The Wind by M.J. Iuppa

An apparition of wind winds its way
     down the deep-rutted dirt road, scuffing
dust in its quick twist up the sleeves
     of soaring evergreen trees, swaying in-
visible signals to those who happen
     to look up to see its ripples of air rising
full of prayer and apricot light, singing
     beneath its constant breath— whispering
good-bye with its filmy wings— this evening’s
     dance— autumn’s departure.



M.J. Iuppa’s fifth full-length poetry collection The Weight of Air is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in May of 2022. For the past 33 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 and life’s stew.

True Enough by M.J. Iuppa

          Howden Pond, 2021

Standing at the pond’s edge, watching four swans
sleep soundly, heads tucked beneath folded wings, I
wish I could live passively, letting hours slip by with-
out a worry of wind riffling over the water’s surface,
over white feathers that compose these bodies drifting
like clouds, like voices in a dream unsung . . .

How often I hear music when I watch this quartet
floating in an accidental arrangement— never once have
I heard the same song, but a melody made better by the pull
of memory—these idle dreamers passing me like countless
hours I’ve wasted—we wake together, shaking off the chill
of what is unimaginable, knowing there will be a time when
we no longer find ourselves dreaming.



M.J. Iuppa’s fifth full-length poetry collection The Weight of Air is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in May of 2022. For the past 33 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 and life’s stew.

Waiting for the End by Scott Wiggerman

This listlessness. You wallow
in another day, another day
not quite the same as depression,
but definitely a complementary shade.

The same book retrieved from a shelf
with the same bookmark at the same page
of another day. Another day
like a household cat’s, interchangeable

Sundays, Mondays, holidays. Days
differentiated by what’s new on TV
or when you run out of clean
underwear (Wear another day?

Who’s going to care?). Two months
and the canvas is still empty,
the journal still short of words. Maybe
another day, maybe tomorrow, maybe.



Scott Wiggerman is the queer Albuquerque author of three books of poetry, Leaf and Beak: Sonnets, Presence, and Vegetables and Other Relationships; and the editor of several volumes, including Wingbeats: Exercises & Practice in Poetry. In 2021, he was inducted into the prestigious Texas Institute of Letters.

Haiku by Roberta Beach Jacobson

rise
of desert dust
earthquake



Roberta Beach Jacobson is the editor of Cold Moon Journal.

Haiku by Roberta Beach Jacobson

letting go
of balloon string

child's hand



Roberta Beach Jacobson is the editor of Cold Moon Journal.

Unspoiled by Lynn White

I didn’t spoil easily,
not even as a child.
I took the treats in stride
and resisted my mother’s attempts
to mould me in her image.
I knew it would ruin me,
arrest my development,
curtail my growth,
my flowering.
So I was ready for you

when you tried.
You tried.
But by then
I knew who I was
and there was nothing
you could do
about it.



Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. Find Lynn on Facebook and at lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com.

We Both Lose Words by Vera Kewes Salter

I push something square
into a silver machine

and eat it for breakfast. White
emptiness where the words should be.

He supplies the word toaster.
I kneel to tighten his shoes.

As we walk around the park
we struggle to find the word

for a water bird with a snake-like neck
that dips its head below the surface.

We see a lone sailboat moored near
the winter shore,

watch gulls crack clams and mussels
on the asphalt pier.

Then, in sudden unison shout—
cormorant.



Vera Kewes Salter is aging with her husband in New Rochelle, New York. She is published in Red Eft Review, Persimmon Tree, Nixes Mate Review, Writing in a Woman's Voice, New Verse News and other publications.

Haiku by Stephen Toft

winter dusk

fading to grey
the cat’s milk



Stephen Toft is a poet and homelessness worker who lives in Lancaster, UK with his wife and their children. He is the author of three haiku/tanka/minimalist poetry collections.

Haiku by Stephen Toft

christmas eve
everybody boards the train
except the station guard



Stephen Toft is a poet and homelessness worker who lives in Lancaster, UK with his wife and their children. He is the author of three haiku/tanka/minimalist poetry collections.

Haiku by Stephen Toft

firefly night

the glow
of distant tents



Stephen Toft is a poet and homelessness worker who lives in Lancaster, UK with his wife and their children. He is the author of three haiku/tanka/minimalist poetry collections.

Haiku by Stephen Toft

leaf blower -

the convict makes
a cloud of colour



Stephen Toft is a poet and homelessness worker who lives in Lancaster, UK with his wife and their children. He is the author of three haiku/tanka/minimalist poetry collections.

Hunger by Rose Mary Boehm

It’s always the one that got away, that sheep
lost in the sand storm, the man who couldn’t love you
and the child that didn’t want to be born. Then there
are the talents you wanted to develop but instead
you had to crunch numbers in Mr. Henry’s lumber yard--
the songs you wanted to sing, the guitar strummed
by the boy across the road who never wrote you
a love song. Even your mum who made you who
you are today: practical and food on the table.
She never noticed you went hungry.



Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry journals. Her latest collection, Do Oceans Have Underwater Borders, has just been snapped up by Kelsay Books for publication in May/June 2022. Her website: https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/

Walking Corpse Syndrome by Howie Good

Now that I’m seventy,
night files in so quickly

it seems time itself has
sped up. To anyone with

a healthy imagination,
the moon might look like

a silver button dangling
on a loose thread, and not,

as it does to me, a cracked,
and weathered skull. God!

I’ve thoughts I wish I never
had – with sharp little teeth

and murderous claws and
the subtle smell of blood.



Howie Good is the author most recently of the poetry collection Famous Long Ago (Laughing Ronin Press).

Critical Condition by Ben Rasnic

Toss a few stones
at the imposter
in the mirror;

potential unmet,
expectations lowered,

a blurred image
in need of sharpening;
engaged in pointless conversations
that reach no consensus;

a life left idling
with the meter still running.



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.

Words, Birds, and Me by Richard Martin

          "… if you can stop identifying things then
          you have a better chance of identifying with
          them." Steven Lovatt. Birdsong in a Time
          of Silence.

Two young magpies clutch at a branch
of the chestnut tree on the street corner;
their squawking screeches make it easy
to identify them – but then, does that really matter?

Two more have flown out of the fir tree
to join yet another pair on our neighbours' chimney –
a collection of birds, but not being their parent,
or a predator, my only interest is in their actions:

I see them as mirroring myself searching for changes
in perspectives of the view, and envy them the ease
with which they can manage this.



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.

Restless Autumn by Richard Martin

The calendar announces that autumn has begun,
although the trees, the true harbingers of the season,
have not yet got the message – they remain green,
apart from the chestnut‘s skeletal fishbone branches
with their handful of crumpled paper leaves,
due more to sickness than the season.

Only the winds sending gale force shudders
through twigs and leaves seem truly seasonal –
however, the agitation of piled up leafy cushions
only narrates the foreground story of unrest;
far away on the skyline stolid arboreal regiments
resist the wind‘s determined advances.

Here, neither mists nor mellow fruitfulness,
only the occasional russet or yellow leaf
fluttering uncertainly on the fruitless cherry tree.
The magpie in its erratic flight, swooping,
diving, skimming from fir to beech and back,
is the true image of autumn in its restlessness.

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.

A City in the Rain by Steve Klepetar

My parents landed safely
after a long trip in the rain.

Everyday the same clouds,
like one grey blanket spread

to the horizon, sheets of rain
on the famous monuments.

We can barely see our hands
in front of our faces, my mother

writes. Nothing from you yet.
We wonder how it is with you.

Next time I will send them ten
postcards before they leave,

each one filled with little,
comforting lies.

Maybe then the rain might stop
or something wonderful will occur.

Maybe their hotel will rise above
the city’s famous river.

They will eat a fabulous meal
at the rooftop restaurant

as brilliant birds, wings bursting
in colors of flame, warble the hymns of night.



Steve Klepetar lives in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. His work has received several nominations for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize.

A Song in the Snow by Steve Klepetar

A thin man hovers near the pond.
He has walked a long way
through cold drizzle
to reach this neighborhood.

All I know about being cold
I learned near a small Wisconsin town.
I walked for miles in the snowy woods,
searching for a friend who fled in the dark.

He lives in Los Angeles now,
with his gray cat and expensive guitar.
Sometimes in winter his voice falls
through branches of the barren trees.



Steve Klepetar lives in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. His work has received several nominations for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize.

Hearts Too Full by Ann E. Wallace

It has been a year
since my doctor wheeled
me through the bowels
of Mt. Sinai to the emergency
wing, worried about my heart.
A year since I sat on her table,
legs dangling over the edge
as I swooned and faded
to dark, dizzying ellipses
in our talk of the long tail
of the virus that would
not quit, that still does not.

It has been a year
since fifty-odd friends
sent love and luck as I waited
in my curtained bed to be cleared
and released. I reaped
their blessings, left for home
with no answers, but survived,
even if this is not yet
what we might call living.

But two whose wishes
held weight beyond words,
streamed to me across our city
for fourteen, fifteen months
of terror, until they could
no more, leaving me
to wonder, had they been
more selfish, held their luck
closer to the bone,
might they have steeled
their own hearts,
which in the end beat
too hard and too full
for this world of sorrow.



Ann E. Wallace, a poet and essayist from Jersey City, New Jersey, is author of the poetry collection Counting by Sevens (Main Street Rag). She is online at AnnWallacePhD.com and on Twitter @annwlace409.

Rooting by Ann E. Wallace

Your birthday was full
and happy, your skin
aglow from a day
of sun and water.

And yet you carried
a scrambling frustration,
a rooting, an unnamed
yearning.
By day’s end,
nothing satisfied.
You wanted
more.

It has been four months
and you are still
learning new ways
to miss your mother.



Ann E. Wallace, a poet and essayist from Jersey City, New Jersey, is author of the poetry collection Counting by Sevens (Main Street Rag). She is online at AnnWallacePhD.com and on Twitter @annwlace409.

When the Forsythia Blooms by Ann E. Wallace

My father once told me the time
to put down grass seed
is when the forsythia blooms.
I noticed those scraggly yellow buds
on the roadside the other day,
the same week that my backyard
cherry tree began sprouting
soft sprays of pink.

And so it is time to tend
to the winter-trodden earth
of my garden, to kneel in
the damp soil to till it by hand,
prune out old growth and stones
that surfaced in cold upheavals,
and smooth the ground
in preparation for spring.

But I am still heaving
rocks myself and carrying
the cold weight of winter
that has held on too tight and
too long, as I gasp for air
and kick toward the surface
where yellow and pink flowers
have begun to blossom.



Ann E. Wallace, a poet and essayist from Jersey City, New Jersey, is author of the poetry collection Counting by Sevens (Main Street Rag). She is online at AnnWallacePhD.com and on Twitter @annwlace409.

The Letter She Tried to Compose in Mirabeau Hospital by Shoshauna Shy

Did you choose my window
because I was less likely
to have anyone in my bed,
an assumption lassoed
from watching me walk home
maybe twice toting one grocery
bag, one armful of books?
Did you determine at the bus
stop on 75th that I was the type
who wouldn’t call the cops
once you escaped, at least
not right away? Was the beige
curtain some kind of giveaway?
My bedroom tidy as a nun’s closet

your reassurance; the radio tuned
to string orchestras confirmation
no gun waited under my pillow.
My neighbor’s adjacent window
lifted wider than mine, her hair
the color of California grasses in July –

and yet did you decide to trade the heft
of her D-cup breasts for my teacups,
certain a woman with her platinum strut
would whip anchormen into a frenzy,
that detectives would race to take
her case, jockey overtime
to crack it?



Shoshauna Shy turns to poetry to live moments more than once. She likes spending time with books, trees, cats, chocolate and her husband, preferably all at the same time.

Chester Fardy Is Rich by Shoshauna Shy

Rumors confirm
what newspapers hinted:
Boy-on-the-block becomes
heir to a fortune
that exceeds what we'll earn
in 11 lifetimes.
Assets float him above
the rigors of rations:
Shoes meant to last until
basketball season,
allowances earmarked
three weeks in advance,
the thin purse that dictates
it has to be Greyhound.
Now stocks erase plans
for lawn-mowing schemes,
make superfluous the need
for busboy auditions,
render irrelevant
his GPA.
My garden gate bangs
and I tilt my visor,
crouch for a vantage
of this corduroy shuffle.
Let me survey
the impact of a windfall,
catch the strut
of a millionaire.



Shoshauna Shy turns to poetry to live moments more than once. She likes spending time with books, trees, cats, chocolate and her husband, preferably all at the same time.

Sixth Station of the Cross by Lorri Ventura

First Fridays were for praying
At the stations of the cross
The petite young mother
Chapel cap pinned to her hair
Rosary beads clicking against her fingernails

She pulls along her little girl
Whose rubber-soled Buster Browns
Squeak the entire length of the tiled church aisle
While she twirls her ponytails
And practices crossing her eyes
To make the time pass more quickly

But when they arrive at the sixth station
The little girl always forgets her boredom
And stares at the image of Veronica
Wiping Jesus’ face with a cloth
His visage appears on the fabric
The way the funnies in the newspaper
Slide onto her Silly Putty
When she presses it against the newsprint

The child is drawn to this station
Because it shows a female
Doing something important
This legend somehow gives her hope
For her own future

At home, she gingerly presses a washcloth
Against her Chatty Cathy’s face
Pretending the doll’s upturned nose and freckles
Materialize on the terrycloth

The child becomes a woman
Who passes judgment on the Church
That itself has judged and excluded so many
Yet she clings to her belief that the Divine
Lives within all
And that the image shown on Veronica’s cloth
Shines within us whenever we show love



Lorri Ventura is a retired special education administrator living in Massachusetts. Her poems have appeared in a number of anthologies.

Terminal Lucidity by Jean Ryan

Hours,
sometimes days,
before death,
those who have been missing
resurface, appearing as they once were,
speaking and smiling
as if freed from a curse,
giving their loved ones
one last chance.
No one knows how a brain
clogged with plaque,
marred by stroke,
can come back whole,
even for an instant,
unless the brain serves
the mind and can be summoned,
even while broken,
the way a man can lift a car 

if he must.



Jean Ryan, a native Vermonter, lives in coastal Alabama. Her work has appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies. Nominated several times for a Pushcart Prize, she has also published a novel, Lost Sister. Her debut collection of short stories, Survival Skills, was published by Ashland Creek Press and short-listed for a Lambda Literary Award. Lovers and Loners is her second story collection. Strange Company, a compilation of her nature essays, is available in digital form, paperback and audio. https://jean-ryan.com/

Thanksgiving by Martha Christina

After weeks of no sightings,
a rabbit reappears at dusk

to feed in the first snowfall
of the season. It doesn’t

seem to mind the flakes
that settle on its back,

and eats from the remains
of summer’s clover.



Martha Christina has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press). Her work appears in earlier issues of Red Eft Review, and recently in Star 82 Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Tiny Seed Journal’s Pollinator Project. Born and raised in Indiana, she now lives in Bristol, Rhode Island.

An August Evening, Then by Martha Christina

I sit outside with my father,
in the breezeway, escaping
my mother and the heat
of the house. We take
turns calling out the makes
of cars driving down our street,
a game my father invented
for us to play together. He’s
taught me what to look for:
hood ornaments, tail lights,

grills. He’s a good teacher,
good at explaining things.

My mother doesn’t join us.
Before and after supper
she stays inside, either
preparing, or cleaning up.
A rotary fan sits on the
kitchen counter, and it
drowns out our voices.

It’s getting dark; soon
my father will drive to
the house of the woman
he has just told me he loves.
A young widow, with a
son my age. Ten. She’s
also a teacher. Don’t
ask me to explain, he says.



Martha Christina has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press). Her work appears in earlier issues of Red Eft Review, and recently in Star 82 Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Tiny Seed Journal’s Pollinator Project. Born and raised in Indiana, she now lives in Bristol, Rhode Island.

Sea Lions by Martha Christina

As fifth graders
in the heartland,
none of us has
seen a sea lion.
We call them seals.

Our teacher corrects
us, kindly. A veteran
of the war in the Pacific,
home of sea lions and
atrocities, he knows
enemies and friends
are as distinct as
sea lions and seals,
            or
as easily confused.



Martha Christina has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press). Her work appears in earlier issues of Red Eft Review, and recently in Star 82 Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Tiny Seed Journal’s Pollinator Project. Born and raised in Indiana, she now lives in Bristol, Rhode Island.