First Haircut by CL Bledsoe

Mom loved my long, blond locks. Dad
thought I looked like a girl. He waited

as long as he could stand, until the tresses
reached my shoulders, snatched

me up and took me to the barber shop
downtown. A man I didn’t know helped 

me up onto the booster on his chair
with a smile. When I cried because Mom

had cried, he tried to convince Dad
it was okay to wait. But Dad

insisted, and I left looking like a boy.
It wasn’t long after that my hair darkened 

from Mom’s blond to Dad’s raven
black stain.



CL Bledsoe is the author of a dozen books, most recently the poetry collection Riceland and the novel Man of Clay. He lives in northern Virginia with his daughter.

You were ready to go on the road by Kelley White

sold it all, house, furniture, tools,
took your clothes and the lamps and dishes
to the Goodwill, bought yourself a little travel
trailer to take on tour; first trip you lost
control, it sheared, knocked
the little house right off its wheels
now you come back dragging
an empty chassis
to my door

Pediatrician Kelley White worked in inner city Philadelphia and now works in rural New Hampshire. Her poems have appeared in journals including Exquisite Corpse, Rattle and JAMA. Her most recent books are TOXIC ENVIRONMENT (Boston Poet Press) and TWO BIRDS IN FLAME (Beech River Books.) She received a 2008 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant.

Only the Poor Have Dirty Hands by Howie Good

I worked after school and over Christmas
and during the summer, all sorts of shitty jobs,

washing dishes, unloading semi-trailers,
alphabetizing files in an office, driving a taxi,

once even clearing a field for an old farmer
who stared skeptically at my shoulder-length hair,

the sun a torturer’s cigarette being ground out
on my back as I hacked at weeds with a sickle

and no bugs or birds sang but all around me
and seemingly forever the very air itself blazed.



Howie Good is author of Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements, winner of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry.

Tumbang Preso by Billy Antonio

There’s something about
The empty milk can
Squatting in the middle
Of the circle.
Discarded
This morning.
How it commands
The attention
Of half-a-dozen
Street children
Armed with slippers
Either too small
Or too big
For their calloused feet.



Billy Antonio is a teacher. He writes poems to remind himself of the things he thinks are worth remembering. He lives in the Philippines with his wife, Rowena, and daughters, Felicity and Asiel Sophie.

Jawbone by Howie Good

I should have kept it, brought it inside,
put it where I’d see it every day,
on the desk or on top of the dresser,

a chunk of jawbone with teeth
like nuggets of hard fact that I found
along the abandoned logging trail

and, for a long moment, weighed in my hand,
wondering at it, the message of it,
before turning back as night neared.



Howie Good recipient of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry for his collection Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements.

My Girl by Michael Estabrook

She likes her cereal soggy
can’t swallow pills
makes the bed as she’s crawling out of it
takes baths not showers
doesn’t drink or swear
can’t go to bed without emptying the dishwasher
is always on a diet but refuses to call it a diet
moves her lips while she’s reading
always changes our table in restaurants
never sweats
loves puzzles, giraffes, and mangoes
doesn’t keep any houseplants
doesn’t like eating fish or swimming in the ocean
amazing what you learn about a woman
after being with her 45 years.



Michael Estabrook is writing more poems and working more outside now that he has retired. In fact, he recently noticed two Cooper's Hawks staked out above his yard which explains the disappearing chipmunks.

Ways of Knowing by Michael L. Newell

A cello tells a story
of a life's journey; the woman
with the bow is young, but
the music is as old as man;

across the room an old man
puffs, at slow intervals, on a cigar,
and sips old bourbon. His eyes
have slipped to other times and places.

The melody flows with the sinuous grace
of a river spanning a continent; the woman
knows only the music; and the old man
remembers life, his and oh so many others.



Michael L. Newell was a long time expatriate teacher who retired to coastal Oregon twenty-one months ago, after living in thirteen countries on five continents. He has also lived in thirteen of the United States. He has had around 850 poems published in over seventy magazines.

Disappearances by Ronald Moran

Why is there a missed call
when my phone never rang?
Why do things disappear
before me, such as strips

of garnish at a restaurant,
or an after-dream vision
of my father in color,
or a mattress cover just

removed from wrapping?
Once, after I woke, I saw
Jane asleep, fetal position,
at the end of our ancient bed,

and I wanted to cover her
with a blanket but was afraid
I would awaken her pain.
Before I could, she left again.



Ronald Moran lives in Simpsonville, South Carolina. His poems have been published in Commonweal, Connecticut Poetry Review, Louisiana Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Negative Capability, North American Review, Northwest Review, South Carolina Review, Southern Review, Tar River Poetry, The Wallace Stevens Journal, and in twelve books/chapbooks of poetry. Clemson University Press will publish his Eye of the World shortly. He has won a number of awards and his work is archived in Special Collections at Furman University.

June Bug by Martha Christina

My mother's rage
fills the kitchen.
Her lovely voice,
transformed,
throws threats
against the screen door,
again and again, like
a June bug, desperate
to get to the light,
as my father
disappears
into the dark.



Martha Christina is a frequent contributor to Brevities and Three Line Poetry. Longer work appears or is forthcoming in the Aurorean, Bryant Literary Review, Blast Furnace, Main Street Rag, and The Orange Room Review. She lives in Bristol, RI.

White Flag Raised by Corey D. Cook

 

 

My fourth chapbook, White Flag Raised, was recently released by Kattywompus Press and is available for purchase online (http://kattywompuspress.com/).

 

Sammy Greenspan (Editor of Kattywompus Press):

"Take a dash of married life with young kids, mix in a pinch of childhood memories and teen angst, and season with longing for your real life: Cook’s poems offer a humble and honest banquet of growing up, growing into one’s own skin, coming of age and coming out."



Perception: Summer by Bob Carlton

Light breeze:
cottonwood leaves
catch the light, twist
it into shadow.



Bob Carlton (www.bobcarlton3.weebly.com) lives and works in Leander, TX.

Brown Sofa by Sandy Benitez

Three sturdy bison
grazed on a patch of greenery
in otherwise yellow fields;
the distance between us
a chain-link fence
and a busy roadway.
A year ago,
I thought I saw
an oversized, furry brown sofa.
The lone bison didn't move,
it just lay there,
watching the world go by.
I thought of the homeless
who frequent Weston Park,
sleeping beneath the arbor
together
but always alone.



Sandy Benitez is the founding editor of Flutter Press, Poppy Road Review, and Black Poppy Review. Her latest chapbook, The Lilac City, was published by Origami Poems Project. Her first book, a YA paranormal fantasy novella titled, The Rosegiver, will be released later this month. Sandy resides in Southern California with her husband and two children.

Blue Couch by Sandy Benitez

Yesterday,
driving along familiar streets
of San Jacinto,
towards charter schools,
a sapphire blue couch
squatted in an empty parking lot.
It appeared disheveled
but otherwise in good condition.
Not much further down,
near an abandoned railroad track
a single, grungy sneaker
tossed aside like garbage.
Yet another loose thread
in the tattered fabric
of this forgotten town.



Sandy Benitez is the founding editor of Flutter Press, Poppy Road Review, and Black Poppy Review. Her latest chapbook, The Lilac City, was published by Origami Poems Project. Her first book, a YA paranormal fantasy novella titled, The Rosegiver, will be released later this month. Sandy resides in Southern California with her husband and two children.

The Shiver by Tom Montag

The shiver
of a winter
morning.

The light.
Birds at
the feeder.

My need
for one more
moment

like this.
Again, morning,
again.



Tom Montag, Fairwater, Wisconsin, is most recently the author of In This Place: Selected Poems 1982-2013. In 2015, he was the featured poet at Atticus Review (April) and Contemporary American Voices (August). Home-made music is important to him: he plays once a week with a friend, for their own amusement.

Angkor Wat by Tina Hacker

          A Temple Complex in Cambodia

Tourists see
a spiritual wonder,
marvel of architecture,
international treasure.

I see stairs.

A decay of branches
and logs that carried ancient
pilgrims closer to heaven
separate the present-day steps.

One flight up
one down.

Two sheer cliffs
of steep, wobbly planks.
The lower stairs, orphaned
of railings, the upper,
corded with them.

Lifelines of difficult labors.

Tourists lean
on partners and walking sticks,
mine their cache
of muscle memory
to balance as they inch
from the lower stairs
to those with the handrail.

They grasp it
as if it were the arm of God.



Tina Hacker is writing about her interesting experiences on a recent tour to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Her full-length poetry book, Listening to Night Whistles, published by Aldrich Press and her chapbook, Cutting It, published by The Lives You Touch Publications are available on Amazon. A four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, she has work in a wide variety of journals.

Grace Chapel by David Jibson

Remnants of a neon sign that once proclaimed,
Jesus Saves, dangle from a frayed wire
above the boarded over front door.
The pastor, who worked days at a grain elevator,
packed up and moved his family to the city years ago
before the last of his congregation died out.
Ragweed and goldenrod have pushed themselves
up through the graveled parking lot where flat-bed trucks
and the occasional tractor would gather
Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings
for long sermons that floated out through windows
open to the summer air.
The last of them was about forgiveness,
according to a fallen sign that lays on its back
in a patch of stinging nettles
which it wears like a thorny crown.



David Jibson lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan where he is an associate editor of Third Wednesday, a literary arts journal, a member of The Crazy Wisdom Poetry Circle and The Poetry Society of Michigan. He is retired from a long career in Social Work, most recently with a Hospice agency. He believes the most important element in his poetry is "story".

First Snow by David Jibson

It arrived early this year,
a week before Thanksgiving
and heavier, I think,
than we have ever seen.
The ground was still warm,
of course, so it began melting
even before it stopped falling.
The fort in the park rose one day
and fell the next, like
the walls of Jericho.
The snowman in the neighbor’s yard
walked off sometime during the night,
leaving only his ragged, knitted scarf behind.



David Jibson lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan where he is an associate editor of Third Wednesday, a literary arts journal, a member of The Crazy Wisdom Poetry Circle and The Poetry Society of Michigan. He is retired from a long career in Social Work, most recently with a Hospice agency. He believes the most important element in his poetry is "story".

Winter Solstice by Ronald Moran

Only if one insists on interpreting day
                    as light
is this the shortest day of the year,
                    a misnomer

at best––at worst, a cause to admit
                    the bleakness
of one's life, as mirrored in the absence
                    of light,

as if clouds obtained, their low-lying
                    legions
parading, so as to honor one's general
                    affirmation

of the law of correspondences, used
                    too often
to justify the slow but nonetheless sad
                    drop

into darkness, when one can say today,
                    at least,
O yes. It must be in the stars, or, rather,
                    their absence.



Ronald Moran lives in Simpsonville, South Carolina. His poems have been published in Commonweal, Connecticut Poetry Review, Louisiana Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Negative Capability, North American Review, Northwest Review, South Carolina Review, Southern Review, Tar River Poetry, The Wallace Stevens Journal, and in twelve books/chapbooks of poetry. Clemson University Press will publish his Eye of the World shortly. He has won a number of awards and his work is archived in Special Collections at Furman University.

Interlude by Ed Ahern

The small being sleeps on my chest.
My breathing sways plump arms.
He unable, me unwilling to rise and part.
We are never closer than this touching
that he will not remember
and I will not forget.
Unconcern nestled into gentle custody.
Neither knowing, or just now caring
about changes to come.



Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He has his original wife, but advises that after forty eight years they are both out of warranty. Ed's had over a hundred stories and poems published so far, and two books.

PTSD 1 by Matt Borczon

My muse
is the
severed
leg that
I find
in my
bed
in every
single
nightmare
I’ve had
since the
war.



Matt Borczon is a writer and nurse from Erie, Pa. He was stationed in the busiest combat hospital in Afghanistan from 2010-11. He writes about war and his experiences since coming home. His work has been published in Yellow Chair Review, Dead Snakes, Busted Dharma and The Pressure Press. His chapbook, A Clock of Human Bones, will be published by Yellow Chair Review in early 2016.