Home by Ben Rasnic

In a dream
I am at the home place
where I was born
and raised.

My father,
alive again,
is plowing the large garden tract
beyond the back hillside.

My mother, healthy
and vibrant again,
is nurturing her prized roses
with tender loving care.

The middle brother & I
take turns burning fastballs
into the other’s genuine
cowhide Rawlings while

the oldest reclines
in the front porch lounge chair,
absorbed in the latest
Bradbury novel.

And it all seems
so present, so vivid, so real.

It has been written
“You can’t go home again.”

But closer to the truth,
you never leave.



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.

Quarantine by Ben Rasnic

From behind the bare maple
a nervous squirrel skitters
across the greening
of fresh spring fescue.

Finches, nuthatches & chickadees
crowd the critter proof feeder,
migrating to and from
the whispering pines.

A lazy drift of cirrus
creeps across the vanishing blue sky
as evening draws close
like a velvet curtain;

ushers in a steady cadence
of crickets choreographing
an intricate symphony of wind chimes
rippling the sequestered night air.



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.

Haiku by Stephen Toft

busy train station
an oak leaf stuck
to a commuter’s shoe



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." In 2018 Yavanika Press released his third collection “deer heart” as a free to download e-book.

Haiku by Stephen Toft

twilight deepens
the missing girl
still missing



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." In 2018 Yavanika Press released his third collection “deer heart” as a free to download e-book.

Haiku by Stephen Toft

night bath
my limbs become
continents



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." In 2018 Yavanika Press released his third collection “deer heart” as a free to download e-book.

Haiku by Stephen Toft

early autumn
her letter cool
to the touch



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." In 2018 Yavanika Press released his third collection “deer heart” as a free to download e-book.

Pomegranates by Don Thompson

Cracked and leathery pomegranates,
bloodless as mummy hearts.

The crop never gathered in,
but left to rot,
unwatered by a dry well…

You don’t want to look,
driving past: so many
ambitious schemes gone wrong,
yours among them.



Don Thompson has been writing about the San Joaquin Valley for over fifty years, including a dozen or so books and chapbooks. For more info and links to publishers, visit his website at www.don-e-thompson.com.

Birkenau (January 26, 1945) by John Valentine

Early evening shadows, the guards already gone. Streaks in

the setting sun through ashen wires of light. Silence of the

smoke. Down lines of flesh, eyes that seemed to ask and never

answer. A Kaddish drifting through the rows, murmured, not

forgotten. Something risen, like embers. Something shadowed,

the ragged armature once called men, skeletal, voices barely

there, rasping like hungry ghosts. Something twilit, nameless,

whispering in the wind. Spreading snow, relentless, freezing

round the fallen. The moon’s indifferent eye. Coldness grabbing

everywhere, wrapping round the rags. Far away stars, exhaustion.

The final prayers, hopeful. Nothing then, nothing but the stillness.



*Birkenau was liberated by Russian troops, January 27, 1945.



John Valentine lives and works in Savannah, GA.

Out of Reach by M.J. Iuppa

Someone gave us thirty feet of rope and said make something of it.
Make something of a rope that can hold a boat to its mooring—a rope
that’s hard to handle alone, but can be dragged, or hoisted overhead,
or thrown to the ground . . . Let’s do that— let’s throw the rope into
a wide circle & create a small pond frozen in winter. Let’s put on
skates and take turns around & around on cutting edges—breathless,
yet alive in the sound of seams shifting—no, no, splitting until we all
fall in—arms flailing for the rope that’s just out of reach. . . .

                                   Someone comes— someone we feared long ago.
We call out: Sister, save us! Her olive-pit eyes glare at us, at our absurdity,
our awkwardness revealed in mishap, as she fashions the rope into rescue,
pulling a string of us slippery fish— panting & flopping on the snow until
we’re still— every part of us frozen by her touch.



M.J. Iuppa’s fourth poetry collection is This Thirst (Kelsay Books, 2017). For the past 31 years, she has lived on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Check out her blog: mjiuppa.blogspot.com for her musings on writing, sustainability & life’s stew.

Abandoned Home at Sunset by John Grey

Window half-reflective,
garden gone wild,
antique fireplace ablaze
as light makes a wild,
uneven, uncomfortable line.

The candle power of fading sun
casts odd reflections in shattered chairs,
a derelict room
that doesn’t look like it ever was lived in.

Rusty oak door hinges,
paint flakes as dull as old orange pith,
dust motes, floating
or gathering on porcelain –
sunset makes strange choices.



John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Hawaii Pacific Review, Dalhousie Review and Qwerty with work upcoming in Blueline, Willard and Maple and Clade Song.

Heart of Haiti by Lorri Ventura

His machete bobs lazily against his hip
As the old man shuffles up the mission house driveway
Hugging the armful of ungainly sticks he extends
As an offering to the woman who squats on the ground by the fire
Dreamily stirring a pot brimming with rice and melted peanuts drenched in tabasco sauce

His dusty pants are held up by a belt made from yellowed banana leaves
On his feet he wears tire treads duct-taped to mismatched socks
He bows as he accepts a bowl of food
In exchange for the spindly firewood

We offer him a bedroll, a steaming mug of Re-Bo coffee, and a place to sit
But he just smiles and shakes his head
Tapping the raggedy pillowcase slung over his shoulder
As it holds all of his possessions
He waves an arm toward the sky
Telling us that he has everything he needs in the world
Before he bows and takes his leave

Predictable as ocean tide
The gentleman’s silent appearance every day
As dinner is being served
Makes us smile
And wish that we could give him more

Deep down, though, we know
That already he has what makes him happy
Because he chooses to be happy with what he has.



Lorri Ventura is a retired special education administrator living in Massachusetts. She met the man featured in "Heart of Haiti" while on a recent service trip there.

4.26.19 / 8:06 a.m. / 48 degrees by John L. Stanizzi

Prophesying the kind of joy that is yet to come, in
octaves that we can never hear, the cedar raises its
nubby arms into the rain falling on the pond with the sound of the
distant applause of other small voices barely heard but there.



John L. Stanizzi’s books are Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, Hallelujah Time!, High Tide – Ebb Tide, Four Bits, Chants, and Sundowning. His work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, American Life in Poetry, New York Quarterly, and others. John teaches at Manchester Community College in Connecticut.

3.30.2019 / 8:51 a.m. / 44 degrees by John L. Stanizzi

Plucked from their hangers, two suet feeders have vanished;
odd that they would remove the entire feeder, take it with them,
noshing through the grid for tiny a morsel of peanut butter mix,
daylilies sprouting, and still no heron, who came the first day then never again.



John L. Stanizzi’s books are Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, Hallelujah Time!, High Tide – Ebb Tide, Four Bits, Chants, and Sundowning. His work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, American Life in Poetry, New York Quarterly, and others. John teaches at Manchester Community College in Connecticut.