Rites of Passage by Ben Rasnic

Took great pride
in supplying your first taste
of Canadian Club at age 12,
“This’ll make a man outta you”
he slurred.

Even the best of us can snap
at one time or another;
be it from stress, substance abuse,
faulty biorhythms
or simply witnessing your mother shatter

beneath one more crushing
close-fisted punch;
but the fact is
cause and effect mean nothing
when your father lies immersed                                       

in an expanding pool
of deep red blood engulfing
the linoleum kitchen floor
& you,
hyperventilating, hands trembling,

cling to the smoking
nickle plated Glock
you never wanted
but he bought you anyway
because he loved you.      



Ben Rasnic is the author of four collections of poems: "Artifacts and Legends;" "Puppet;" "The Eleventh Month" and "Synchronicity." Ben currently resides in Bowie, MD.

In Golden Gate Park by Brad Rose

A cocoon of myself, molting
in these enormous minutes,
I have no idea what my address is.
Every day, in the same skin,
I come here to dream of something
that’s more beautiful
for having been broken.
Pockets stuffed with Karaoke money,
my clothes ache,
my face, an apology.

The clinic says I think about things too much.
I ask them how much thinking is just right?
Then I tell them I’m only thinking the thoughts I’m thinking,
not all the other ones.

Tuesday, I read in the newspaper
the Governor said the lethal injections aren’t working,
that the prisoner’s body shook like a marionette. 
Wrapped in that story, I hardly slept Tuesday night.

Did you know people are less likely to flee
an approaching hurricane with a woman’s name
than one with a man’s name? 
My ex-wife said I’m real smart,
but I’m always solving the wrong problem.

Lightning is four times hotter than the sun.
I never sleep in the same place twice.



Brad Rose was born and raised in Los Angeles, and lives in Boston. He is the author of Pink X-Ray (Big Table Publishing, 2015.) Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize in fiction, Brad’s poetry and fiction have appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Folio, decomP, Lunch Ticket, The Baltimore Review, The Midwest Quarterly, San Pedro River Review, Right Hand Pointing, and other publications. Links to Brad’s published poetry and fiction can be found at: http://bradrosepoetry.blogspot.com/.

Bloomsday's Mystery at the James Joyce Pub & Restaurant by Richard Weaver

In the bathroom today
a 20 something Japanese man
stands barefoot at the handicap urinal
American Standard. 3.8 Lpf/1.0 gpf.
wringing out his socks on the tile floor.
Once done, re-socked and re-shoeed
he walks to the sink, pulses
the soap dispenser, lathers up
and quickly washes his hands.
Two paper towels complete his visit.
Moments later I see him, seated
with three friends, all four studying
the dinner menu. No one the wiser.
Especially me.



Richard Weaver is an unofficial snowflake counter (seasonally) in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Publications include Crazyhorse, 2River View, Black Warrior Review, and the ubiquitous Elsewhere. He works as a volunteer for the Maryland Book Bank. Recent poems have appeared in Southern Quarterly and Conjunctions. Future poems in Steel Toe Review and Little Patuxent Review.

Creation by Howie Good

I hauled the stones in a wheelbarrow from the woods
behind our house, killer work for someone my age,
and dumped them in a growing jumble at the end of the garden,
and within a few days, and despite battered fingers,
I had gathered enough to build a winding two-foot-high wall,
lifting and heaving and wedging the stones into place,
misshapen pieces in a kind of extended jigsaw puzzle,
some stones as flat as dishes and others as fat as bricks,
but most as free-form as words before words form a poem.



Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements, winner of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry. He co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely.

True Story by Catherine Zickgraf

You’re a fire hazard,
said the elder,
stepping between
my wheelchair and
the church’s infant room,
wriggling nursling in my lap.



Catherine Zickgraf has performed her poetry in Madrid, San Juan, and three dozen other cities—yet homeschooling her autistic youngest inspires her the most. Her writing has appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association, [Pank], Victorian Violet Press, and The Grief Diaries. Find her at http://caththegreat.blogspot.com.

Too Much Happiness by Russell Rowland

This lot was recently paved. 
The neighborhood boy has a good acre
on which to run his model racer
by hand-held remote control.  

The car circles, reverses like a live thing. 
Perhaps he was sent outside
for tormenting the housecat with it.

The toy is less interesting
than his face, its pleased private smile. 
He has learned not to look too happy.

Someone always feels called
to ruin too much happiness. 
Too much happiness invites a taunt
from a speeding, full-sized vehicle.

It sets you up to discover you left
your treasure in the driveway last night
and Dad backed over it this morning.

So smile, don’t grin. Don’t dream
of laughing. If your nosy Mom
even guesses how happy you are,
swear the woman to silence.



Seven-time Pushcart Prize nominee Russell Rowland continues his trail maintenance work and baby-sits his toddler granddaughter in New Hampshire’s Lakes Region. Chapbooks “Train of All Cabooses” and “Mountain Blue” are available from Finishing Line Press.

Freedom Takes Many Forms by Michael L. Newell

The small lass with the hula hoop
was swinging and swaying when
the rain arrived in a fine fury.

All her classmates ran for cover.
She continued to swing the hoop
faster and faster in wilder and wider

circle upon circle until it slipped over
her hips and slid to the ground;
then she sped toward shelter

with a skipping run lifting her right knee
into graceful hops high off the ground,
her face tilted toward the sky in full-throated,

uninhibited laughter (audible over
the storm) which I heard and joined
from the window I stood in above

the playground which she was vacating.
She heard my guffaw and waved
in my direction before, with wildly

swinging arms and bounding leaps,
she disappeared down the steps
and out of sight around an elementary building.

A gust of wind blew a stinging sheet of rain
in my direction, and (smiling) I leaned into it
and longed for the abandon of childhood.

                                              Kigali, Rwanda, November 29, 2011



Michael L. Newell has recently been published in Jerry Jazz Musician, Verse-Virtual, and Culture Counter.

The Professor Is In by Howie Good

A student who has missed more assignments
than he has completed is standing in the doorway.
“Can I do something for extra credit?” he asks
as he slips off his backpack. I hate that question
and look out the window to avoid showing how much.
The trees have molted. A groundskeeper, a short,
sturdy man with a leaf blower strapped on his back,
is noisily waving the nozzle over the sidewalk
as if it were a magic wand. The student plops down
in the chair reserved for students. There are consequences
I must explain to him, charmed particles coming apart.
But not just yet. He turns his head toward the window
to see what I’m seeing – an incautious conjurer inspiring
the last ragged remnants of summer to get up and dance.



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

Is It Too Late to Keep Your Secrets Safe? by Ace Boggess

          - news tagline on CNN

I used to hold onto them like hundreds of pills
with side effects all forms of loneliness.
Secrets stink of empty rooms, dust on bookshelves,
dangling spiders petrified from grief & loss.
I won’t go back into that rundown house,
its blinds pulled, its door safely double-locked.                           
I prefer standing bare-skinned on a stranger’s lawn,
shouting, Look at me! Look! I’m a fool!
to know that even the ugliest truth soothes
like the cigarette after an argument.



Ace Boggess is the author of two books of poetry: The Prisoners (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2014) and The Beautiful Girl Whose Wish Was Not Fulfilled (Highwire Press, 2003). His novel, A Song Without a Melody, is forthcoming from Hyperborea Publishing. His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, RATTLE, River Styx, North Dakota Quarterly and many other journals. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.

Is This the Noise You Hate? by Ace Boggess

          [overheard downtown]  

Babies with their demonic bullhorns
sound like alarm clocks on TV:
old-fashioned pot-banging clatter
or the digital chirp of a robot chick,                                     
I put on headphones, move to another seat                         
before I realize I’m trapped by jackhammers
laughing from four corners of the city.
Rap bass bounces by like tires blowing flat.
A rescue chopper above rasps its menacing purr.
A woman near the ice cream shop
shouts “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!”
as if channeling a British soldier
warning us all of the Nazi advance.
At least the book store has imprisoned quiet.
I go inside, consider heading for the coffee bar
to synthesize my own adventure:
caramel, or maybe crème de menthe.
I love how the barista works the knobs &
metal pitchers, even the steam
despite its heavy snoring. I love
how he says, “Enjoy,” in a whisper
as if there’s a conspiracy between us,
as if a theft of quiet ours to keep.



Ace Boggess is the author of two books of poetry: The Prisoners (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2014) and The Beautiful Girl Whose Wish Was Not Fulfilled (Highwire Press, 2003). His novel, A Song Without a Melody, is forthcoming from Hyperborea Publishing. His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, RATTLE, River Styx, North Dakota Quarterly and many other journals. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.

Flora's Cafe by Tanja Bartel

Famous for its fights and eggs
He used to drive me all the way into the city
during the long bus strike of ’82
Park on Granville Street
when there was still parking
Breakfast before my shift

Flora and her little husband
would argue loudly in Mandarin
over the roar of spitting grease and sizzle
She’d scream over our tightening sausages
Yell down onto the world’s most delicate scrambled eggs
Flip and shove them with her metal spatula
Serve them, still quivering, to us newlyweds



Tanja Bartel is a writer and teacher. Her work has appeared in Right Hand Pointing, Prose Poem Project, Grain, Contemporary Verse 2, NewPoetry.ca, and upcoming in Rusty Toque.

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.