com.

the older hispanic men by Justin Hyde

i met
in detasseling fields
factories
& roofing crews

had nothing
or very little

besides aztec grace
& the dignity
of a bald eagle
high
on their shoulders

something of durango
jalisco
echoes of pancho villa
swirling
in their marrow

men like luis
ramiro
enrique

clockwork

no pensive
shame

or existential
brittle

i stood
in their shade

those lean
wandering
years.



Justin Hyde's books and other poems can be found here: http://poets.nyq.org/poet/justinhyde.

Let's Blame It on Mother by M.J. Iuppa

There was never any drawing paper. We
stole the cardboard that kept our father’s

pressed shirts stiff— careful not to separate
straight pins that fastened the sleeves to

shoulders. We were stealth, trying
to ply the pine drawers open with-

out a squeak, knowing Mother was fast
asleep in the next room.

We gave each other that look as we tip-
toed down the staircase to a room where

we hid with bald-faced lies that became
drawings of the orphanage, of running

away with a red leather suitcase filled with
vinyl 45s & a week’s worth of underwear.

We’d get as far as Petrossi’s barn &
settled in their stable on a mound of hay.

We’d lie there, listening to horses’ slow
breath & considered what would happen

if we answered the black phone
ringing off its hook.



M.J. Iuppa, Director of the Visual & Performing Arts Minor Program and Lecturer in Creative Writing at St. John Fisher College, and a part-time lecturer in Creative Writing at The College at Brockport, was awarded the New York State Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Adjunct Teaching, 2017.

In the Park by Richard Martin

A small blonde-haired boy came skipping past,
waving to me furtively behind his mother's back –
just two of the afternoon wanderers in the park,
where, with some thirty others, I sat patiently
on a flimsy chair to listen to a poetry reading.

Around us stood vast beech and lime trees,
prolific bushes and verdant lawns; the poets
told us they'd read about landscape, gardens,
fields, nature, and, yes, parks. The heavy burls
on the tree trunks became faces, grinning
at the thought of versifying their glory.

On the grass beyond a row of Roman columns,
enthusiasts practised therapeutic exercises –
the sun shone briefly through the clouds;
the reading over, we walked our memories home.



Richard Martin is an English writer who lives in the Netherlands close to the point where Belgium, Germany and Holland meet. After retiring as a university teacher in Germany, he turned his attention to writing, and has published three collections of poetry and numerous poems in magazines in England, the US, and Austria.

The Way of the World by Ben Rasnic

Pacing the concrete median strip
adjacent the intersection
of Central Avenue
and Ritchie Road,

his scruffy beard
daubs a face rutted
by hard times;
vacant eyes
expose the emptiness inside.

The cardboard sign
pressed against a soiled, slept on
Army Surplus shirt
reads “Desert Storm Vet
down on his luck
needs help to pay the rent”

and I’m thinking
‘There but for the grace
of God go I’

but the light turns green
& I punch the accelerator

so as not to piss off
those who continue
along this road I travel.



Ben Rasnic currently resides in Bowie, Maryland. Author of four published collections (three available from amazon.com), Ben's poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize.

Summers with My Father by Aden Thomas

He told my mother
he brought me along
so I would want to stay
in school, get a degree,
the first in the family
to go to college.
But we both knew
I saved him labor.

We packed and loaded everything
for people,
their furniture, their beds,
their boxes filled with dishes,
their washers and dryers,
their pianos and and televisions,
into the moving van,
which wasn’t a van at all
but an empty tractor-trailer.

From 5am to twilight
we worked in the heat,
so tired by the end,
the salt
of our sweat
stuck to our skin.
Our muscles, seared
by the sun,
the humidity and heat,
burned slow into the night.

No shower, just a buffet
at a truck stop in the dark
and a sleeping bag
for a bed.
My bones were so exhausted
I’d fall asleep
in my clothes and wake up
past midnight
bathed in sweat again.

Sometimes in the morning
all the illegals
would gather on the sidewalk
outside the truck stop
and my father would speak
his broken Spanish to them,
hire one or two
to help us load the truck full.

I would spend the day
trying to outwork them.
Maybe their motivation was
a better life
or sending money back home,
I didn’t know,
but mine was trying to prove myself
to him, prove
I knew what it was,
the real work
of men.

It had to be impossible
that he’d done it
for twenty-five years,
all the neighborhoods
in all the cities,
all the truck stops,
on all the lonely highways,
the nerves in his feet
crushed under all
the weight of heavy lifting,
the months and years
away from his family,

One night, late into
the summer,
both of us sitting in the cab
near the end of our time
together, right before
I was set to go off
to school,
both of us listening
to the radio,
he said, son,
you worked hard,
and that was how
I knew.



Aden Thomas grew up on the high plains of central Wyoming.  His work has appeared in the The Blue Mountain Review and The Skylark Review. A collection of his published poems, What Those Light Years Carry, is now available through Kelsay Books.

dad says by Justin Hyde

memories
pop-up
out of nowhere

he watches them like movies
losing whole afternoons

-running naked
in a rainstorm
on the farm
with his kid brother

-setting up bowling pins
saturday nights
at the memphis missouri vfw
for a nickel
a frame

-chugging a bottle of vermouth
on a dare
and punching out
the back window
of sheriff pope’s
patrol car

‘i look at the clock
3pm
i haven’t done a damn thing
but watch movies
in my head.’

‘at least
you still have the movies,’
i tell him.

‘there’s that,’
he smiles
working the blade of a pocket knife
under his fingernails.

the chili
done

i stir it
with a big wooden spoon

ladle us each
a bowl.



Justin Hyde's books and other poems can be found here: http://poets.nyq.org/poet/justinhyde.

Monadnock Flood by Maura MacNeil

It is April’s upending ocean of sky that takes the road,
tosses asphalt and gravel into the bottom pasture,

chokes the apple and viburnum, almost kills them outright.

That Saturday, mud ankle-deep, sludge water receded to shallow pools,
we went down there to pick our way through—

to collect in a pile the stones and all those sharp things:
bits of glass, a ballpoint pen, a car mirror—shards of storm—

before it cemented in and broke the mower blades in June.

But then, suddenly, within days, everything new.
Brown snakes curled in the sun, jonquils my husband planted

last fall in bloom. Down the hill a new house was going up.
A constant whine of band saws, skill saws. And in the yard all those birds,

familiar notes—a pecking so deep, so desiring, from a leafing oak.



Maura MacNeil is the author of the poetry collections A History of Water (Finishing Line Press) and Lost Houses (Aldrich Press). She is also founder and editor of off the margins. She teaches creative writing and lives in the woods of New Hampshire with her husband.

Instructions by Maura MacNeil

First, ignore most noise.

Then breathe.

Stand slack
and reject rigidity.

Sing with your bones
to make them soften.

And then sleep.

Do not rise
in the middle
of the night
when you
wake startled.

Rest.

Close your eyes
and rest.



Maura MacNeil is the author of the poetry collections A History of Water (Finishing Line Press) and Lost Houses (Aldrich Press). She is also founder and editor of off the margins. She teaches creative writing and lives in the woods of New Hampshire with her husband.

Diminished by Steve Klepetar

Halfway through the month,
and light has lessened.

The year comes around
again to a house sunk deep

in meadow grass.
There is no one home,

but birds break from treetops
at the slightest sound.

Look down toward the canyon,
down from the rocky hill.

There are voices in the wind,
indistinct, and still

there is light in the windows,
light shining across the roof.

Here is a house
diminished

like a wounded eye, burning
despite the shadows of trees.



Steve Klepetar lives in Saint Cloud, Minnesota. His work has received several nominations for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize, including four in 2016. Recent collections include Family Reunion (Big Table), A Landscape in Hell (Flutter Press), and How Fascism Comes to America (Locofo Chaps).

At the Gallery Talk by Martha Christina

A photographer
interrupts his literal
colleague, says: "You
don't have to have
a photograph of
a woman screaming
to have a photograph of
a woman screaming."

A woman,
taking notes,
nods,
writes that down.



Martha Christina is a frequent contributor to Brevities. Longer work appears in Innisfree Poetry Journal, Naugatuck River Review, earlier postings of Red Eft Review, and most recently in the anthology Ice Cream Poems from World Enough Writers. She has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press).

Without You II by Martha Christina

Cardinals, sparrows,
house finches in pairs
crowd the empty feeder.



Martha Christina is a frequent contributor to Brevities. Longer work appears in Innisfree Poetry Journal, Naugatuck River Review, earlier postings of Red Eft Review, and most recently in the anthology Ice Cream Poems from World Enough Writers. She has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press).

Emergency Vet Clinic by Catherine Weiss

spend three hours in the waiting room
at the emergency vet clinic
on a sunday and you will see it’s full of love
love for the nauseous mastiff

love for the schnauzer with the abscess

love for the washcloth-eating chocolate lab

love for the ridgeback who stole the halloween candy
both of my dogs are covered in hives
silly pups

endless wait

astronomical bill
finding humor isn’t difficult

"what’d our perfect dumdums get into this time"

humans endure the tedium together
in good-natured chagrin
trading stories and knowing nods

that is, until the man with the corgi

pushes through the glass doors and suddenly
here in this convivial lobby

even the dogs are stone—

he is carrying her like a baby

he doesn’t know what’s wrong

she’s not walking

she’s not breathing

the man says: help her

the man says: please

a flash of red-gold fur
cradled, beloved disappears around a corner

in the blank minute that follows the phone rings twice



Catherine Weiss wants you to know she loves poems. She is known for her signature mix of humor and heart, and definitely not for punching through walls like the Hulk when she doesn't win a slam. Her poetry has been published in such literary journals as Freezeray Poetry, Voicemail Poems, Gravel Mag, and Jersey Devil Press. Catherine is the founder and editor-in-chief of lit mag Slamchop. More about Catherine at http://catherineweiss.com.

Grandma's Records by Catherine Weiss

Last month Grandma told me
how it used to be that every
morning she’d turn on the record
player, how those albums kept her
company all day long.

Deafness took her music
though, favorite vinyl sold and
gifted. A house makes due.

But Grandpa died today,

and I’m left at the kitchen table,
listening to the midnight hush
of a record collection un-played,
aching to give it all back.



Catherine Weiss wants you to know she loves poems. She is known for her signature mix of humor and heart, and definitely not for punching through walls like the Hulk when she doesn't win a slam. Her poetry has been published in such literary journals as Freezeray Poetry, Voicemail Poems, Gravel Mag, and Jersey Devil Press. Catherine is the founder and editor-in-chief of lit mag Slamchop. More about Catherine at http://catherineweiss.com.

the kind of sick by Wanda Morrow Clevenger

when Stan died
I missed his memorial
and burial
the tortured words
and sad faces
of old friends,
friends that knew him
better, longer than I

I was sick then
the kind of sick
that doesn’t relent
the kind of sick
that binds wrists
to prevent removal
of oxygen masks
the kind of sick
that creeps up like
a hired assassin
the kind of sick
that makes you miss
saying farewell
to a friend
that makes you wonder
why him when
it could so, so easily
had been you



Wanda Morrow Clevenger is a former native of Carlinville, IL. Over 443 pieces of her work can be found in 154 print and electronic publications. Her magazine-type blog updated at her erratic discretion: http://wlc-wlcblog.blogspot.com/.

Walnut by Yuan Changming

The autumn’s yellowish brain
Hardened within spiky skin
Keeps all the secrets of the

Passing season

Cherishes its dreams
In each of its wooden lobes



Yuan Changming, published monographs on translation before moving out of China. Currently, Yuan edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver; credits include Best of Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17), BestNewPoemsOnline, Cincinnati Review, Threepenny Review and 1319 others.

Finesse by Robert Demaree

In the Club Room at Golden Pines
Hour upon hour of duplicate bridge,
Earnest, watchful: grossly underbid.
I know they think it’s useful
And hope they find it fun.
I do not do that,
Or crossword puzzles, or Sudoku,
And would not attempt
Counting backwards from one hundred
By sevens.
I count instead on
Shuffling through my old postcards,
Thousands of them,
Expecting a memory to be jarred loose,
The occasion of a purchase,
A scene brought back from
Some corner of our life.

The inn at Nags Head, from our wedding trip,
Prince Edward Island fifty years later,
The piney woods of north Louisiana,
Years I have chosen to count as good ones
Though there is reason not to.

Those other towns where our girls
Have made lives for themselves,
The band concerts and soccer games
Of our children’s children.

Paid too much for this one
At an antique mall in Iowa.
Got this one on the way to his brother’s wedding;
She died so young.

And here are little-known canyons in Utah,
The French Quarter, the Chateau Frontenac,
The leafy town on the Ohio River
From which my dad, a grocer’s son,
Set out in 1925.

This one is our pond in New Hampshire.
My father loved bridge,
Could make a bid of three no-trump
When he could do little else.
I can tell you the exact moment
He began to slip:
At his desk, a clear morning
In September of ’83,
Looking out at the woods,
Unable to balance his checkbook,
Forty degrees on the porch.



Robert Demaree is the author of four book-length collections of poems, including Other Ladders, published in June 2017 by Beech River Books. His poems received first place in competitions sponsored by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and the Burlington Writers Club, and have appeared in over 150 periodicals. A retired educator, he resides in Wolfeboro, N.H. and Burlington, N.C.

Simplicity by Bill Abbott

We were never so close
As when we were isolated,
Skipping shale rocks
As we broke them
Off the cliffside behind us,
Counting the skips
One…two…three.
You showed me the technique,
How to twist my arm, spin my wrist
In just that way to maximize skips,
And there was no shortage of rocks.

We were away from the others,
Talking alone for the first time
In a long time.
One…two…three…four.
But usually three, sometimes just two.
Talking about life and what comes next,
And I was alone for a time with you
That was rare,
With nothing more important to do
Than skip rocks.



Bill Abbott is the author of "Let Them Eat MoonPie," the history of poetry slam in the Southeast. He has been published in Ray's Road Review, Radius, The November 3rd Club, and The Sow's Ear. Mr. Abbott lives in Ohio and teaches creative writing at Central State University.

Something Greater by Jason Fisk

The sun embraces the evening
Its shadows angle across the burb
Rain clings to the sidewalk’s pores
The storm is still troubling the air
Red wine and teriyaki salmon
fill my belly and on the way home
I crank the music of my youth
Magically, I am sixteen again – invincible
Car soaring down the highway
between two truck trailers
on my way home from school
Wanting to smash into them
just to hear the crinkle of
of the car metal 
Just to be humbled
by the blunt impact
of something greater than me

But now I have kids
in bed at home
and wonder
how I got
from wanting
to smash my car
to being their father

Something greater
than me



Jason Fisk is a husband to one, a father to three, and a teacher to many. He lives and writes in the suburbs of Chicago. His long list of employment before becoming a teacher includes working in a psychiatric unit, laboring in a kitchen cabinet making factory, and mixing cement for a bricklayer.

Vulnerable by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

is not a good
or comfortable
place to be
for a man
who has always
relied on himself
and provided
for others,
but three stints
in the madhouse
and over a year
as an outpatient
on the third floor
of the Medical Arts
building after that
will teach you
that no one can
do anything on
their own and
that even Galileo
must have had
help.



Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Walking Is Still Honest, Red Fez, and Anti-Heroin Chic.

Rancid by Divya Manikandan

On my way to
the institute every morning,
I cross a repugnant smelling lake
with the froth of seventeen
maladroit industries sending
out their toxic effluents into the
aquatic home like waste to a landfill.

While moving vehicles roll up their
tinted shields to censor out the
inevitably penetrative aroma,
my eye catches one figure that
stands dauntless on a crumbling bridge
smoking a morning cigarette.

I wonder why he stands there, in his
Indian kiln and murky shawl, like clockwork
in the mornings.
Perhaps he tries to take in the scents the world
blatantly shuns, or perhaps he takes
pleasure in seeing the planet destroyed.

His unctuous demeanor as he breathes tar into
his lungs is oddly something that keeps me up
at night.
In questioning his philosophies, dreaming up
his family, analyzing his psychology, I weave
up silk webs of lies.

But one Monday morning, when I glance out
the window, my eyes search for that
man whose name I do not know.

He is lost in the wind, just like that bridge
that crumbled into all that’s left of time’s
unforgiving shadow.



Divya Manikandan is a resident of Bangalore, India. Who is currently building her own poetic arsenal, painting as a form of meditation and creating short films as a form of expression. Literature is her means of escape from reality, however her reality has always been to become a surgeon.

Confederate Park Gazebo by Al Ortolani

In the small town park, two boys
meet in the shadows
of the gazebo. Breathless
under the elms at midnight,
each muscle is a war of secession.
The picket lines have been drawn for years.
Hidden between the trees, skirmishers
camouflage themselves
in the smoke of union. Tonight,
they listen to the crescendo of crickets,
the rattle of wind,
the voices in the lights along Main Street.
They have been taught that God hates queers,
and beyond that, only lilacs
swell in the drunken dark.



Al Ortolani is a recently retired high school teacher. His poetry has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Rattle, BOAAT, and many other journals as well. His most recent poetry collection is forthcoming from NYQ Books.

First Date by John Grey

There were four of them
getting ready for the one date.

Chrissie swished various blouses, dresses, pants,
across the sight-line of the mirror
like swiping groceries in a checkout line.
Her mother garbed her over-racing heart
in sips of wine.
Her father slipped a good half hour
of parlor pacing on his feet.
Tina, her little sister,
swaddled herself in giggles.

Chrissie fiddled with her hair.
Her mother wiped her eyes.
Her father flexed his hands,
imagined them wrapped around
the throat of a boy
who got too fresh with his daughter.
Tina looked out the bedroom window,
eager for that first glimpse
of this surely wretched, ugly boy.

Chrissie dabbled in just enough makeup
to move her age slightly forward.
More tears turned back her mother's clock.
Rage at his own teenage misbehavior
fueled her father's calendar.
Tina vowed to never grow up.

Chrissie didn't mean to pose
at the top of the stairs
but her nerves, her light head
couldn't help themselves.
Her mother watched from the kitchen wings,
proud and afraid.
Her father was transported
to different stairs, twenty years before,
Chrissie giving way to the woman he ultimately married.
Tina saw the car drive up,
the boy emerge with a bouquet of flowers.
She was eleven years old.
For a moment or two,
she struggled to stay that age.



John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Front Range Review, Studio One and Columbia Review with work upcoming in Louisiana Review, Poem and Midwest Quarterly.

First Kiss by Ben Rasnic

Sat behind her
in second grade,
would tug her pigtails
to let her know.

At recess,
we hid together
behind the tall hedges
and traded valentines;

our stomachs queasy,
hearts racing
like Rin Tin Tin
and then

the clash
of stainless steel
& enamel,     

hint of grape pixy stix



Ben Rasnic's poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Currently residing in Bowie, Maryland, Rasnic spends his free time in summer writing, tending his vegetable garden and supporting the Baltimore Orioles' AA farm team, the Bowie Baysox.

Bats at Night by Richard Martin / Photograph by Gerd-Wolf Schaefer

Like the paper darts I folded as a boy
to fly across the living room,
minute black arrows circled
the garden pond, shooting suddenly
from bush and tree – tiny fragments
of black tissue paper swooping down
to the water, only to speed away again,
adding to the dusky spectacle
of the evening – blue-grey sky,
puffs of reddish clouds, punctuated
by the invasion of bats – mere dashes
in the shady text of night.

Richard Martin is an English writer who lives in the Netherlands close to the point where Belgium, Germany and Holland meet. After retiring as a university teacher in Germany, he turned his attention to writing, and has published three collections of poetry and numerous poems in magazines in England, the US, and Austria.

Copyright Gerd-Wolf Schaefer

The Amaryllis by Marne Wilson

A co-worker planted it on a whim
and then abandoned it just as casually.
Now this amaryllis is mine by default.
Time after time, I have watched it
try to create a bloom.

The flower stalk becomes overeager,
growing so quickly that it cannot support itself,
then falling over dead,
a victim of its own success.
After that the bulb lies dormant for a while
until I reluctantly begin to water it again.

But this time is different.
After months without water,
the bulb decides on its own to grow.
I check on it one day and discover vigorous shoots
breaking out of the dry soil.
What can I do but quench its thirst?
But I also ask myself for the first time
exactly what went wrong in the past.

I see that the bulb is planted too shallow,
so that it has no anchor.
I take the plant home and add more soil to the pot
until the bulb is buried up to its neck.
Some say that I will smother it this way,
that bulbs need to get plenty of air.
But I say that my mother
kept her amaryllis for fifty years
and watched it bloom many, many times.
I say that sometimes old ways are best.
I say that I am going to watch it grow.



Marne Wilson lives in Parkersburg, West Virginia. Her poems have most recently appeared in Atlas & Alice, Poetry East, and Oyez Review. She is the author of The Bovine Daycare Center (Finishing Line, 2015).

So little by Ben Rasnic

So little

I depend on;
the cry
of a freight train,
its faint echo
waning.



Ben Rasnic's poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Currently residing in Bowie, Maryland, Rasnic spends his free time in summer writing, tending his vegetable garden and supporting the Baltimore Orioles' AA farm team, the Bowie Baysox.

Voyage by Trivarna Hariharan

When
spring falls

upon
a crumbling town,

who can
tell a leaf from its

flower?



Trivarna Hariharan is an undergraduate student of English Literature from India. She has authored The Necessity of Geography (Flutter Press), Home and Other Places (Nivasini Publishers), and Letters I Never Sent (Writers Workshop, Kolkata). Her poems appear or are forthcoming from Alexandria Quarterly, Allegro, Birds Piled Loosely, Random Sample Review, Sweet Tree Review, Fourth & Sycamore, Vayavya, Open Road Review, TXTOBJX, Vayavya, Café Dissensus, Red Bird Chapbooks, The Sunflower Collective, Quail Bell, Eunoia Review and others. Besides writing, she learns the Electronic Keyboard, and has completed her 4th Grade in the instrument from Trinity College of Music, London.

Urban Flashback by Mark J. Mitchell

Like a penguin on the fire escape,
a sax man practices all
his open scales and secret riffs
the whole afternoon. His face
is dark and calm and his lungs
are steady. The tone’s firm.
By his third pass through
“Straight, No Chaser” there’s not one
happy soul left on the block.



Mark J. Mitchell’s latest novel, The Magic War just appeared from Loose Leaves Publishing. He studied writing at UC Santa Cruz under Raymond Carver and George Hitchcock. His work has appeared in the several anthologies and hundreds of periodicals. Three of his chapbooks— Three Visitors, Lent, 1999, and Artifacts and Relics—and the novel, Knight Prisoner are available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble. He lives with his wife Joan Juster and makes a living pointing out pretty things in San Francisco.

"So, When Do You Want to Die?" by Ace Boggess

          —question asked by David Ishaya Osu          

It will be a Saturday,
yes—no one must
miss work for grieving.

Sometime in the evening
so my last day
wasn’t wasted resting.

An old song—one
that’s not yet written—plays
on the radio (satellite,
Bluetooth, YouTube)
already calling up nostalgia

for the long-ago
I’m waiting to experience
as I contemplate
this doom prophecy of self

like watching some giddy,
glowing orange kite
sky-dancing, bobbing,

right before it’s
shot down by a drone.



Ace Boggess is author of the novel A Song Without a Melody (Hyperborea Publishing, 2016) and two books of poetry, most recently, The Prisoners (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2014). Forthcoming is a third poetry collection: Ultra Deep Field (Brick Road). His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, RATTLE, River Styx, North Dakota Quarterly and many other journals. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.

The Race by Ronald Moran

How many more IV's, pictures, or how much
                         more
blood drawn from my thin-skinned arms before
                         they decide

the time I have left according to their rock-
                         solid
results, printed out as if I were a stock car
                         jockey,

and they're counting the runs I have left
                         on the track
before I'm dropped by sponsors, big guys
                         with money.



Ronald Moran has poems in current or forthcoming issues of Asheville Poetry Review, Southern Poetry Review, and Tar River Poetry. In March he was inducted into Clemson University’s CAAH Hall of Fame.

Samsara by Janette Schafer

I knelt with my spade
atop the hard gray paving stone,
mixing a spadesful of ashes
with muddy earth and Mexican sunflowers.

I carried dust in my pocket
as I crossed the Smithfield Street Bridge
and opened the plastic bottle watching
as thin streams of gray
joined the Monongahela.

I stirred the charcoal powder
into the gravel of the chiminea,
covering you with cedar logs
before warming us both with fire.

I stood on the Mt. Washington overlook
as the wind swept you
from my outstretched hands,
then I kissed the last of you
from my blackened fingertips.



Janette Schafer is a playwright, poet, and opera singer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is a 2017 awardee of the Maenad Fellowship in writing through Chatham University and a 2015 awardee of the Arts MODE Fellowship through New Sun Rising LLC for playwriting and experimental theater. Recent and upcoming publications appear in Zany Zygote Review; Eyedrum Periodically; Nasty Women & Bad Hombres; The Woman, Inc.; B. E. Literary Journal; Big Lit International Writing Festival; and Chatham University broadsides.

Weathering by M.J. Iuppa

Seeing the empty swing, hanging from the black
willow’s thickest branch, I want to test its seat, I

want to steady myself on its warped wood & fly
out over the pond that rents the sky. I want

to lean all the way back, face up to sunlight
that seems to be caught in leafy-green

braids that sway, back, and forth, like curtain
call— this is it —I feel it in the pit of

my stomach, this memory of
feat, of encore, of swinging

into vast darkness.



M.J. Iuppa ‘s third full length poetry collection Small Worlds Floating was published by Cherry Grove Collections in July, 2016. For the past 28 years, she has lived on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario.

Air Strikes by Mark Danowsky

I get up to the news
set down my phone
feed my dog
make coffee
check email
Twitter
a checklist I've developed
that takes hours
breaking for dog walks
opening the fridge
for no reason
worrying
about productivity
why I'm not
getting to the DO IT LATER
half of my steno pad
dreams I have
opportunity
to pursue if I choose



Mark Danowsky’s poetry has appeared in About Place, Cordite, Right Hand Pointing, Shot Glass Journal, Subprimal, Third Wednesday and elsewhere. Mark is originally from Philadelphia, but lives in West Virginia. He is Managing Editor for the Schuylkill Valley Journal and Founder of the poetry coaching and editing service VRS CRFT.

vagrant by Robert T. Krantz

these boxcar doors slide
open with great clamors
of fear and trembling
shake our cups
spilling brown coffee onto pine pallets—
we dream generous portions
of flaked biscuits and gravy
at the diner in the town up ahead
Baxter smiles when the first purple light
peaks over the northern plain
just in case



Robert T. Krantz is a poet working out of Michigan. He studied creative writing and English Literature at both Niagara County Community College, NY and the University of Akron, Ohio. Robert published a chapbook of poetry and prose entitled Leg Brace Legato (2013) which earned him admittance into the University of Arkansas-Monticello's MFA program for Poetry. His second chapbook, Gargoyle, was published in 2015. In 2016, Bitterzoet Press published two chapbooks of Robert's work (Hansel & Plus 4) and his poetry has appeared in Gargoyle, Hoot, Watershed Review, Wilderness House Literary Review and others.

Late and Dark by Martha Christina

The cat's in
his usual place,
stretched out
against my
outstretched legs.

The bedside clock
reads 3:00 a.m.;
what's that to him
in his reckoning
of time?

Dark? He can
easily see
me, sitting up,
face buried in my hands.



Martha Christina is a frequent contributor to Brevities. Longer work appears or is forthcoming in Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Naugatuck River Review, and earlier postings of Red Eft Review. Her second collection, Against Detachment, was published by Pecan Grove Press in April 2016

At the Arboretum by Martha Christina

Sun breaks through
heavy cloud cover,
shines like a spotlight
on her memorial tree.

Still a sapling;
my hand can
encircle its trunk,
slender as her wrist.

* * *
Our hands
interlocked,
paramedics busy.

* * *
White blossoms,
five-petaled,
touch my face.



Martha Christina is a frequent contributor to Brevities. Longer work appears or is forthcoming in Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Naugatuck River Review, and earlier postings of Red Eft Review. Her second collection, Against Detachment, was published by Pecan Grove Press in April 2016.

My Students' Wheelbarrows by Tyler Sheldon

          after B.C. and W.C.W.

One by one they trickle to their seats.
They expect another day of scribbling
in their notebooks what they’re only
pretending to think, but I tell them,
it is finally time to have our talk
about poetry.

I tell them, look here at how Williams breaks
his lines, so unlike Shakespeare, and one,
her hand above the sea of heads, says
they’re wheelbarrows. You can lift
these lines and even pivot, if you wish.
She drops her hand and just like that the silence
breaks.

Another stands to speak: white, he says,
means purity. For the rest, so much depends
upon these words. All they want to do
is tie chickens to that color
so they won’t escape.

When they finally trickle out, talk shifts
back to other things. A few leave
with pens in hand. I turn off the lights.
Beyond our classroom, the trees
are glazed with rain.



Tyler Sheldon is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and MFA candidate at McNeese State University. His work has appeared throughout the US and Canada, such as in Quiddity International Literary Journal, The Dos Passos Review, The Prairie Journal, and others. His chapbooks include First Breaths of Arrival (Oil Hill Press, 2016), and Traumas, forthcoming from Yellow Flag Press.

Another one by Matthew Borczon

He had
21,000
rounds of
ammunition
5 illegal
guns and
a list
of enemies
but in
the end
the soldier
only shot
himself.



Matthew Borczon is the author of two books of poetry: A Clock of Human Bones from Yellow Chair Review and Battle Lines from Epic Rites Press. His third book Ghost Train will be out in June from Weasel Press. He is a nurse and Navy sailor in Erie, Pa.

I shouldn't watch the news by Matthew Borczon

After a
nightmare
full of
the dead
children
of Afghanistan
carrying the
dead children
of Syria
I wake up
to carry
my 8 yr
old up
the stairs
to bed
fighting back
the urge
to wake her
just because
I can.



Matthew Borczon is the author of two books of poetry: A Clock of Human Bones from Yellow Chair Review and Battle Lines from Epic Rites Press. His third book Ghost Train will be out in June from Weasel Press. He is a nurse and Navy sailor in Erie, Pa.

Senryu by Maureen Kingston

in the exurbs
cornfields exhale
walmart bags



Maureen Kingston’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Akitsu Quarterly, Blue Earth Review, B O D Y, Chrysanthemum, Failed Haiku: A Journal of English Senryu, Haibun Today, hedgerow, Hermeneutic Chaos Literary Journal, Modern Poetry Review, moongarlic E-zine, Prune Juice: Journal of Senryu & Kyoka, and Red Paint Hill.

Baiting the Hook by Ben Rasnic

Coming to terms
with that last offering
from a crushed pack
of Salems
now snuffed
down to the filter,
you sift frantically
through the overfilled ashtray
for something to light
because the lure
of vodka & tonic
still wavers enticingly
from the shallow bottom
of your crystal cocktail glass.



Ben Rasnic finds sanctuary in a quiet Bowie, Maryland subdivision where the only sounds at night are crickets and the lonesome wail of a passing Norfolk Southern freight train.

The Opposite of Love by Jessica Siobhan Frank

I’d prefer apathy to his blatant
hatred of the woman
he’s falling out of love with.

She hollers and he responds.
I have to watch.

I hold him up,
my body is his backboard
my affections keep him from falling,
but I ache for his attention
towards me, towards us,
the future he promised me,
the feverish words he used
when he was wooing me.
Let me take care of you.

I said he was wounded,
needed time to heal,
a year at least,
even if that meant we missed out
on each other. I loved him that much.
But his words were sure:
A year is arbitrary. I’ve found you now.
His convictions more solid than mine.

And now I’m here for him,
dressed in armor.
I know more about her
than he knows about me.
His anger for her his favorite
thing to talk about.
And I hate being right.



Jessica Siobhan Frank is an MFA candidate at McNeese State University. Her work has appeared in Ninth Letter (online), Cliterature, Portage Magazine, and other publications. She currently lives in Louisiana, but is originally from the Chicago area.

Backseat World by Peter Dabbene

I learned about the world in the rear
seat of my parents' car. Not
the way you're thinking, you
dirty bird—age six or seven, feigning
sleep, eyes shut tight, but the insides
of my eyelids bright as we passed orange
glow streetlights.

*Flashes*

"It's just not working out."

"The doctors say there's not much they can do."

"Can you believe what she said to me?"

They rarely listened
to music while driving and our world
was sealed, self-contained except
for the odd honk. If ears closed
as easily as eyes, would they?

The secret language
of adults made me glad
to be a kid and fearful
of the future; now,
in the car, there's always music.



Peter Dabbene’s poetry has been published in many literary journals, and collected in the photo book Optimism. He has published the graphic novels Ark and Robin Hood, the story collections Prime Movements and Glossolalia, and a novel, Mister Dreyfus' Demons. His latest books are Spamming the Spammers and More Spamming the Spammers. He writes a monthly column for the Hamilton Post newspaper. His website is www.peterdabbene.com.

Less One Tree by Richard Martin

The harsh scream of a power saw –
in a towering fir, a man climbing
awkwardly upward, intent on baring
the trunk, until –
with a muted crash the top few metres
fall to the ground.
The felling of any tree arouses sadness,
but when I look again,
I can only sense gratitude –
a whole new view has opened up
between the distant hillside woods
and the nearer houses –
an open meadow, an ascending line
of bare trees, marking what seems
a footpath, leading –
in a brief moment my view has widened,
drawing my gaze towards it –
a new scene to re-invent,
to invest with meaning.



Richard Martin is an English writer who lives in the Netherlands close to the point where Belgium, Germany and Holland meet. After retiring as a university teacher in Germany, he turned his attention to writing, and has published three collections of poetry and numerous poems in magazines in England, the US, and Austria.

My Father's Face by Paul Ilechko

I caught a glimpse of myself in
the mirror, and I saw my father;
not the one who raised me, but my real
parent, my biological father.

My mother vanished when I was small.
She ran away from the family,
joined the Army, signal corps,
disappeared into Australia.

My father was unable to cope,
so a quiet transfer took place,
a private adoption. I was too
young to remember any of this.

My father kept trying, two more
failed marriages. He must have reached
his limit, as he turned on the gas
one day and laid himself down to die.

And now I look at myself, and
I see him looking back at me.
I never knew him, I only have a
photograph. And this reflection.



Paul Ilechko was born in England but has lived much of his life in the USA. He currently lives in Lambertville, NJ with his girlfriend and a cat. Paul has had poetry published and/or accepted recently by Third Wednesday, Sick Lit Magazine, Muddy River Poetry Review, MockingHeart Review and The Peacock Journal, among others.

A Concussive Conclusion by Richard Weaver

is inevitable given the level of impact, windshield with cranium, one on one.
Evidence indisputable. And yet, you stammer otherwise, saying, you were
in control, total control. You allowed your forehead to smack the impudent glass,
to crack its shatterproof smugness, to put its pieces in their places. The steel plate
in your head - think Viet Nam, protects you from everything except airport security,
who always want to marvel at your metal next to your mind, your open wound,
the finest modern medicine has to offer its vertiginous veterans.



Richard Weaver resides in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. He volunteers with the Maryland Book Bank, and is a seasonal snowflake counter (unofficially). His publications include Crazyhorse, Loch Raven Review, North American Review, Poetry, Black Warrior Review, New England Review, Southern Quarterly, and the ubiquitous Elsewhere.

Eurasian Coot by Ion Corcos

Black-feathered body
disappears into clear water,
dark under midday sun.

Only a white striped-face
reappears, far from its dive
to the shallow lake floor.

A piece of weed in its beak,
its body bounces
to the surface of the lake,
like a buoy.

Squeaks, kow, kow kow,
rises halfway from the water,
flaps its sooty wings,
inflates itself;

body bigger than it is,
it runs on water, fast,
to scare, force,
another coot away.



Ion Corcos has been published in Every Writer, Grey Sparrow Journal, Plum Tree Tavern, Rose Red Review and other journals. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee. The themes of his work centre on life, nature and spirit. He is currently travelling indefinitely with his partner, Lisa. Ion’s website is www.ioncorcos.wordpress.com.

Haiku by Stephen Toft

year after year
that stack of wood
for a treehouse



Stephen Toft is a poet and homelessness worker who lives in Lancaster, UK with his girlfriend and their children. His first collection "the kissing bridge" was published by Red Moon Press in 2008 and in December 2016 Scars Publications released his chapbook "naming a storm: haiku and tanka."

Tanka by Stephen Toft

looking for
answers in the alps -
where the high
mountains
never lose their snow



Stephen Toft is a poet and homelessness worker who lives in Lancaster, UK with his girlfriend and their children. His first collection "the kissing bridge" was published by Red Moon Press in 2008 and in December 2016 Scars Publications released his chapbook "naming a storm: haiku and tanka."

Haiku by Stephen Toft

clear night -
wild ponies drinking
from a pool of stars



Stephen Toft is a poet and homelessness worker who lives in Lancaster, UK with his girlfriend and their children. His first collection "the kissing bridge" was published by Red Moon Press in 2008 and in December 2016 Scars Publications released his chapbook "naming a storm: haiku and tanka."

The Long Drive by Kay Kestner

Monday puts the coffee on

                dark kitchen

                                cold tiles

 

hot water hisses and cries

                smells like hope

 

millions sip lies

                burn their lips

                                get dressed

and drive

                the long road

                                to Friday night

Kay Kestner is the founder and editor of Poetry Breakfast. For over 25 years, her work has periodically appeared in various publications. She spent most of her life living in Virginia at the edge of D.C. She currently resides in rural New Jersey where she is the Poet in Residence at the Poetry and Arts Barn of New Egypt, NJ.

Saturday Somewhere by Ronald Moran

Now my palladium window is blocked by

                        a ferocious oak,

and my lawn is compromised to its roots

                        by its

unwitting partner, a resident mole, as if

                        they schemed

 

to discredit any hope for Yard of the Month

                        in my

cardboard neighborhood, which, of course,

                        I love––

my Jane having lived here for eight years––

                        and

 

on this Saturday, my weekend plans look like

                        a tabula rasa.

After so many years alone, you'd think,

                        Hey Ron,

get over it, accept it, get on with your life,

                        to which

 

my response is, What, after my 80 years?

                        I still

dream of my Jane, not in my usual dark

                        mode,

but, ordinarily, my wanting to get there

                        with her,

 

but the elevators don't work, the commuter

                        trains

have closed their doors, yet we are ready

                        to embark

on an adventure to a land we do not know

                        but hope to.

Ronald Moran lives in Simpsonville, South Carolina. His poems have been published in Asheville Poetry Review, Commonweal, Connecticut Poetry Review, Louisiana Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Negative Capability, North American Review, Northwest Review, South Carolina Review, Southern Review, Tar River Poetry, The Wallace Stevens Journal, and in thirteen books/chapbooks of poetry. Clemson University Press published his Eye of the World in the spring of 2016. He has won a number of awards for his writing. He will be inaugurated into Clemson University's AAH Hall of Fame this spring.