The Onion by Anisa Rahim

shorn of its wrapping paper
discard one layer maybe two
it is quiet in the house
heads are sliced off

clear green filament peeled
till there is nothing left
but white clarity
its face before you



Anisa Rahim is a writer and public interest lawyer. Her poetry has been published in OJAL, Blazevox Magazine, Tiny Seed Journal and elsewhere. See more of her work at anisarahim.com.

October Songs by Robert Demaree

Part One: 2009

A change of seasons
Shifts cloud and light about October skies;
Against a luminous gray, it casts
Albescent brightness
On those gingerbread cottages
Across the pond
Or on the red gold stripe of sugar maple
Up a ridge on Gunstock,
Dramaturgy on a crisp day.

At the restaurant the owner smiled
As though he might remember us.
I see him twenty years ago,
Holding the door for my mother,
A kind touch, softly, on the elbow,
Her gnarled hands gripping the walker,
Slowly up the ramp.
That was the summer my father died;
Time accrues before you feel
The mnemonic pull of a place.

Part Two: 2019

We filled the birdfeeders three weeks ago.
Against the yellow wood
We can see they have not gone down
At all.
We may wind up spreading the seed
On the ground
For the chipmunks and squirrels,
Who will consider it their due.
Forty degrees on the porch this morning.
In town orange lights set out for Halloween,
Evidence of lives that go on
When we are not here.
The somber beauty of leaves turning
In the rain.
Along the shore
The water pipe lies atop the ground.
The town will turn it off next week.
The birdfeeders are still full.
The birds have headed out
And so will we.



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.

The Sound of a Breaking Heart by Rida Altaf

It is not deafening;
it does not scream in caps lock
or wave its big fat hands
in a place full of statues.
It does not stand out like
coal on snow, or stick its
sore thumb into the mouth
of anyone who listens

The sound of a breaking heart
is a quiet, almost inaudible crack
you'll hear it if you pay attention:

When someone's voice sounds like
a rubber band that's stretching,
as if someone tied their vocal cords
so they can only speak in strangled tones

When someone's laughter becomes
nothing more than a mere exercise;
a part of the balanced diet required
for social acceptance

When someone's views become
a metaphor for their despair,
as if extremism will force their heart to
come out with all its open wounds and
face the world

The sound of a breaking heart,
is like a glass that is seconds
away from exploding,
the first crack is hardly audible -
but when it truly breaks,
there is no way to fix it all up again.



Rida Altaf is a Pakistani student, poet, and a cheese-lover. She thinks that caffeine is the ultimate source of ideas for all her poems. She believes in hard work and creativity and is always hiding in some corner, reading a book. She posts her poetry on Instagram (@deskofideas).

On the occasion of attending a gymnastics event by Janette Schafer

A quiet, dark girl--
all rage and concentrated muscle--
flung her body like a child's rag doll.

I envied her center of gravity,
steadiness of gaze and body.
They call it tumbling

except she always seemed so sure.
I wondered how she walked on earth
after tasting sky.



Janette Schafer is a freelance writer, photographer, singer, and banker living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is the chief editor of Social Justice Anthologies and the Artistic Director of Beautiful Cadaver Project Pittsburgh. Her writing and photographs have appeared in numerous publications. She is pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing from Chatham University. She has a forthcoming collection of poems titled “Something Here Will Grow,” from Main Street Rag Publishing in 2020.

Boy with a Guitar by John Grey

I have a picture of myself
at fifteen,
seated on the edge of the bed,
with guitar in hand.
I’m not playing it.
It was still no more than a prop
at that age
and the face is far too innocent
to invoke nascent rock star.

But there it is,
the boy and his instrument,
forever willing to contradict
the man staring into it,
through older eyes,
harder face,
and the doubtful benefit
of life history.

I could tell the kid how he did
in the years to come
but what’s the point of that.
It‘s just a photograph.
He’s not enough in the world
to hear my spiel,
to be disappointed
or even consoling.

For all this glossy’s nostalgic effect,
the conversation’s only ever
with the one
who’s holding it between his fingers.
Yes, I have my share of regrets.
But I don’t share them with this kid.



John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in That, Dunes Review, Poetry East and North Dakota Quarterly with work upcoming in Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Thin Air, Dalhousie Review and failbetter.

West 85th & West End by Carolynn Kingyens

Every day a new page turns
high above the beanstalk;
above the disco-ball-moon
and fog-machine clouds,
where an unamused angel
finger-flicks an arrow
affixed to a wheel,
spinning indefinitely,
an eternity.

Down here, I knock
on my neighbor’s door
in search of time –
not egg, flour, or a cup
of hourglass sugar
for my invisible cake.

It’s no coincidence
we dash to markets,
clearing shelves
of bread first –
hunker down
when the storm comes;
when the storm
is christened a name –
Lilly, Olive, Coltrane –
the name of my daughter’s
first grade friend,
whose father works
at the U.N.;
trilingual, plays chess
like an old man.

Trouble is a loose brick,
fifteen floors up, at the co-op
on W 85th & West End,
where an inviting bench awaits

impending doom.

Carolynn Kingyens was born and raised in Northeast Philadelphia. Today, she lives in New York City with her husband and their two kind, funny, creative daughters. Carolynn has a forthcoming book of poetry, Before the Big Bang Makes a Sound, scheduled to be released May/June 2020.

New Widow, Observing Finches by Martha Christina

Sheltered
by arborvitae,
the female
fledgling tries
a short flight.
She makes
some progress,
then stops.

Another
(her mother?)
flies to her
from the feeder,
a sunflower seed
in her beak. She
feeds this reward
to the resting one.

I watch them repeat
these actions three
times: progress,
rest, and reward;
a lesson in how
to move forward.



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 Star 82 Review, and Crab Orchard Review. She has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press).

In the Vegetable Garden by Martha Christina

Signs of your presence,
and your absence: ID tags
in your handwriting, cold
frames and raised beds
built by your hands, new
lettuces, old okra, peas
and green beans, new
blossoms, old pods.

Along the shore, among
the rosa rugosa, perfect
explosions of bittersweet.



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 Star 82 Review, and Crab Orchard Review. She has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press).

After a Summer Shower by Martha Christina

The rain hasn’t discouraged
the finches; wet as they are
they keep feeding, flying
between the six perches
on the feeder and the rain-
bent rose canes. My cat
watches from the windowsill,
begins to chatter in a language
perhaps the finches understand,
but they ignore her, as if
they recognize the safety
the screen provides.

On the porch railing
sheltered by the wisteria,
a squirrel grooms its
wet whiskers, wet tail.

The rabbit with the white blaze,
slips under my neighbor’s fence,
begins to eat the freshened clover.



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 Star 82 Review, and Crab Orchard Review. She has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press).

Evan plucks his socks again while classmates read "The Odyssey" by L.R. Harvey

His piston fingers tirelessly fire,
powered by the sleepless engine of autism. Thread
by bleached-white thread, his Nike socks retire
into wisps of yarn that spread
around the classroom carpet, his manna in
this wilderness.

A student scans for homework answers in
the text. Another rubs his chin, looking for prickles he’s
never found before. I yawn
and look for coffee.

Telemachus is questioning in Nestor’s halls
while Megan stares at Mike and questions if she'll die alone.
A lip-sticked mother calls
the school's front desk
to question why her daughter has a B. Right down the hall
Jim Walker asks the AC vent
why it won't work.

In here, the still
is interrupted only by the prick
of yarn in Evan’s questioning
fingers, unraveling the thickness
of the world, searching for something,
answers, all his own.



L.R. Harvey writes poetry and teaches high schoolers in Chattanooga, T.N. His most recent work has appeared The Write Launch, Tennessee Magazine, After the Pause, Light, and many other magazines and journals. He holds his B.A. in English and his M.A. in teaching, and he is hoping to pursue his MFA within the next year.

Cravings by Joey Nicoletti

San Francisco, how sweet you talk
at night, whispering your misty history
into the open, majestic mouth
of my hotel room window. I look
towards the bathroom. I imagine
my love, stepping out of the shower
in another room, a bigger one
two floors up, ten years earlier,
before the Buffalo snow, smoke, and ice joined
our family, back when my ambition was
a row house, a lavender
Painted Lady, 2.5 miles from here, and endless
concerts of clanging: all of the trolley rides
I could ever want. But tonight
I crave a round of sleet, pounding the roof
as my love steps into a hot bath, the Boston
terrier and Schnauzer, chasing the short-haired cat
down the hall; streets glittered with salt.



Joey Nicoletti is the author of eight books and chapbooks, including Boombox Serenade, which is forthcoming this winter, and Cannoli Gangster, his first full-length poetry collection, which was a finalist for the 2009 Steel Toe Books Prize. Joey currently teaches at SUNY Buffalo State. 

Death of a Naturalist by John Fritzell

It happened at an intersection
in the middle of almost nowhere,
at the edge between the green
tamaracks and the wide open
above the flowering of muskeg…

At his shack, three days later,
a slow stream dissects the clearing,
a doe nudges her fawn to drink,
pale etchings of bear claws
weather the garage door closed,
a buck-horn helmet protrudes
under moss laden eaves,
a calcium cradle of spring-
robins’ detritus, broken
now above a bustle
of Black-Eyed Susan’s,
a limp dog chain draped
over an empty kennel,
a hanging thistle feeder a half-
day from empty,
and a flurry of birds,
Golden-crowned Kinglets,
skyward.



A graduate of Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA, John Fritzell is a Wisconsin-based poet whose work has appeared in Gray’s Sporting Journal and Canoe & Kayak Magazine among others; although he strives for diversity in his poems’ themes, he keeps returning to the natural world.

Elegy for a Bird by Alice Lander

The sour smell of damp attic & the sleeper too small
for the three of us on it, our father between us & one set
of legs loose & bicycling over bed edges,
the hour of storytelling, of Huck Finn when
we were much too young for that & Little House
on the Prairie & Robinson Crusoe & the Epic of Gilgamesh
& January wading through snow, nose sharp
with fresh metal scent & boots filling up, feet
fleeced in socks bought from Caldor's before
it closed & summer ice pops from Shop-rite in bright
neon tubes & grassy stomach & the baby bird
we tried to save dead in a shoebox, left overnight in the cold
garage as autumn rolled in & the wood-worn door
to your bedroom where I sat some nights
listening for clues you were there, & loved me,
scavenging for love,
four-foot-three & fixed on the still glass knob, limbs
tucked tight in footie pajamas as dawn came
teal & strange in our square suburban yard & how,
suddenly, the scythe of the moon became a real danger.



Alice Lander lives in Jersey City, New Jersey with her husband, cat and growing plant collection. Her poetry has appeared in Eunoia Review and Prometheus Dreaming. 

Haiku by John McManus

climate change debate

the barmaid cools herself 

with an ice cube

John McManus is a haiku poet from Carlisle, Cumbria, England. He is the author of Inside His Time Machine (Iron Press, 2016) and after night rain (Bones, 2019). His Twitter handle is @johnnyhaikumcm1. 

Road Trip by Diane Webster

Dad drives…searching?
Looking for his passenger
of sixty years, wondering
if he left her at the restaurant
when she went to the bathroom?

Trying to discover if his memory
still remembers Highway 95
Ends up in McCall where rumors
flew that a sea monster lurked
beneath the lake’s surface?

Or maybe only following

road’s dotted white lines

around each curve

until a stop sign demands decision.

Left, right, home again or later?
If road beckons familiar
or lures adventure?



Diane Webster's goal is to remain open to poetry ideas in everyday life and to write from her perspective at the moment. Many nights she falls asleep juggling images to fit into a poem. Her work has appeared in Philadelphia Poets, Vita Brevis, The Evansville Review and other literary magazines.

Joy to the World by Paul Hellweg

7 a.m., December 25th,
too depressed to get out of bed,
contemplating solutions,
the unmentionable comes to mind,
followed quickly by a desire
to simply get drunk and
fuck this stupid observance of a deity
killed off long ago by
Nietzsche and friends.
The whole world and everyone I know
are seemingly drunk with good will,
but what’s under the Christmas tree
piques more interest and is of greater concern
than the war our country is waging
thousands of miles away
and in our hearts.



Paul Hellweg has had more than 200 poems published. His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and multiple Best of the Net Awards. His first poetry collection, Ode to a Drunken Muse, was recently published by Alien Buddha Press and is available on Amazon. To see more, please visit www.PaulHellweg.com.

August Songs by Robert Demaree

Part One

Quiet pond morning in August,
Kayak gliding alongside the past:
A pine tree, now bare, reaches out
Over the shallow bay;
Summers ago our girls
Stood here to pose, then bravely splash
Into the warm, yellow-sand lake, ankle deep.
On the hill we used to climb
The craggy overlook socked in,
Growth of dense green years.
Just as well:
The view we loved now shows
Other hills laid bare for condos.
I paddle home
Against a fresh breeze;
Shoulders that have seen seventy summers
Pull against water heavy with time,
Past the cottages of my father’s friends.

Part Two

It is surely not July,
High hazy sun, grandchildren jumping off the dock.
And not October,
Red and gold against evergreen hills,
Nor even September,
Whose yellowing ferns hint at what’s to come.
The last week in August is its own time,
Campers, tourists mostly gone,
Quiet on the pond:
The angle of the sun,
Cerulean light out of Canada,
Distant warmth on your back,
Walking past the meadow.
Late in August in New Hampshire—
What it tells you is this:
There’s still time,
But maybe not as much as you thought.



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.

& Then There Is the Dog by Kati Goldstein

stretching one paw in front of the other
& yawning the way I’ve always wanted to yawn
or the way I once yawned but can no longer
remember or the way I will begin to yawn now
that the dog is here & the shelves are hung
& I love the way our things look together.



Kati Goldstein is a writer and teacher based in Chicago, Illinois. She received her MFA in Poetry from Columbia College Chicago and her BA in Creative Writing from Colorado College. Her work has appeared in Reality Hands, Voicemail Poems, Phantom Books, and Columbia Poetry Review, among other publications.

When Maria's Ex Burns Down the Building We Helped Him Move Into by Kati Goldstein

we laugh about it in the way women laugh when men
have done something we can’t believe or shouldn’t
but in fact do or when we are scared or there is nothing
else to do or we feel somehow responsible. We read
each other excerpts from local news articles and say
someone could have died over and over
first softly, and then we are yelling it as we pound our open
palms on the counter, laughing again. He once held
her cat so gently and fixed her computer and called her
a whore and said he loved her and that no one would ever
believe her over him.



Kati Goldstein is a writer and teacher based in Chicago, Illinois. She received her MFA in Poetry from Columbia College Chicago and her BA in Creative Writing from Colorado College. Her work has appeared in Reality Hands, Voicemail Poems, Phantom Books, and Columbia Poetry Review, among other publications.

Jube by Holly Day

We close our faces and open the door. One after another, people
come into our house, faces open in grief, ask us
if there’s anything they can do. I take my husband’s hand
in my own, pat the top of it as if I can reassure him,
as if I am capable of reassurance, I pretend I am a rock

painted brilliant in swirls of peacock feathers and greeting card graffiti
closed off to the grief, I can do this.

I keep quiet as boxes are packed, as things are put into them,
I don’t look at those things, I don’t know what they are. People
sweep through my house like some terrible wave
of staged grief, I don’t believe them, someone
says they know how I feel, that things are going to get better,
I don’t believe them.



Holly Day’s poetry has recently appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Grain, and The Tampa Review. Her newest poetry collections are In This Place, She Is Her Own (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press), A Wall to Protect Your Eyes (Pski’s Porch Publishing), Folios of Dried Flowers and Pressed Birds (Cyberwit.net), Where We Went Wrong (Clare Songbirds Publishing), Into the Cracks (Golden Antelope Press), and Cross Referencing a Book of Summer (Silver Bow Publishing).