New Fiction by Lou Normann

 Angel

She stood alone, staring out over the many grave markers sparingly placed in the dark. The cold Florida rain bounced off her hard skin. Angel was alone and no one saw or noticed her, she was alone. The droplets trickled off her robe in a steady stream to the muddy ground. The lightning strike in the distance didn’t cause her to jump, neither did the screeching brakes of a car that slid three feet on the slick asphalt just to the other side of the fence from her.

 The headlights shone bright on her, she didn’t even blink. A man stepped out holding flowers in one hand, umbrella in the other. He wiped his face, signaling the end of a crying fit he must have had during his somber drive. He looked as if he were in pain, not the physical kind; the emotional kind and he stepped over the short picket fence and walked over to a marked grave. Angel stood quiet, standing on a slab of stone surrounded by a puddle of rain water and watched his every move.

 He stopped at the grave marker, shoved his keys in his pocket and looked down. He never even bothered to acknowledge Angel who stood silently in the shadow, her long hair riddled with water.

 His shoes were already soaked. He didn’t care. This was rainy season and Floridians were just used to it. A long disheartened sigh withdrew him, causing him to kneel down and place the flowers on the grave stone.

 “I love you Mom.” he uttered. Then he stood and stared at the grave, let out painful tears that only he and Angel witnessed.

 “She loves you too.” he heard.

 “Huh?” he turned, saw no one, “… who said that?”

 He looked around. The only sound aside from what he thought he heard was the rain pelts bouncing off of everything around him.

 “She loves you.” The voice repeated in the dark.

 His car’s headlights illuminated the entire area; no one else was there – no one, but the marble statue of an angel just feet away from him and they locked eyes.

 The angel was a local legend. Rumor says that she was there before the graveyard was. That it was the people who formed Angelica, Florida who decided to name it Angelica, because the six foot marble statue of an angel complete with wings and a robe that touched the cement slab that held her up was there, and nothing else was. That was back in the year 1927 when a family moving away from Tampa found the perfect spot to build their home. The home became the only train stop in Angelica. The entire town was built around it, and the Angel – who stood as a landmark no one wanted to touch or move.   They left it there to stand the tests of time.

 “Excuse me,” the man said, “… who’s here? I just need a moment alone with my Mom if you don’t mind.”

 Just then his headlights turned off. He looked around, saw no one but the outline of the Angel who was staring back at him with dead eyes.

 “Hello?” he called out.

 He heard flapping, something like wings.

 “Your mother wants you to know that you can stop blaming yourself, she is at peace. She needs you to be at peace too. Can you do accept that, David?”

 “Who’s out here?” he asked.

 He saw the form, the silhouette in the dark, and it seemed like it was moving. The rain drops fell cold on his back but he ignored it. A hand reached out to him. He saw it stretched out, almost inviting him to touch.

 “Who are you?”

 “My name is Angel. I am the watcher of the graves in my care.”

 He walked closer still trying to focus and make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. It was true, he realized that he was speaking to a statue.

 “Uh..?” he squinted his eyes, rubbing them to make sure.

 “David, your mother wanted me to convey the message to you. Release your burden and know that all is well. Live in peace. My work is done. The task shall now rest upon your shoulders.”

 Then she backed off and looked up into the rain-filled sky. She crouched down and in one heaping leap, the graceful being hopped into the air and disappeared into the night sky.

 “Hello?” he called out, “... what shall now rest on my shoulders? Angel?”

 He looked up into the sky, shielding his eyes from the ponding rain. The Angel was gone. He glanced down at his mother’s grave, read the inscription.

 “Elizabeth Jimenez, loving mother, rest in peace.”

 David smiled and his face was totally drenched from a mixture of tears and rain. He walked over and stepped on the cement pedestal where the Angel was standing just minutes before.

 “I’m at peace Mom, finally I can truthfully say that I am at peace.”

 He stood staring out into the cemetery when suddenly the ground trembled underneath. He moved to jump off the pedestal, but for some reason he felt locked on the stand. Without any kind of warning and to his shocked surprise his feet wouldn’t budge. The sensation of something crawling up his legs caused him to shake, but he soon found that he could not move. It felt like wet cement bubbling up from the pedestal. He struggled, but slowly and surely his entire body was stuck there.

 “What’s happening!? Angel! Angel!?”

 In a matter of minutes he was covered from head to toe by the mysterious marble-cement type material, as it defied gravity crawling up his legs, then waste, torso and ultimately his neck. David’s entire body was molded and had changed into that of... an angel. The last thing on his body to turn into stone was his mouth and he screamed in pain as white marble wings violently ripped out of his back.

 “Auuuughhh!”

 No one else heard the horrifying scream in the vast wet darkness of this corner of Angelica.

*

 

 It was a dark, sweltering Florida summer night. The forecast hadn’t called for rain in over a month and the dry foliage proved it. The tormented rain of that dark night is now forgotten as several seasons have come and gone.

 The lone motorcycle coasted off the main road in Angelica, Florida and came to a slow stop at the uninviting graveyard. The rider slowly crept off the Suzuki and walked up past the rusted wrought-iron fence to the grave stones. The helmet was peeled off and the long hair of the rider flowed down on either side of her head. The tall brunette slowly made her way over to the grave that was sat alone on the far end. As she pulled the roses from out of her backpack, a tear slid out of her left eye and dropped softly down her cheek.

 “Daddy, I miss you…” she sighed, “... I love you.”

 She knelt on the ground at the gravestone, and the angel’s eyes followed her.

 

 

- © Lou Normann 2021

Lou Normann credits Stan Lee, Rod Serling and TV episodes of Colombo as his inspiration for writing. The murder mystery thriller has been in his blood since he can remember. Telling stories came naturally since childhood. It was inevitable that his passion with words and language would turn into novels.

New Flash Fiction by Felipe Rodolfo Hendriksen

 Objectivity in Art 

He stops the offensive to see a painting by Le Brun he had always admired, the one with Alexander in the tent of Darius. The queens, supplicant, at his feet. The dark-skinned servants, frightful, with their hands on their heads. He’s on the left, great, hands wide open as if he were vainly pontificating or asking for forgiveness. The general sentiment of the piece is one of incredulity. In all that he sees a symbol and an allegory of what was happening and was going to happen. 

Satisfied, he leaves Versailles: he’ll soon have to march down Champs-Elysees.

- © Felipe Rodolfo Hendriksen 2021

Felipe Rodolfo Hendriksen studies Literature at Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina. He currently lives in Buenos Aires.

New Poetry by Ute Carson

Seasons of the Body 

Youth is spring, 

blossoms, smoothness, idealized perfection. 

Old age is winter, 

frost, concealment, farewells. 

Only summer and fall build bridges, 

ripeness and golden harvest time 

gliding toward wilting and letting go. 

Through different lenses we may see 

the lustrous skin of youth as cold as marble, 

while wrinkles of age show warmth and wisdom. 

Young eyes may shine bright and proud, 

but lack insight. 

Muscular legs can run fast, 

but be unable to slow down and meditate. 

Dark locks of hair entangle in an embrace, 

while silky gray strands are caressed by the wind.   

The fit body finds admirers, 

but tenderness hovers over frailty. 

The young heart beats with optimism, 

but may neglect to open its chambers to listen. 

If we accept our bodies, ourselves across time, 

we find beauty in every season. 

- © Ute Carson 2021

A writer from youth and an M.A. graduate in comparative literature from the University of Rochester, German-born Ute Carson published her first prose piece in 1977. Colt Tailing, a 2004 novel, was a finalist for the Peter Taylor Book Award. Carson’s story “The Fall” won Outrider Press’s Grand Prize and appeared in its short story and poetry anthology A Walk through My Garden, 2007. Her second novel In Transit was published in 2008. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and magazines in the US and abroad. Ute Carson resides in Austin, Texas with her husband. They have three daughters, six grandchildren, a horse and a clowder of cats. www.utecarson.com  

New Poetry by Karen Pierce Gonzalez

Childhood Home 

Happily-ever-after did not

paper the walls. Pencils

did not mark inches grown,

or the spine’s curve

bending right when, at 9,

I learned there were only

barbed angles in this house,

a skewered patchwork

of heated arguments, splintered

door frames, tainted truths,

and a roof that leaked

every time I cried.

- © Karen Pierce Gonzalez 2021

Karen Pierce Gonzalez’s fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have appeared in numerous publications. A former journalist and folklore columnist, she facilitates creative and folktale writing workshops in the San Francisco Bay Area. karenpiercegonzalez.blogspot.com

 

New Fiction by Ken Kapp

 Mr. Big

 “Yes,” he tooted, “there’s spring in my step and I must be spring itself!” Moments before, he had popped out of the baby’s mouth, landed on the ground with a comfortable squish, and taken his first steps still wet from the sucking.

 He rolled from side to side taking in his surroundings. Clearly, he was the biggest, and from where he was standing, he was also on the inside track. “I’m Mr. Big,” he muttered tentatively and, when no one said otherwise, shouted, “I’m Mr. Big and we’re going places!” Without another thought he set off at a quick pace down the inside track.

 “Ouch, ouch!” he complained after stepping on a rough stone. This will never do. I’ll need to walk on somebody. He was pleased with his idea and jumped on the first person to come by. “I’m Mr. Big and the only one that counts and my father is richer than yours.” Two steps later he stopped, wiggled a little, and bragged, “Now I’m richer than my father. And I’m going for a makeover.” He bent over and whispered, “You can be my apprentice; I promise never to fire you.”

 Mr. Big chuckled. I’m lying, but as a toe I don’t have any fingers to cross…well, I don’t have them, so it doesn’t matter. It’s not a lie anyhow if it helps me. “OK, we’re here.”  

 Curling back, he looked up at the sign: MAKEOVERS – CHEAP!

 Yes, this is the very place.

 There were bells attached to the door and the ding-dinging reminded him of a cash register so when the makeover artist asked how she could be of help, he said, “Make me look very rich.”

 She smiled. “Follow me, sir, we’ll go into the rich room.”

 Mr. Big felt rich already. I can do anything I want. He reached up and pinched her in a very private place. She was hurt but, as a poor employee, swallowed. However, she had an idea. Instead of bringing him to the green room she continued on to the orange room. There was a picture of an orangutan on the door with a cautionary note that the color treatment in this room was not without risks.

 The list was posted on the door for everyone to read. It was long, including wanting bananas at all hours, swinging from trees, and having delusions of grandeur. But Mr. Big was too lazy to read and in too much of a hurry to even look at the picture. He reached up for the employee’s private parts again but she was one step ahead of him and skipped away.

 “Why don’t you sit down and put your foot up here. This won’t take long at all. And if you wish, I can put a hot wrap around your head. It’ll feel wonderful and I’ll be through before the towel gets cold.”

 Mr. Big leaned back in the chair, put his foot up, and was soon sleeping. Layers of orange paint were applied to the nail and other parts of his anatomy (but no one ever said). He slept on until the paint was dry, dreaming of glory and riches. When he woke, he looked at his orange toe and started to yell,   “Green is the color of …” but was assured that that was old-fashioned.

 “Orange is the new color of riches and you look simply wonderful.”

 He had a moment of doubt until she assured him, “And this special makeover also makes you a stable genius.”

 It was enough to make him a very happy man and in gratitude he left without trying to pinch the makeover artist. He also didn’t pay for the service, which he thought was the first flowering of his genius.

MORAL: The first steps on the path of unrighteousness are often small.

- © Ken Kapp 2021

Ken was a Professor of Mathematics, a ceramicist, a welder, and an IBMer until downsized in 2000. He taught yoga until COVID-19 decided otherwise. He continues writing, living with his wife and beagle in Shorewood, Wisconsin. He enjoys chamber music and mysteries. He's a homebrewer and runs whitewater rivers.

Please visit www.kmkbooks.com.

New Poetry by Rachel Nolan

Pan-Tomb

Does grief transform? Into what? 

There is a controlling and condensing of language,

a welling-up,

a regurgitated mass.

There is a controlling and condensing of language 

indescribable and useless to us, 

a regurgitated mass 

of dead leaves and teeth 

indescribable and useless to us. 

No lesson was taught 

of dead leaves and teeth 

and then some kind of Something Else. 

No lesson was taught,

a welling-up 

and then some kind of Something Else. 

Does grief transform? Into what?

- © Rachel Nolan 2021

Rachel Nolan holds a BA in poetry from Hampshire College, edits for Green Writers Press, and is managing editor for Millennial Pulp Literary Magazine. Past accomplishments include being a finalist in jubilat’s Make a Chapbook Competition in 2017, as well as being a finalist for Heavy Feather’s Zachary Doss Friends in Letters Memorial Fellowship in 2020. Rachel’s work has most recently appeared in Tilde, Trouvaille Review, Second Chance Lit, and Beyond Words Literary Magazine, among others.

New Poetry by Kris Spencer

Some form of blocking 

Iggy Pop is in his clapboard bungalow  

in Little Haiti, Miami; 

he is talking about his paintings. 

to Sky Arts. 

On his sofa  

a pregnant woman 

carved in foam. 

He works on a canvas 

which might show a face; 

adding a stroke of acrylic, 

he steps away  

and smiles to the camera - 

nothing is slyly transposed. 

Then, filmed at a gallery show, 

he seems hurt 

when his paintings are 

bought as souvenirs. 

Another time, 

talking with Stefan Brüggemann, 

he says: 

You block the areas,  

and then you allow the rest to happen. 

- © Kris Spencer 2021

Kris Spencer has written seven books, most published by OUP. He is a regular contributor to magazines in a journalistic career that spans over 20 years. His poems have been published in a number of journals; most recently, Acumen and the Balloon Literary Journal. Kris is a Headteacher living and working in west London. He was born and grew up in a village outside Bolton. Previously, he has studied, worked and lived in Hull, Cincinnati, Oxford, and the Bailiwick of Jersey.

New Fiction by Nick Mann

Russia, 40’000 BP

Homo Deus

Cold hands burn in the winter chill…

— Lily Rose, Winter

 

 Snow crunches underfoot. Cold, painful. He must move quickly if he’s to see another sunrise. He breaks out into a sprint. Thick, muscular thighs, well developed from years of experience, pump hard. He sprints past a line of trees—too small—then sees a big one to his left. He scrambles up the fat trunk with ease, begins to climb the branches to put more distance between himself and it. He stands on a branch, leans back against the trunk, panting to get his breath back. It, a flash of grey fur and claw, races past the tree before realising he has disappeared. Confused, it wanders around, sniffing the air. A breeze of frost-wind blows through the branches and the man tightens his grip. His hands, rough, hairy, are bone-white. He can’t stay here for much longer, but he can’t get down just yet. The animal below stops meandering, cocks its head ever so slightly. A twitch of the ears and it’s off, back the way it came. The man sighs, waits until it is out of sight before climbing down.

 The man finds the river nearby. No more than a trickle, he treks up the valley, through the wet grass and snow-laden trees, until the trickle becomes a stream, until the stream becomes a river, until the river becomes a waterfall. Behind the waterfall, he finds his people again, safe and sheltered from the wet and cold. The smell of rotting flesh reeks from the far end of the cave where’s a scattering of dead creatures, some scaly, some furry, some small, some big, and a smattering of wood—branches, twigs, leaves—where a fire is yet to be lit. When his people see him again, a babble of noise bursts the silence. He embraces all of his men with big bear hugs, and then she comes to him. His woman: crystal blue eyes, thick black hair, small-breasted, tall. They touch foreheads for a moment, and he allows himself a moment to relax in her arms. Then they separate and he has to be strong again. Strong for his men, strong for himself. He goes to the back of the cave to get something to eat. Something small and slimy, with eyeballs bulging out of their sockets. He gulps down big chunks of meat, then picks the bones out of his teeth and throws them to the side.

 Night closes in. He gets up slowly, careful to not wake anyone, and tiptoes to the mouth of the cave. All around him, the snow on the trees and forest floor and the torrential waterfall glow in the moonlight. He looks up at that silver disk in the sky and shudders. He looks away from the moon to a clear patch of blackness, briefly grazed by two shooting stars. He sighs. He stays out here for a bit longer, contemplating the inexpressible beauty of nature before going back inside and huddling with his people.

 The next day, the men are up early. There’s a certain energy among them, animating their movements and lifting their tongues. They grab their spears from the back of the cave and then they’re out. Past the waterfall, they follow the water down, until the waterfall is a river, until the river is a stream is a trickle, past the trickle until it widens up into a river again and the river runs into a lake. The lake is big, too big to try walking across, but small enough to see the other side.

 Silence. The air is heavy with silence. Not a single animal can be seen, hidden among the snow-laden vegetation. One of the men motions for the others to stop. He points at the floor, ten feet ahead, and leads the group to it. A footprint. As big as his hand, with four toe marks. Looking up, they can see the rest of the track going backwards. They all share a look and he, the tribe leader, nods affirmative. They follow the tracks back through the bushes, around the lake and into the valley. The wind is biting and the sun hides behind a cloud. They are on the verge of giving up when they hear it: a low howl, somewhere distant. They follow the tracks further, losing and finding them in quick succession. They’re coming out of the forest when they see it: a grey furred creature, alone.

 The men break into a sprint; the creature sees them coming out of the corner of its eye. The tracker and the tribe leader lead the pack to surround the animal. It whips around, snarling and snapping at the men, feeling each sharp point dig into its fur, enraging it all the more. It jumps up onto its hind legs and lunges for the tracker, connects and takes his arm off. The thing shakes the man’s severed arm from side to side, spraying blood everywhere, and the man screams. He drops his spear and tries to cover his bloody stump with his other hand but it’s futile. He’s a dead man. The animal bears down on him, tears out his throat—and finds a spear in its own throat. The tribe leader grunts, pulls out his spear, blood running down the tip.

 Two other men put the animal over their shoulders, and then, with one last look at the tracker, already starting to freeze, they head back. Up the valley, around the lake, up the river, the stream, the trickle, the bottleneck, up and up until they come to the cave behind the waterfall. It’s a long journey, and they take turns carrying the animal every so often.

 

 When they enter the cave, the tracker’s woman looks for her man. Upon seeing him not there, she lets out a wail of grief. The tribe leader places an arm around her to comfort her but she pushes him away. She needs space, time. He too needs space. He is numb; his men are numb. They heave the animal onto the fire pit and crouch down, thinking about how to light the fire. The man, the tribe leader, still holding his spear, suddenly shouts and throws it down. His woman comes rushing to him, and he pushes her away. He staggers to the mouth of the cave, tears filling his eyes, and he opens his mouth let out the deepest, longest shout his people have ever heard. With all eyes on him, they don’t see the flame hidden in the kindling.

- © Nick Mann 2021

Nick Mann is currently studying Creative and Professional Writing and Film and Screen Media at St Mary’s University in Twickenham but is originally from Royal Wootton Bassett. As a writer, Nick is a jack-of-all-trades because as well as prose, he's written poetry, screenplays and adapted a short story into stage script. Nick also plans to write an original play at some point.

New Poetry by Melissa Chappell

Twenty Summers

Twenty summers have passed,

and the river’s memory stretches

warm on a boulder,

waiting for her lover

as I wait,

in the deep hold of winter,

a stone in my shoe,

bothersome boulder

where many 

burnished suns ago,

I excelled

in every way

in his eyes,

oceanic gray

watching me

stretch

above the waters

roiling

as every 

pool of remembrance is

in flames,

and I am warm,

restless beneath

the ice floes,

bereft of your body,

twenty summers gone,

twenty silvered stones,

twenty rivers reimagining

us

twenty times

again and again,

that I have lost you.

- © Melissa Chappell 2021

I am an author living in S:outh Carolina, USA. I have been published in Amethyst Review, Dreich Magazine, A New Ulster, BlazeVox, and Adelaide Literary Review. My latest publication was Doors Carelessly Left Ajar (Alien Buddha Press, 2020).  I was a Pushcart Prize nominee in 2019 and a Short LIst Nominee for the Adelaide 2021 LIterary Award. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my poetry. 

New Poetry by Milton P. Ehrlich

Beyond the Next Horizon

I’m entering the final decade of my life

and will wait for my next transformation.

I don’t plan to spend any more of my savings—

knowing my money could be enjoyed

by the extended family I leave behind.

And when my turn comes to leave,

I hope it surely happens as seamlessly

as getting on my warm winter jacket

and fitting my arms into the sleeves.

- © Milton P. Ehrlich 2021

Milton P. Ehrlich Ph.D. is an 89-year-old psychologist and a veteran of the Korean War. He has published poems in Poetry Review, The Antigonish Review, London Grip, Arc Poetry Magazine, Descant Literary Magazine, Wisconsin Review, Red Wheelbarrow, and the New York Times

New Poetry by Amy Bobeda

It’s called apheresis

it’s the thing–– 

I have a friend you should see in Santa Rosa

the doctor in the purple shirt says 

a blood cleanings without

crystals

on the windowsill

a $4000 dollar treatment

an appointment in a week

and if it works––

the language of medicine

once Greek

transposed Latin and English

to become a militarized

word

inventing scenarios

graphically understood

the 17th century

introduced: 

battle, enemy

and attack

declaring war against

nature

of the body

of the land

man’s attempt to 

disband 

fathers of Olympus

who

wared their own

- © Amy Bobeda 2021

Amy holds and MFA from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics where she founded Wisdom Body Collective, an artist collective rooted in the sacred feminine. Her work can be read in Humble Pie, Vol 1 Brooklyn, and elsewhere. @AmyBobeda on twitter. 

New Poetry by Karlo Sevilla

Rosary

Year One

The penance of one who looks for the disappeared

The penance of one who looks for the disappeared

Year Two

The penance of one who looks for the disappeared

The penance of one who looks for the disappeared

Year Three

- © Karlo Sevilla 2021

Karlo Sevilla of Quezon City, Philippines is the author of three poetry collections: “Metro Manila Mammal'' (Soma Publishing, 2018), “You” (Origami Poems Project, 2017), and “Outsourced!...” (Revolt Magazine, 2021). Recognized among The Best of Kitaab 2018 and twice nominated for the Best of the Net, his poems appear or are forthcoming in Philippines Graphic, Small Orange, DIAGRAM, Matter, Eunoia Review, Black Bough Poetry, Ariel Chart, Sanctuary, and elsewhere. 

New Poetry by M.J. Iuppa

Left Behind

                     ~ after Meindert Hobbema’s painting,

                                The Avenue at Middelharnis

Infinite— as you might imagine, the air

suddenly welcoming in a time where you

are unsure of each step on a wide dirt road,

gauging deep ruts made over time— mud’s

thick softening that hardens to shape stead-

fast into an emotion echoing the sound of

parting, that’s the wavering of slender trees

lining the avenue that holds up the clouds—

                                                  the clouds . . .

 never seem to disappear . . . do they?

- © M.J. Iuppa 2021

M.J. Iuppa’s fourth poetry collection is This Thirst (Kelsay Books, 2017). For the past 32 years, she has lived on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Check out her blog: mjiuppa.blogspot.com for her musings on writing, sustainability & life’s stew.

New Poetry by John Maurer

Individualized Reality

Shawn Carter taught me that nothing unreal exists

but that doesn't mean untruths aren't as ubiquitous

as drug dealers with sun-faded tribal tattoos

It's not a lie if you believe it

it's two lies if you convinced yourself to believe it

A lie for them and a lie for you

isn't this the contemporary template for a career?

Failure taught me to fear success

but not to stop chasing it

Hate taught me to fear love

but still, every day she wakes up and I tell her I adore her

If you like solving math problems, you aren't good at math

One must reserve themselves for the unsolvable

The zero too heavy to be carried over

I know I'm wrong as soon as I enjoy being right

- © John Maurer 2021

John Maurer is a 26-year-old writer from Pittsburgh who writes fiction, poetry, and everything in-between, but his work always strives to portray that what is true is beautiful. He has been previously published in Claudius Speaks, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Thought Catalog, and more than forty others. @JohnPMaurer (johnpmaurer.com)  

New Poetry by Kitty Jospé

After the Carnaval in Trinidad— Tabanka

I 

T o feel longing for what is no longer: In Trinidad they say tabanka:

A  yearning to be a wound’s nectar, but there's no flower.  Ask

B eauty to wind its silk, how it wants to be. What is known

A s quality ?  Watch how spirit dances, performs its aria.

N ourishing music that soothes.  What kind of dancing limb,

K arma, carried by wind, crafted by breath?  Pause in its comma,

A s this ache rises, like geese in winter, gone at sunset.

II

Some say longing can only fill with more

of itself—a yearning to be a wound’s nectar,

a sweet healing offered to bees so they may store

honey on the hive’s shelf.  We watch their

dance reeling, does it reveal some purpose,

like our desire—our soul’s unfolding—

this spirit dance we craft with wind, fire

of our breath?  It is winter, the ache in us

rising to join again a world, leave the frozen

edges like the geese rising from the break

in the ice to fly to warmer climes. Those chosen

make so smooth a splice indeed, you cannot

see the join. Nothing needed to get, what’s got:

but love of life, in self and others like hand in glove.

Note: “Tabanka” is particular to the culture of Carnival in Trinidad, and the feeling when it is over. 

Thus the acrostic in capital letters of Part 1.

- © Kitty Jospé 2021

Kitty Jospé loves the possibilities of language! After living and working in Europe, she delighted in teaching French (MA, NYU 1984).  Since 2008, midway in completing an MFA at Pacific University, OR, she delights in  moderating poetry appreciation discussions at two of the Rochester, NY Libraries.  Popular reader and speaker, she also has 6 books and appears in many anthologies and reviews such as The Ekphrastic Review, Atlanta Review, The Orchard Journal.

New Poetry by James Diaz

Poem in which my mother cuts off all her hair, 

asks for 150 dollars 

See this picture here

it's a wounded deer, it's a scoliosis ghost

sat in wheelchair 

under ER fluorescent light 

I swear I never came from there

but I did 

I did

it's her lamentation - I know - for her mother 

her sackcloth and ashes 

I imagine how she held the scissors 

until my father relented and took them in his hands

and cut it all away;

the pain

it's still there 

only the hair is gone

and her mother 

there's nothing sadder than knowing 

that you can't really fix any of this

how grief, like Samson’s strength, 

was never in the hair

it was just there

just there.

- © James Diaz 2021

James Diaz is the author of This Someone I Call Stranger (Indolent Books, 2018) and Poetic Disasters (forthcoming, Alien Buddha Press, 2021,) as well as the founding Editor of Anti-Heroin Chic. Their work has appeared most recently in Cobra Milk Mag, Bear Creek Gazette and Resurrection Mag. They live in a far too cold and snowy upstate New York, where they are waiting patiently for the Spring. 

New Poetry by Peter Magliocco

The Lady Diarist from Wales, Who Read the Poets as Washington Burned (1968)

Sometimes the spirit is left to crawl

with a lost dog in the streets,

bound to whatever unites the living

in life.

Even if it's the lowest common denominator,

even if it's the wind riffling

through caged beings

evolution has yet to define

in better shape, towards a better end:

whatever propels our particles

into the sea of human destiny.

She wrote these words in the library

of surrounding streets

before they were singed by fire & smoke.

Her personage modeled a helmet of hair,

with each ebony strand in alignment

compacting the infinite curls taking root.

As the black citizens roiled about

she sat writing on a tattered porch,

strewn with burnt-out cinders,

hardly noticing my M.P. jeep passing;

or seeing the olive drab troops either

who came to protect her building

from vandals near the White House.

Wood smolders best, she scribbled,

but please protect the cherry trees

& the flame of immortality

in Shelley's heart

today so far away.

- © Peter Magliocco 2021

Peter Magliocco writes from Las Vegas, Nevada, and has had poems published through the years in print and online publications. His latest poetry book is The Underground Movie Poems from Horror Sleaze Trash.

New Poetry by Michele Seminara

Embody

This body is not a temple but a vehicle 

for pleasure and pain.

This body is not a vehicle but 

a manifestation of pleasure and pain. 

Pleasure and pain are both sacred 

and profane revelations of body.

My body swimming in water is a mere drop in a body of water.

The body of water sometimes appears as a wave.

Wave and drop are only briefly appeared

by mind’s slippery karmic confluence. 

When I swim with you in this precious body of seawater,

we co-create. Later, when sense perceptions urge 

and attachments merge, we procreate.

Roused energies rise in steamy flesh 

and ahh into the other’s supple body.

Sometimes the ahh dives down like a fish and quickens into being. 

Three babies have anchored in my maternal cove:

nascent body/minds blooming in mine 

as I float like a yoke on the surface of 

this shimmering ocean’s grand dream. 

- © Michele Seminara 2021

Michele is a Sydney poet and mother of three and chief editor of literary mag Verity La.

New Poetry by John Johnson

Black and Blue

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.

No worse alarm than an impatient delivery man.

My eyes wide open let the sunlight in.

Like an old school darkroom, the film reel exposed.

The image now ruined.

My dreams interrupted.

Black and blue tones fade.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.

Stop banging!

Groggy, startled, half-dressed, and cold.

Jumping out of bed as quickly as I can.

The cold air of the bedroom slaps me.

Rocketing to the top of the stairs when it happens.

Wood staircase meet white tube socks.

BOUNCE, BOUNCE, BOUNCE.

Damn cold feet in the middle of the night.

Slippery as a sheet of ice, my feet fall out from under me,

Gravity cannot be defied.

SILENCE.

In a flash, I am flat on my back at the bottom of the stairs.

Surveying the damage--wondering what is broken.

The delivery man will have to wait.

All I see is black and blue.

The same colors

of my dreams.

- © John Johnson 2021

John Johnson is an author and entrepreneur from McLean, Virginia.  His recent poetry has been published in The Boston Literary Magazine, The Poet, and Sundial Magazine.

 

 

New Poetry by Louise McKenna

Leaf

Wait

let me pause like a comma

            to read the history of this leaf

                        a flyer swing-boating on a current of air

                        if I could catch it

                            hold it like this

                        up to the light

this yellowed papery message

is pin holed with stigmata

after a brief assignation

with a year of sorrows

and a red gum older than Australia

such unweighable loss has always been with us

            trees spending their currency

as the sun x rays each capillary

look up through

the silhouetted lungs of the tree

to the cracked blue pane

of sky

the only remedies

are our faithful roots,

the impossible apex of a

shoot

- © Louise McKenna 2021

Louise McKenna is an Adelaide poet. Her chapbook ‘The Martyrdom of Bees’ was published by Garron Press in 2016. She has been published in many journals, including ‘Cordite’ and ‘Meanjin.’ She is currently working on a second chapbook and is elated to have a working title at last.

New Poetry by David Adès

The Continuous Ephemeral 

 

Even though a multitude of poetry books — 

dog-eared, thumbed, hauled from place to place — 

 

stayed with me a good, long while 

 

and there were loves and friendships along the way, 

I possessed nothing that I sought or thought to possess, 

 

save for the thought of possession that, too, departed,  

 

another echo sounding in the vault of the dead, 

the lost, coins falling through the holes in my pockets. 

- © David Adès 2021

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 (extended into 2021 due to Covid) together with Michelle Cahill, Debbie Lim and Michelle Hamadache.

 

New Poetry by DAH

fragmented no. 34

when winter is a string of rain

between bone and skin  

between emptiness

in cold rivulets

this wet inventory stops

the sun from breathing   

there’s a young man sitting

on a porch

huddled up to a cigarette

, his expression : all of his

dreams defeated

, heavy eyes , as if sinking

the rain , a damaged lung asking

for breath : if only to sleep

when it rains

my hands are like cold fruit

covered in ice , the shivering

puddles at my feet

walking with heads lowered

a man and woman , as fragile

as pawns . the heart is like this

: every life is a riddle , riddled

with emotions

, the young man doesn’t know

what to think

, the man and woman tremble

, and the water , a mirror reflecting

their unbearable sorrow  

I avert my eyes , as if forbidden

to look at them

, or to assume their secrets

- © DAH 2021

DAH is a multiple Pushcart Prize and Best Of The Net nominee, and the author of nine books of poetry. DAH lives in Berkeley, California, where he is working on his tenth poetry collection, while simultaneously working on his first collection of short fiction.

New Poetry by John Grey

Between the Covers

To all who resent his comic books,

his only response is “Shazam.”

His parents look in on him from time to time,

shake their heads,

return to the business

of raising the rest of their children.

Meanwhile, his head is buried in Spiderman,

treating every frame with such reverence.

Or making eyes at Wonder Woman,

the glorious Amazon he is saving himself for.

He’s twenty-five but won’t look for a job.

As long as he gets his allowance,

he doesn’t need the money.

And, he figures, why be a Clark Kent

who’s just Clark Kent and nothing more.

He longs to fly

and have the strength of a hundred men.

Instead, he’s overweight

and still wets the bed.

He won’t be coming to your rescue

any time soon.

- © John Grey 2021

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Orbis, Dalhousie Review and Connecticut River Review. Latest book, “Leaves On Pages” is available through Amazon.

 

 

New Poetry by Robert Pegel

Sacred Space

My son’s room remains a shrine.

He died in his bed

and we don’t know why.

But I refuse to let his bed become the enemy.

I kneel and pray there nightly.

As if the words thought might bring him back

to lie in that bed and all will be right in the world again.

As I depart from the room after my nightly ritual,

I touch three pieces of clothing,

one at a time, that remain on his bed after four years.

One black t shirt he wore on our last vacation shortly before he died.

An oxford blue shirt he loved and wore in his last class picture.

And a little light brown teddy bear mini blanket

we searched for and found from when he was a toddler.

He used to rub the silk from the edge of the blanket

against his lips as he watched cartoons.

My mind relives the days of Calvin

from all three of those times.

Then I hit my heart twice

and give a peace sign to heaven salute.

It won’t bring him back.

But it brings back stages of his life

to my mind for an instant.

And for now, my mind is the only place left

where I can capture a moment in time.

- © Robert Pegel 2021

Robert Pegel is a father and husband whose only child, his son Calvin, died in his sleep four years ago.  Calvin was 16 and died of unknown causes.  Robert writes poetry to help process the unimaginable.  He hopes others will find inspiration in his writing which may help them cope with suffering they are experiencing.  Robert graduated from Columbia University where he majored in English.  He has only begun submitting his work recently.  He has been published in Down in the Dirt and The Unique Poetry Journal. 

 

New Poetry by Edward Raso

Fire Escape

The city, on fire, lies still to listen to the song of her sirens

and to the balcony serenades sung down,

remembering the war-cries she had once heard from atop the ash heap

by those breathing-in the dooming bones of the unknown,

just another layer in the anthropocene of a first responder.

How I've missed her warm glow, as I've faded here in the luxury of being

an outsider at times of tragedy

who will be heard from. Who will go? Who will come back and begin again?

I miss the quieting of her commotion as I fade to the tree frogs' haunted dollops

that pulsate through the suburban insect static.

The fire, uncitied, still lies to the happily red and ravished

through the fingerstuffed ears of those who give invitation 

to warm their frostbitten hearts, leaving only hospital waste and a little more

space—    

Another striped shroud is stripped and bleached and put back into circulation.

What is it you fear when you lie still and as lonely as a smoldering city 

silencing what (boozesexmoneylovefamily)

you've drawn up around yourself to muffle

the voice at the base of your skull that whispers the one thing

you never wanted to know, at every moment of your drawn up life.

Who else is there to pay what you owe?

- © Edward Raso 2021

Edward Raso's poetry has been published in The Mystic Blue Review and is forthcoming in RAW Journal of Arts. His fiction has been published in Causeway Lit as the winner of the 2016 award, eFiction Magazine, and Soft Cartel, among others. In music, he has written, performed on, mixed, produced and recorded over 15 platinum and gold albums. He lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, with his family.

New Poetry by Jean Bohuslav

protection

1          lips sneering

curling back on themselves

mean and ludicrous his steely smile

eeking soft bird sounds

cajoling a mother’s senses

     to her death

through the cat door

early morn

perfectly placed amongst christmas presents

beneath the spruce

not a feather disturbed

nor drop of blood

2          feeding five greedy mouths

every day

nested on a shed beam

just inside the door  

it wouldn’t be long before they’d

circle with the flock

over sheep paddocks

    to join the morning cooing

he was seen before    

     in hindsight

checking on their growth

and when just right

took them all

at morning light

that bloody hawk

 

3          a golden labrador in the top paddock

biting every sheep possible

    while the rifle was retrieved

they fled to the bottom flat

the shot rang through the valley

local farmers rang for news

they knew we’d been losing ewes

the young lad had been walking his lab

fronted

picked up his dog

tears rolling down his face

not realising he was standing on two legs

of our pet sheep raised by hand

and in lamb

she used to disappear and then turn up again

he said

- © Jean Bohuslav 2021

Jean Bohuslav lives  on the Surf Coast of Victoria, Australia.  She is interested in mindfulness and philosophy which some times influences her poems.  Her work can be found in Kissing Dynamite, Mad Swirl, Poetry On The Move, Tango Australis as well as Bluepepper.

New Poetry by Lewis Braham

Elegy for Walter Benjamin
 
For forty years we bore the words on our backs.
Carved into calfskin and carried them
step
            by
                    blistering
                                        step
through the desert.
Yet you lasted forty hours in the Pyrenees with a broken heart.
Timing everything—ten minutes walking, one rest—on your pocket watch.
Spent on an escarpment like an immolant to your briefcase.
“The manuscript is more important than I am.”
Lost.
Nothing but the planet will be anymore
because now we copy and paste.
Click Send.
If only we could you then or
Backspacebackspacebackspace over the whole debacle
Arendt: “One day earlier Benjamin would have got through without any trouble. Only on that particular day was the catastrophe possible.”
How absurd.
Benjamin, benoni, son of my pain.
The last zion out of Yakov and Rachel—or tried try to—too late.
Binyamin, spirit man, twenty-first century spook,
ectoplasmic love machine, alive in the multiplication of your texts.
These pulpy pilpul, digital doppelgangers reduced?
to zeroes and ones.

- © Lewis Braham 2021

Lewis Braham is a graduate of Brooklyn College's MFA program in creative writing. His work has appeared in the Ekphrastic Review, Tuck Magazine, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Reuters and Bloomberg.

New Poetry by Lisa Bledsoe

Below the Ancient Border Trees

In a low crease of mountain lies a seeping

palace of alchemy and decay. Here

there is severance, bloom and outrageous gift,

where Mystery sings her invitation:

Walk here with me, unhurried.

Wear boots you don’t mind getting soaked or foul

and carry a stout branch for balance in the mire.

Here your private hopes and furies are unjudged.

You are known, a confusion of roots, stinging vines, 

spoilage and color: orange and olive, deep stone

and umberleaf—all with the sweet breath of sky

above. Will you name your ruin and collapse

haunts of potential? What would it call for

but your own inpouring of immoderate love?

- © Lisa Bledsoe 2021

Watched by crows and friend to salamanders, Lisa Creech Bledsoe is a hiker, beekeeper, and writer living in the mountains of Western North Carolina. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of two full-length books of poetry, Appalachian Ground (2019), and Wolf Laundry (2020). She has new poems out or forthcoming in The Blue Mountain Review, American Writers Review, Sky Island Journal, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, Red Fez, and River Heron Review, among others.

New Poetry by Marilyn Humbert

Threshold

 

the day you died

no rustle or ripple fills the space

traps me

between strikes of the struck bell

in silence after the coda fades

stranded like a drip of dew in morning heat

a dust mote in pale-beam’s flicker

before stars turn on their blinking lights

a place darkness grinds me down

- Marilyn Humbert 2021

Marilyn Humbert is a Sydney poet.

New Poetry by Charlie Brice

Anniversary

Billy Collins’ poem, “Anniversary,”

tells of a baby being born on the day

someone dies such that the baby’s birthday

is always a commemoration of the dead

person’s life. Who died on my birthday,

June 7, 1950? I’m gonna crank up the

Google machine right now and check that out.

The only famous person I can find who died

on my birthday is Charles S. Howard, the millionaire

owner of the famous racehorse, Seabiscuit.

Oh for god’s sake! How humiliating.

Who has heard of Charles S. Howard?

He’s not famous, his horse is. Couldn’t have

some internationally known novelist or poet

have died on my birthday? A Nobel Laureate,

or even a famous acrobat or lion tamer, or possibly

an all-around world champion bronco rider?

What about a guy who, single handedly, pulled

twenty fellow marines out of quicksand in Korea

after one of his hands had been blown off

by a grenade so that he had, quite literally,

saved them single handedly? But no, the guy

with whom I celebrate every birthday never

did anything but own a horse.

Who the hell was Charles S. Howard anyway? I bet

he’d never ridden a horse. I bet he spent his time

drinking mint julips, smoking stinky cigars, and

reading the newspaper at his exclusive men’s club

while he sat in a red leather chair that made fart

noises every time he changed position.

Then again, who am I to whine that no one famous

died on my birthday? What will the person born

on my death day think about me?

Oh great, on the day I was born some obscure,

unknown, minor poet, not even a footnote

on Duotrope, some verbigerator obsessed with

nuns and death who, as an atheist, claimed

he had no soul and whose soul, therefore,

had nowhere to go, died on the day I was born.

Not only didn’t he own a famous racehorse,

he didn’t even possess a famous moose,

or turtle, or anteater.

 

I want to apologize now, before my demise,

to the poor bloke or lass who draws my death                                              

to commemorate on his or her birthday.

I’m sorry. Make a wish. Blow out the candles.

Live a good and decent life. 

- © Charlie Brice 2021

Charlie Brice is the winner of the 2020 Field Guide Magazine Poetry Contest and is the author of Flashcuts Out of Chaos (2016), Mnemosyne’s Hand (2018), An Accident of Blood (2019), and The Broad Grin of Eternity (forthcoming), all from WordTech Editions. His poetry has been nominated for the Best of Net Anthology and three times for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in The Atlanta Review, Chiron Review, Pangolin Review, The Sunlight Press, Sparks of Calliope, and elsewhere.

 

 

New Poetry by Stu Hatton

friday night sutra

 

Once the first-drink glow

subsides, you feel a slight pain

in your career.

                           If you seek not ‘small-talk’

but its opposite (whatever that may be),

where, & with whom, might you begin?

Do you find speaking becomes somewhat

possible?

                 And then to seek what: closure?

opening? or the petalled eye

of oblivion?

                     Are you yet another who sings

a love of borders, who’d suffer

any old flustered tale?

                                         Or if pressed

to name names, will you point the finger

at all the other pointing fingers, each aimed

at a different mugshot of the moon?

                                                                   As you stumble again

on the dim set of Night of the Introvert,

beware the low-hanging wisdom:

‘it is only a thought

that will trouble’.

- © Stu Hatton 2021

Stu Hatton lives and writes on unceded Dja Dja Wurrung country in Campbells Creek, Victoria. Recently his work has appeared in Burrow, Otoliths and Verity La. He is currently preparing his third poetry collection, entitled In the Not-too-distant Present.

Bluepepper returns 6th January 2021

Bluepepper will once again be open for submissions from Wednesday 6th January 2021. We trust by then you will all be rested and brimming with plenty of poetry with bite.