Waiting for the Ball to Drop in Times Square by Melissa Fite Johnson

We might not have come if we’d considered
thirteen degrees for seven hours, every muscle tensed,
bladders engorged. Last year, we didn’t sing

U2 songs with a dozen college kids from Ireland
or watch thirty-somethings from Barcelona
swallow grapes whole at six p.m., the Spanish New Year, 

and we couldn’t have comprehended the sound
of one million voices counting back from ten
until ours were lost among them. Last year,

we were only two people watching on TV,
but we had one bathroom apiece, and hot chocolate
cradled against our bellies like tiny radiators.



Melissa Fite Johnson’s poetry has appeared in such publications as I-70 Review, The New Verse News, and Inscape Magazine. Her first collection, While the Kettle’s On (Little Balkans Press, 2015), won the Nelson Poetry Book Award. Melissa and her husband live in Kansas, where she teaches English. Her website: melissafitejohnson.com.

High School Pep Band by Melissa Fite Johnson

My flute part never sounded like the song
on its own. When I practiced,
my brother poked his head in my room,
asked if I had any idea what the hell I was doing.
But with the band, the flutes’ voices
soared higher than even the trumpets’
bold balloon squeaks.

The trumpets—and indeed the trombones,
saxes, tubas, even clarinets—
none of them questioned our worth.
We had each other’s backs. We had to.

At the basketball games, we held a kind of
nerd power. No one said much
to us in classes or the halls, but they
loved us at games. They yelled
the words to every song. Together we lifted
those boys, high as the cheerleaders
somersaulting into the air. We were
part of something on those nights.
We were really in high school.

On Mondays we were back to visitor status,
stepping aside to let a row of letter jackets pass.



Melissa Fite Johnson’s poetry has appeared in such publications as I-70 Review, The New Verse News, and Inscape Magazine. Her first collection, While the Kettle’s On (Little Balkans Press, 2015), won the Nelson Poetry Book Award. Melissa and her husband live in Kansas, where she teaches English. Her website: melissafitejohnson.com.

Apology by Laura Lee Washburn

I tell my nephew, I’m sorry
about your crazy grandma.

My mother will be pleased to know
he doesn’t ask which one.

That was some messed up shit,
he says. How’s grandpa, I want to know.

They’ve both lost it, he says.
I live far enough away to learn their dramas

late or not at all and I’m really sorry
truly that she spent four days crying

on the couch, her face scratched,
the dog in city custody, quarantined,

that my nephew cried, that my father cried,
that she lied, that she turned her

own chocolate lab over to animal control
because who does that, who calls the city

because the dog was playing and your
heads bumped even if you are moving soon

to Florida to a retirement village and you
just don’t want to deal anymore

with things so big and messy like the yard
or a pool or a garage full of tools or your

two year old dog, or all these meds. And
pretty soon, if she can ever get down there,

she’ll sign her husband over, too. I send
my nephew a picture of a reindeer hat
because he shows me his creepy eye with antlers ink.

That’s it. I go out and look at the crocuses
that aren’t dead yet, but only a little frayed from snow.



Laura Lee Washburn is the Director of Creative Writing at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, and the author of This Good Warm Place: 10th Anniversary Expanded Edition (March Street) and Watching the Contortionists (Palanquin Chapbook Prize). Her poetry has appeared in such journals as Cavalier Literary Couture, Carolina Quarterly, Ninth Letter, The Sun, Red Rock Review, and Valparaiso Review. Born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, she has also lived and worked in Arizona and in Missouri. She is married to the writer Roland Sodowsky and is one of the founders and the Co-President of the Board of SEK Women Helping Women (https://www.facebook.com/sekwhw).

Blowing Leaves by Howie Good

Devoid of anything even close
to resembling a fresh idea,
I’m hunched in front of my laptop
and staring out the window
at a man in a foam baseball cap
and an Army fatigue jacket who,
as if emboldened by the barbaric yawp
of his backpack leaf blower,
walks with a forward lean
into the long shadows of late afternoon,
an incautious conjurer inspiring
the last raggedy remnants
of summer to get up and dance.



Howie Good’s latest poetry collections are Bad for the Heart (Prolific Press) and Dark Specks in a Blue Sky (Another New Calligraphy). He is recipient of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry for his forthcoming collection Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements.

On My Return by John Grey

It's not what I expected on my return. 
My boyhood home hadn't changed
one slap of paint, one poster on the wall.
Those left behind felt most comfortable
in nothing ever moving on.
It all was where I left it.
That made the love so much easier.

All the hopes, the promise, the beginnings, were intact.
Even ones that ended badly.
Fingermarks, books in shelves,
old letters in drawers, ceramics on mantles,
even the clock that hadn't worked in years -
those were the bearings of a life.

Back to such normalcy,
I sat at the table with familiar faces
discussing how life ought to be.

Mother said, we can clean now, varnish,
even move furniture around.
I tried but was of no help
because I could imagine no other house but this.



John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, Perceptions and the anthology, No Achilles with work upcoming in Big Muddy Review, Gargoyle, Coal City Review and Nebo.

Your Recovery by John Grey

I can't get away from them -
TV, the internet, twitter,
even talk around the water cooler -
celebrities have assumed the role
of the center of the universe.

But then you call me =
you're out of hospital.

At last, news sends me a gift.
It doesn't care who's dating who
or wearing what designer dress.

I can imagine you seated on your patio,
family around you,
setting sun drenching your face.

You're coddling a wine glass in your wrinkled hand.
You're distanced from the superficial
by a canyon of heart and mind

The wine, I'm sure, tastes like the earth and growing,
like the land that spreads before you,
a family history in blades of grass and fences.

A smile plays out
beneath your warm farm-girl eyes.
You doze, contented, with the past around you,
dream a year not yet lived.



John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, Perceptions and the anthology, No Achilles with work upcoming in Big Muddy Review, Gargoyle, Coal City Review and Nebo.

Great Blue Heron at Powder Mill by John Grey

The great blue heron's startle
is not the quick dart of the song sparrow
to the nearest bush..
Nor is it the crow's high caw
or the chickadee's Morse Code trill.
It doesn't flap noisily into gear
like the mourning dove
or join the pigeons
in high-tailing it up to the upper eaves.

It's almost dusk, late summer.
The pond is brown, the weather dry.
The heron stalks unseen fish,
moving slow, deliberate.
One long thin leg unfolds forward
like a ballerina in slow motion,
the other pivots in the mud.

It doesn't see me as other birds do.
Still sensing water's seismic shift with thin, sharp beak.
I fill the corner of an eye.
Its feathered crown rises,
wings gradually fill the horizontal.
It doesn't so much fear me
as appreciate that it and I are fated
to never occupy the same lush feeding grounds.
No hurry in its takeoff,
merely a gentle flap, an arcing of the neck,
a graceful lift,
a measured glide over the tree-tops.
So much for the slow, ambling, earthbound gait
of the rest of us..



John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, Perceptions and the anthology, No Achilles with work upcoming in Big Muddy Review, Gargoyle, Coal City Review and Nebo.

Embrace by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Her embrace broke my neck
She weighed only ninety-four pounds
but each ounce was purely intense

Her husband had threatened to kill her
He suffered from psychotic jealousy

She focused only on her survival
and had even forgotten her son

She still loved her husband
a foible common to abused women

She owned no pets
She was afraid of the dark

She hid books behind books
in her son’s bookcase

Her husband didn’t believe in women
reading books
He didn’t want her to speak to
or even look at
other men
There were men in books

She woke frequently in the middle of the night
to check for rabbits in her garden
She stopped when she and her husband were evicted

If she were murdered
she told me
she would come to my roof
in the form of two swans
necks entwined

Her embrace was powered by desperation
My only armor was
my good intentions

The sinews stood out on her arms
Her skin was blue
but she’d concealed their hue
with flesh-colored make-up

This was the third time
I’d had my neck broken
once when I was playing college football
the second when I was driving drunk

My doctor says that a spine was not designed for this
level of abuse



Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois has had over nine hundred of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net for work published in 2011 through 2014. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for Kindle and Nook, or as a print edition. He lives in Denver. He works at combating his own ego, as Ego is the source of Greed, and Greed is destroying our world.

Light Confession by Maril Crabtree

Talk to me
about your night fears.
How you keep the light on
beside your bed,
hoping you won’t wake
and feel the familiar terror.

How you sleep
on your side, turned away
from the window, knowing
they could come through anyway.

How your dreams
are the only things that save you
from your own dread.

How ready you are
to plunge into the undiscovered
day, into whatever is on
the other side of night.



Maril Crabtree’s most recent chapbook is Tying the Light (Finishing Line Press). Her work has appeared in journals such as Kalliope, I-70 Review, Coal City Review, Main Street Rag, and Third Wednesday, She previously served as poetry editor for Kansas City Voices. More of her work can be seen at www.marilcrabtree.com.

The Abandoned City by Thomas O'Connell

The city has been deserted, next
Year’s phone book will not include
Our last name, nor will any mailbox.
There must be some obscure relative
Remaining in a two-family house
Somewhere, but I could not tell you
Who, or where they buy their groceries,
Which weatherman they quote. We will no longer

Stand at a bar-b-q in somebody’s driveway, cousins
Shooting baskets into a frayed net
Hung over the oil stains left
By a car, purchased from a common grandmother.
I will not think of the local parish
Until retrieving a prayer card
Tucked in a pocket of some dark
Coat I seldom wear.



A librarian, as well as three time Pushcart Prize nominee, Thomas O’Connell’s poetry and short fiction has appeared in Caketrain, NANO Fiction, Elm Leaves Journal, and The Los Angeles Review, as well as other print and online journals. As of January first, he will be the poet laureate of Beacon, New York.

Two of Many by Martha Christina

They work their way across the wide lawn
by means of a Frisbee. The thinner man can

barely throw, can't catch. He drops the Frisbee
and his body to the cushion of early spring grass.

His companion kneels beside him, retrieves the disk
and turns it like a steering wheel, as if driving them

to a happier destination. If this were only about
imagining, I could create from their desire

a happy ending: restored health, long lives.
But their story isn't mine to alter as they rise

and proceed to the clinic door. Two bodies,
one shadow.



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.

Monofilament Whiskers by Al Ortolani

Dying stinks on a cat. His preening has stopped, no longer licking his paws or cleaning his coat. He slinks and crowds toward the milk plate, bones like loose bundles of fishing poles, hooked claws, sinker eyes, a jar of blood bait hardened to paste. Demanding privacy, he disappears into quiet corners of the garden. At night, he is just a small swell of moonlight behind the rhododendron. In the morning his face is turned upwards like he was searching the sky.

slow rain before dawn,
owl calling beyond
the churchyard pines



Al Ortolani’s poetry and reviews have appeared, or are forthcoming, in journals such as Rattle, Prairie Schooner, New Letters, and the New York Quarterly. He has published six collections of poetry. Currently, he is teaching English in the Kansas City area and serves on the Board of Directors of the Writers Place. His poems been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

First Encounter Beach by Howie Good

A man in a yellow rain slicker
rides a three-wheeler
loaded with empty plastic crates
out toward the oyster beds.

Here where the Nauset
first encountered the Pilgrims,
it is late afternoon, low tide.
A red dog runs along the shoreline
scattering the seagulls
while its owner futilely calls it back.

Though only early October,
the wind blowing in off the water
has already developed a psychotic edge.
We can’t rely on tomorrow
being another day like today,
silver bay and big sky and precious light.

The oyster farmer has shrunk
to a tiny dot in the distance.



Howie Good’s latest poetry collections are Dark Specks in a Blue Sky (Another New Calligraphy) and Bad for the Heart (Prolific Press). He is recipient of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry for his forthcoming collection Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements.

Carefree, Arizona by Stefanie Leigh

          - for my mother

The only way to feel back home now is to drive out far
Past where the developers have tried to reach
Out where there are still saguaro & jackalopes & jumping cholla.

Around Lone Mountain I feel you riding in the car with me;
I’m rolling down the windows, you’re turning up the radio,
And together we sing along to Fleetwood Mac:

But now it’s gone, it doesn’t matter what for.

I miss it all – a place that didn’t exist until I left it
Foundations of red rock and long stretches of dirt road
That weren’t beautiful until I couldn’t see them anymore.

But now it’s gone, it doesn’t matter what for.
When you build your house, then call me home.

Everything looks the same now down on Cascalote –
Desert landscaping and shining water features.
I drive by, but you’ve been gone for years.


Stefanie Leigh teaches environmental law in a distance learning program and recently earned an MSt in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. Her first (and almost completed) novel, The Truth, was longlisted for the 2015 Bridport Prize Peggy Chapman-Andrews Award.

How Fishing Went For Us by Ed Ruzicka

          - for Helen Miriam and Nicolette Ruzicka

Back then I would walk you down
the block, up one more, then turn a wandering left
100 feet until we came under that stand of spruce
you thought was a forest creaky and frightful,
ripe for the wolf’s paw or witch’s cowl.

Except that we were just across from
a white, dilapidated house where Nicolette
and I once went peddling Girl Scout cookies
and got invited in to an oil-cloth kitchen
by a woman who tottered above her cane.
One who couldn’t spare a dollar or her tabby
would go fishless for days. So we came back
weeks later with boxes of Thin Mints and
told her they were excellent kept in the freezer
and even better crumbled over vanilla ice cream.

She said, "But I don’t have anything to give you."
Then made us weak tea we couldn’t get away from
fast enough as she spent the whole time scuttling around
scraping together a tote-bag of marbles, one carefully
rolled sheet of dryer lint, three peach pits, photo
of her middle boy by the Sunday shore in San Diego
and the fuzzy torsos of yellow jackets cased in amber.
She forced the bag into my hand as we sailed
off hailing our "So longs" forever and anon. 

On an afternoon like this under tall pine
I might completely undo one of my shoe laces
to lay across your tiny palm. You would
cast it out upon the waters of the puddle
that always formed at that low spot.
I remember those days tasting like aluminum
as I stood by with my mind overcome by sky
as any puddle can be while a daughter
sings softly so that fish will drift in.
Your song a sort of lure, as every song is,
that caught us nothing those days but now seems
to be catching everything, here, I could ever want.



Ed Ruzicka has published one full length volume, "Engines of Belief - Engagement in Modern Art". His poems have appeared in Plainsongs, the Atlanta Review, the Xavier Review, Big River Poetry Review and other literary journals. Ed lives in Baton Rogue, LA and is an occupational therapist. More at: edrpoet.com.

PTSD 4 by Matt Borczon

Dump the
sand from
your boots
and check
for camel
spiders
remember to
get your
uniform from
the laundry
pay the
extra dollar
so they
get the
blood off
of it
make sure
your mopp
gear is
under your
rack because
its late
and if
you manage
to fall
asleep
you are
sure to
need it
knowing where
your nightmares
are headed.



Matt Borczon is a nurse and writer from Erie Pa, he served in the busiest combat hospital in Afghanistan from 2010-2011. He writes of his experiences there and the difficulties of readjusting to life back home. His poems have appeared in Busted Dharma, Dead Snakes, The Bond Street Review, Big Hammer, Hanging Loose, and The Pressure Press as well as other small press publications.

rejection by Kurt Nimmo

first poem in weeks.
the habit is thin now as
weather turns against autumn
and the male cat sleeps
in the blue chair.
another literary magazine
rejection today.
not like the old days
the grandiosity of an envelope
with my return scrawl
hand-delivered.
now a few electrons indistinguishable
from spam. the literary world
as presently construed
is unknown
no longer a discovery.
rejection does not bother me
like it did when I was a poet.
now I have
the sleeping cat
and his zen curl on a Mexican blanket.
sure beats the byline
and the words crowded on
a tight page

jostling for recognition.



Kurt Nimmo was born in Detroit, Michigan. In the late '70s, he co-edited the successful literary magazine, The Smudge. In the '80s, he edited Planet Detroit. Kurt has been nominated for several Pushcart Prizes for fiction, and two of his books were selected as "modern classics" by Wormwood Review. He lives in Smithville, Texas with his wife and two cats.

We're Pregnant by James Valvis

He sneaks out for a cigarette,
and when he returns the child
is already sliding out of her mother.
All he sees are the toes coming free.
This is the best case scenario.
Other men wanted to be there,
or claimed they did. Nowadays men
announce to family “We’re pregnant,”
as if they too will be getting fat,
vomiting, walking with plantar fasciitis.
“Push,” they say. “Breathe.”
“I’m going through this with you.”
What a bunch of bullshit.
He prefers the old days,
when the father waited outside,
got the good news,
then handed out cigars.
At least there was no mistake
who deserved credit for the labor.
Later, when he finally holds his child,
he informs his wife the toes are his,
and the rest hers. Being nice,
she agrees to let him have
more than any man deserves.



James Valvis has placed poems or stories in Arts & Letters, Barrow Street, Ploughshares, River Styx, The Sun, and many others. His poetry was featured in Verse Daily. His fiction was chosen for Sundress Best of the Net. A former US Army soldier, he lives near Seattle.

An Afternoon Walk by John Grey

He turns at the Revolution Coffee shop
and walks two blocks.
Twilight is conducive to a stroll.
Even old tenements are gilded.
And the brick freshens up.
Lawns sprout gleaming grass.

He steps around an oncoming skateboarder,
stops to smell roses protruding through a fence.
A young woman sits on a patio,
head lowered over a guitar her fingers gently strum.
She sings pure as the late afternoon air.
He lingers, listens.
The song is more wistful than sad.
It's a step up from the flowers.

Another woman approaches
pushing a stroller.
He has to sum her up in a moment -
will she be fearful if I
bend my head
into her baby's face
or insulted if I don't?
He settles on a modest version of the former.
A pretty singer and a comely mother -
two warning shots
over the bow of his bachelorhood.

But a plain suburban house
quickly changes the subject.
The older woman in the kitchen window
lowers his bottom lip.
Her eyes shine
from the sun's flat angle
but more like a lighthouse beam
warning ships from the rocks.

And next door,
an old couple argue on their doorstep,
over something trivial he expects,
or even imaginary.

An afternoon walk is always good for the health,
good for the confirmation of what he always suspected.



John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, Perceptions and Sanskrit with work upcoming in South Carolina Review, Gargoyle, Owen Wister Review and Louisiana Literature.

The Walled Garden by Kevin Casey

Puttering about his three-room apartment,
the old man does little more than tend
to the clear floret of a shot glass
with his handled jug. An amber ashtray
sprouts from a brass stand, a vine of smoke
reaching toward the dull glow of a shaded window.

Across the room, the radio alighted
on the sideboard holds its crackling note
above the boulevard’s steady chorus.
After years in this urban hermitage,
loneliness has lost its meaning
to the inadvertent anchorite,
his life now pared away to a spare
and accidental habit of prayer.



Kevin Casey has contributed poems to Hartskill Review, The Orange Room Review, Rust + Moth, San Pedro River Review, and other publications. His new chapbook “The wind considers everything --” was recently published by Flutter Press, and another from Red Dashboard is due out later this year."