Passing Cars by Corey D. Cook

My seventh chapbook, Passing Cars, was published by Maverick Duck Press yesterday and is now available for purchase on their website. See the link below... I hope you will consider ordering a copy. Your support would mean a great deal to me and this small / independent press.

Passing Cars by Corey D. Cook - Payhip

Life, come back to me by Gillian Cummings

Life, come back to me.
Star in the fog. Lone

calf in the far field.
Blackbird nestled in night.

And the sweet, shy song
of the first spring rain.



Gillian Cummings is the author of two poetry collections: The Owl Was a Baker's Daughter (CLP, 2018), and My Dim Aviary (Black Lawrence Press, 2016). She lives in Catskill, NY with her composer husband and her parrot.

I say, "I am lost" by Gillian Cummings

I say, I am lost.

Find a path back,

you tell me,
your hands holding
breadcrumbs.

But they disappear—

birds’ beaks like dusk.



Gillian Cummings is the author of two poetry collections: The Owl Was a Baker's Daughter (CLP, 2018), and My Dim Aviary (Black Lawrence Press, 2016). She lives in Catskill, NY with her composer husband and her parrot.

Ruin by Jean Ryan

It can start early,
through no fault of your own.
Someone tampers with you
and from that time on
you will never look at a father
without suspicion, will never
see children playing without
wondering: which ones?
And then there’s plain old bad luck—
illness and accidents and terrible timing,
the steady toll of being alive;
along with the harm you do to yourself
as you move through your mapless days:
detours, bargains, lapsed resolutions.

Still your heart breaks for the world
and doesn't care that you wake in ruins
to see what can be salvaged.



Jean Ryan, a native Vermonter, lives in coastal Alabama. Her writing has appeared in many journals and anthologies. 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. She has also published a novel, Lost Sister, and a book of nature essays, Strange Company. Her first poetry collection, A Day Like This, will be published in May 2024 by Kelsay Books. https://jean-ryan.com/

How to Survive Cancer by Howie Good

A neighbor of ours once worked
as a counselor of some sort
in a cancer ward. She told me
when she caught up with me
the other day she could predict
just by looking which patients
would survive and which wouldn’t.
The ones who made it, she said,
exhibited a positive attitude.
Then she handed me a baggie
of very finely ground pot.



Howie Good's newest book, Frowny Face, a synergistic mix of his prose poetry and handmade collages, is forthcoming from Redhawk Publications.

Gold by Julianna McCarthy

First the bats
foraging, scouring gnats, mosquitoes
then swallows
snatching mites in the half light
where the cat works his way
through the tall grass
toward the golden orb weaver
waiting for darkness
at her loom
the this, then this
symmetry of slaughter
while an old moon swallows
the light.



Julianna McCarthy is an award-winning Los Angeles poet. Her poems have appeared in the Antioch Review, American Journal of Poetry, Catamaran, Nimrod, Hole in the Head, and others. Her first full-length collection, Night Surgery, is available from Blue Horse Press. She holds an MFA from New England College

Bailing Our Grandson Out of Jail by Sharon Waller Knutson

Hi, Grandpa, the voice on the speaker
phone says. I just got out of the hospital.
I was in a car wreck last night. It was
the pregnant lady’s fault, but they arrested
me. I couldn’t blow in the breathalyzer
because I had blood in my mouth.

Although he mumbles and moans,
I recognize the voice of our oldest grandson,
who works long days to feed his family
of seven in Utah and never drank a drop.

When he says, I love you both, my heart
breaks for our sensitive boy who still
sends us love notes in texts and emails.
I’m in the courthouse. I need bail money
or I’ll go to jail. His voice is shrill
and shreds my heart.

They couldn’t get him on a DUI
so they charged him with reckless
driving and failure to take a breathalyzer,
his attorney says. This young man
has a clean record. If he goes
to jail, he may lose his job and his family.

I am glad he has such a caring attorney.
We offer to pay by debit card or PayPal,
but he says we need to buy two blue dot
gift cards from Walgreens 30 miles away.

My husband shakes his head. Points
to the extreme heat warning. His father
and other grandparents are dead. He’s
counting on us, I say. So we fly down
the highway and call the attorney
from the gift cards section. A woman
wearing a name tag appears.
You’re being scammed, she says.
See he hung up. Call your grandson.

My husband and I stare speechless,
never dreaming that wasn’t our grandson
on the line. He dials and our grandson
answers. He sounds like the imposter,
but he is speaking clearly.
Where are you? I ask. He laughs.
At work. I tell him I’m glad he’s okay.
Your grandparents were scammed,
the Walgreen’s woman informs him
You’re the best grandparents, he texts.

We drive home feeling foolish
but now we understand
my in-laws weren’t senile,
but loving grandparents
when they sent money
to scammers to keep our son
out of jail in Mexico
when he was safe in West Virginia.



Sharon Waller Knutson is a retired journalist who lives in Arizona. She has published eleven poetry books, including My Grandmother Smokes Chesterfields (Flutter Press 2014), What the Clairvoyant Doesn’t Say (Kelsay Books 2021), Trials & Tribulations of Sports Bob (Kelsay Books 2021), Survivors, Saints and Sinners (Cyberwit 2022), Kiddos & Mamas Do the Darndest Things (Cyberwit 2022), The Vultures are Circling (Cyberwit 2023), and The Leading Ladies in My Life (Cyberwit 2023.) Sharon's twelfth collection, My Grandfather is a Cowboy, is also forthcoming from Cyberwit in January of 2024. Her work has appeared in more than 50 different journals and she is the editor of Storyteller Poetry Journal, which is an online publication dedicated to promoting narrative poetry.