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.