New Poetry by Michael Keshigian

Nights in Cummings Cove

Those nights illuminated by the moon
whose white dagger severed the wet surface,
highlighted the stalks upon Gypsy Glen
which stretched off the shoal
into the crooked air
and the lake wore a tarnished chink
upon its silver armor.
The white pines, stilled by the sheen,
waited until their presence
faded back to gnarled shapes.
The cold air was always crisp
and smelled of wild roses
that circled the shoreline,
soon exposed as the moon’s silver eye
adjusted its stare toward the brush
and patches of mulch
gingerly caressing the lapping lake.
On nights such as these,
he would gaze at the cottages,
nesting beachside, their lights flickering
in night’s magnificent isolation,
little did he suspect this absence of adoration,
the opportunity to commune,
would become a longing
that would follow him.


- Michael Keshigian 2020

Michael Keshigian’s fourteenth poetry collection, What To Do With Intangibles, was released January, 2020 by Cyberwit.net. He has been widely published in numerous national and international journals, recently including Sierra Nevada Review, Oyez Review, Muddy River Review, Edison Review, Pudding Magazine, and has appeared as feature writer in over twenty publications with 7 Pushcart Prize and 2 Best Of The Net nominations. (michaelkeshigian.com)

New Poetry by David Ades

The Ship That Sailed

The ship I boarded, finally,
after so many failed attempts

and with such light steps,

has sailed on without me,
did so years ago

though I was slow to notice,

leaving me adrift on a shore
with fierce winds and scudding clouds

and a constant moaning sound

that seems as if it might be
coming through my lips.


- David Ades 2020

David Adès is the author of Mapping the World, the chapbook Only the Questions Are Eternal and most recently Afloat in Light (https://uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/afloat-in-light). In association with Mascara Literary Review, David is a recipient of the 2020 Don Bank Writing Residence together with Michelle Cahill, Debbie Lim and Michelle Hamadache

New Poetry by Jean Bohuslav

Geraniums

Dry geraniums nail their way towards 
closed windows
Stems 
Leaves 
Burnt tips
No sanctuary from summer rays

Trodden red petals
meld gritty path
Bleeding aromas hang soft air

Furry chestnut spiders rent space
in dead leaves 
dried clods of earth
rusty pipes
Hiding 
Preying
Webbing frail wings
intoxicated by heat

Straggling stems snap
Remnants
Memories of
evening watering’s
drenched with love
Soil turned
Thistles plucked
Juicy stalks thrusting upward 
Fresh damp air
Buzzing mosquitoes 

Change
Always change


- Jean Bohuslav 2020

Jean Bohuslav enjoys the company of a group of creative writers on the Surf Coast, Victoria, while starting to have poems published in online magazines.  She paints and teaches philosophy and mindfulness.

New Poetry by Samuel T. Franklin

Wolves

Promises slip like a tongue between teeth 
like a coin from a pocket to a gutter 
men with nickel-eyes drop stars into their mouths 
there is a wolf with stripes on its belly 

Men with bellies of nickel and iron howl 
like wolves at wolfmoons 
they speak strange and guttural secrets 
and swear the wolves are all dead

Ghosts slip on moonbeams and slide 
into dark mouths full of teeth  
promises beat their fists against the stars 
and the darkness opens like a mouth

Men with nickels in their eyes slip 
like broken promises toward the darkness
where ghosts pass like secrets
between the teeth and tongues of wolves 


- Samuel T. Franklin 2020

Samuel T. Franklin is the author of two books of poetry: Bright Soil, Dark Sun (2019) and The God of Happiness (2016). A Best of the Net nominee, he resides in Bloomington, Indiana, where he enjoys making useful things out of wood scraps and losing staring contests to his cats. He can be found at samueltfranklin.com. 

New Poetry by John Grey

Back Again

come into the city
the bright lights,
suddenly remember
all that has been forgotten,

could be anywhere?

no -

could be no place else


- John Grey 2020


Off the Old Interstate

Behind an abandoned store-front,
past a dining room
bereft of repossessed tables and chairs,
in a kitchen
with rusty stove and grill,
scurrying rats
and grease stains on the walls,
in a cupboard under the sink,
a famous chicken recipe
curls up like the dead.


- John Grey 2020

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in That, Dalhousie Review and North Dakota Quarterly with work upcoming in Qwerty, Chronogram and failbetter.

New Poetry by Rob Schackne

Parasite Sound

unwanted as in wilderness
undesirable as in shouting
uninvited as a bushfire

sound without the option
sound as in fury 
passionate conviction

parasite sound for party
natters of the wind
the cool changes come

bring rain, fill rivers
hearing voices 
listen to the waves

the muffled thrum
my own breathing too
autonomic, final


- Rob Schackne 2020

Born in New York, Rob lived in many countries until Australia finally took him in. He was a Foreign Expert EFL teacher in China for many years. He now lives in a small Victorian country town, and enjoys the fresh air, the birds and the sunshine. There were some extreme sports once; now he plays (mostly) respectable chess and pool. He listens to the Grateful Dead. When he's not writing, he likes taking photographs.

New Poetry by Marie C Lecrivain

Cassandra Works the Night Shift at the Call Center

She works from 10 pm to 5 am, 
because the money is better, 
and prophecies carry more 
weight in the dark.

She sits upright in her crummy swivel chair,
sips tea from her favorite terracotta mug,
and answers questions posed 
by those loved and lost.

Her eyes follow a steady rhythm 
as scripts flash across her screen. 
She’ll answer honestly, but never
take on questions about travel plans, 
or the apocalypse. No one 
believed her the first time.

For those who don’t listen,
she lowers her voice to the sound
of whiskey poured over ice,
and for those satisfied seekers
she receives a 10% commission,
and a 5-star prophetess rating.
Sometimes, the crack of heartbreak 
can be heard, since all calls 
are recorded for training 
and quality assurance.

- Marie C Lecrivain 2020

Marie C Lecrivain is a poet, publisher of poeticdiversity: the litzine of Los Angeles, and ordained priestess in the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, the ecclesiastical arm of Ordo Templi Orientis. Her work has been published in Nonbinary Review, Orbis, Pirene's Fountain, and many other journals. She's the author of several books of poetry and fiction, and recent editor of Gondal Heights: A Bronte Tribute Anthology (copyright 2019 Sybaritic Press, www.sybpress.com).

New Poetry by Abigail George

Menopause

This far out between heaven and hell she is still
beautiful. She was beautiful, and relevant in a way

that I was not. Manuscripts erode all around me
but she is innocent, still beautiful. Lovely. She’s

earth now. I’m average. I can’t help it. I’m so basic
at everything. I’m a still life next to her grave tears

pouring out of me like there’s no tomorrow. No
future or anything. I name her ‘water’. I name her

‘anything that is worthy of possession’. This far out
she’s salt, light, cream, if I can help it the last city,

the last blue country. A fragment of paradise ripped
from the seats of the Opera House, infestation, life.

    She’s a Sunday morning after church. I thirst for
her mouth. Her beautiful hands. Hair like silk down her back.

She’s Peter Pan chasing stars, and what this poem is,
is not a poem about a river on becoming the sea.

The reflection in the mirror is as unstable as electricity.
I wonder to myself just who does she think she is.

I am wary of her. Of what she is capable of doing.
You’re living. I’m dead. You’re warm. I’m cold through.

I don’t know how to keep the regime under control.
You’re unfinished. Tiger, you speak to me in tongues.

These are dangerous times that we’re living in, you
say. You’re joy, Yes, you are. You come in that stellar

version. While I’m a field covered with the fabric of
stars, and starlight. I don’t know how to love you back. I see

you in this photograph. You’ve lost all your hair to
the chemotherapy, you’re wearing a wig, but you still

look hot, and breathless, as exotic as a Frenchwoman’s
beauty. Of course, you lose the battle. (Breast cancer),

the love of your life has lost his own struggle. It snows
in winter-time in Johannesburg, and every time it snows

I think of you, every recovery, every relapse, summer, I
think of all the people I’ve lost. That are never coming back

to me, that are priceless, and free. Pain is such a waste.
And, so, I wake up, look, dress, and live my life, also free.


- Abigail George 2020

Abigail George is a South African writer and poet. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net-nominee, as well as the recipient of four writing grants from the National Arts Council, Centre for the Book and the ECPACC. She has two blogs (African Renaissance) and one in Goodreads. She has been published in various anthologies, numerous times in print in South Africa, and online in zines across Africa, Australia, India, Ireland, the UK, the States, Canada, and Europe. She is also an essayist, contributed to a symposium in Finland, an editor, poet, short story writer and novelist.