Due to personal issues this project and all others associated with Kind of a Hurricane Press are closed indefinitely.  All work that has already been published will remain live on the site.  All work that was accepted but has not been published is now released back to the author.  All print copies and issues will remain available through their current sales channels.

A Poem by Alan Walowitz

Endings Set Us Free

Call All County Vacuum
and they bring the big green truck
to clean up most everything--
fire, flood, petroleum spills--
but not this botched goodbye,
messy enough to qualify for special rates,
and oddly without the usual junk and detritus
that by rights we ought to be able to call on
to salve each I've-been-wronged,
or to look back on fondly one day
with a heartfelt but quizzical, why did I care?
as it's swept out with the old year's dust.

Let's take this drift into full estrangement
and make it work for us.
You could live a long time,
the Flying Dutchman of the cyber oceans,
everybody's BFF;
or here I am, patiently awaiting
the next Transit of Venus--
true, not due till next century,
but if I insist on seeing it, I'll have to hang on--
so what if I'll feel bad all the while,
crane my turkey neck to the sun
then go completely blind.

Alan Walowitz has been published various places on the web and off.  He's proud to be a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual, an Online Community Journal of Poetry, and is also happily employed as a teacher at Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY and St. John's University in his native borough of Queens.  Alan's chapbook, Exactly Like Love, will be published by Osedax Press in June.

Three Poems by Andrew M. Bowen

Exorcism

The world wears white tonight, the white of ghosts:
by snow, shivers, and sleet, I conjure you,
O Shannon Red, a drunken poem to toast
the fairest and the cruelest of my ghosts.

How strange to call your shade in winter's chill
when summer's dying heat caused hearts to stew
and summer sired your tawny hair, your will
of velvet iron, and eyes like sleepy rills.

But winter saw our passion's courses run.
At first I lit your eyes like sudden rays
gladden a sodden day; at last you shunned;
saw me a thug accused of murder one.

As winter's death signals the spring's first beat,
this conjure tolls the end of icebound days
for I will live, will not allow defeat
to deaden joy and sap my soul of heat.

Farewell, sweet spook:  if I had loved a host,
each one as lovely as a virgin coast
and richer than computer moguls' boasts,
still, Shannon, you would be my favorite ghost



Sonnet for Shannon 6

A naughty boy once taught a river to dive
and wed the night to birth an egg of gold;
whether he's good or bad, he is alive
and never stood a regiment so bold.
He launched a gleaming shaft straight through my heart
thus fanning endless desire for your caress
and should relentless fate dictate we part
his bow will plunge my soul in endless darkness.
I'm just a puppet on a golden string,
a flesh automaton without a hope,
enthralled by dreams of bliss and golden rings,
but I fear I'll hang from a dirty rope.
In wondrous beauty dawns the birth of love;
its death more dark than endless night above.




Finis (Or How Could You Treat Me This Way, Sweet Princess?)

Bounce up, plummet down,
my heart's ridden a bungee
cord, rejoicing we
might join, dreading the cold of
your outer void.  It failed to
shock that you chose him,
but silence wounds:  to learn it
from the Net, to know
you threw my heart away like
an unwanted basketball.

Andrew M. Bowen works as an insurance salesman in Bloomington, IN.  He has published 74 poems and recently submitted his first two novels for publication.  He is also an actor who has appeared in eight independent films, seven stage productions, and two radio teleplays.

A Poem by Phil Wood

After He Leaves for Walk

She closes the blinds.  Her mind's in grass
that's ankle deep, in need of sleep--
a goodbye wave unwraps the quiet,
replays those easy times beyond

the knotted ground where standing on
the creaking bridge they'd play with sticks
their childhood game.  His twisted twig
spinning towards a sandy bank

and comes to rest; hers skips
a crop of rock--its slender wood,
so sleek and dark, gliding the stream
to deeper pools as spiders thread

silence beneath the shade of pine.
All happiness is hoarded in webs.

Phil Wood works in a statistics office.  He enjoys working with numbers and words.  His writing can be found in various publications:  Sein und Werden, The Centrifugal Eye, Message in a Bottle, Streetcake Magazine, London Grip, The Open Mouse, Ink Sweat and Tears, The Angry Manifesto, Poet and Geek, The Stare's Nest, The Lampeter Review, The Screech Owl, The Recusant, DM du Jour, Three Drops from a Cauldron, Clear Poetry, The Fat Damsel, Dactylzine, Autumn Sky Poetry, Jellyfish Whispers, Noon Journal of the Short Poem.

Three Poems by Angelica Fuse

Sign of Parting

let this be our
sign of parting
black bird
I have long thought
about the words
I would say
but a slamming door
seems to suffice.



Interlocked

take your arm
off my socket
take your leg
off my thigh
take your tongue
pluck it back
into your mouth
do not come here
for solace
do not look here
for release.



Furious

a breeze blows
by
that becomes
a hurricane

a hurricane
goes to the root
tears up the tooth
throws over
the whole
damn mess.

Angelica Fuse is an unquiet voice, who has suddenly decided to write instead of just read the works of others.

Two Poems by anggo genorga

ex-profile

i call her from time to time
after a day's work usually
but it's not every day; she
doesn't know it's me on the
other line and all i tell her
is to transfer me to their IT
department adapting different
tone and even doing an accent
at some point.  she used to
recognize my voice right away
but time had already changed
that.  it's the best that i could do--
me calling her and her not knowing
it was me, keeping that peace of mind
she had sought for so long always
in check and unbothered.



the final chapter

being on the same page
               is not

being on the same page
               at all.

anggo genorga was born and raised in the Philippines and currently resides in Dubai moonlighting as a manager of a band called Wonder Woman's Electric Bra.  Recent writings can be found in Dead Snakes, Paper and Ink Zine, The Odd Magazine, Midnight Lane Boutique and Guide to Kulchur.  Also in Boston Poetry Magazine, Empty Mirror, Mad Swirl, Screech Owl and Silver Birch Press' Bukowski:  An Anthology of Poetry & Prose about Charles Bukowski and the book for benefit Verses Typhoon Yolanda:  A Storm of Filipino Poets by Meritage Press.  More writings at deviationcummeditation,wordpress.com

Three Poems by Natalie Crick

For You

This month her depression began.
He obsessed her.
She tied her heart with ribbon like a present,
Licking his fingers and kissing his feet.

Words failed her.
She breathed him in like a terrible secret,
A childless woman beneath the ivory moon.
But what about his eyes, his eyes, his eyes.

Walking in the Winter trees
Were his shadows in the fog.
He was innocent as a lamb.
Sleep, my Angel,

Deaf and dumb
As the drugged summer sun.
My Love,
I want you.



Sleepwalkers in Love

I keep thinking of you,
Making love to you.
She still had those dreams,
Stricken with night tremors
Like a child shaking in nightmare.

He did not come home last night.
Where were you?
He would go off into the woods,
Melting away into the black dark.
But, promise me, you cannot tell anyone else.

A friend of her died only yesterday.
She was so emotional with every breath.
Her thoughts lurched around inside her skull.
Oh Christ!  It is her again,
Drowning in the fields outside her window.

She was chalk white as a ghost girl.
A pale moth stared down from the roof
like an enormous bird
Risen from the dead.
Where did you go last night?

Insomniac.  The moth had the face of her husband.
They woke in a forest of black pine,
Naked as beautiful animals,
Waking in a daze as if it were years later,
All of the villagers old and grey and gone.

She was blank-brained as a doll or some birthday gift.
He would guard her like his heart.
They were in love.
But, you know what lies can do.
She turned to him in his sleep.



Fever Floats

Throw it away,
Syrup to somersaults.
Nothing has changed.  Night hangs
So low my eyes sing:
Tell me what you see in it.

I am a gift
Of teeth and blood and hair.
And now, crawling
Through shit,
I am begging you.

We could trick the tightrope,
And be swallowed whole,
Letting the stars mold and peel,
Or lick the cylinders, tears fall white.
The final act.

Natalie Crick has found delight in writing all of her life and first began writing when she was a very young girl.  Her poetry is influenced by melancholic confessional Women's poetry.  Her poetry has been published in a range of journals and magazines including Cannons Mouth, Cyphers, Ariadne's Thread, Carillon and National Poetry Anthology 2013.

Three Poems from Bryan Damien Nichols

Night Piece

    -- for Michelle

Our appetites like waxwings at a feast
Of mulberry trees--fraught with thirst and fruit:
Exertion's sweat was waterfall for tongue
And lip, and could be seen to grace the teeth.
What salty water made, our contrast crowned:
My marble-colored flesh paired with your bands
Of silky brown--a pivot here and there
On pastel sheets turned, by moisture, like hair,
A darker hue--and with a painter's hands.
What can you say when shadows now abound
When light should reign--and when time is so brief?
What can you say when love seems now unsung
Because it can't be called great?  Is it moot
To think of this?  Is there truly no feast?



For Michelle

I dreamt you as a rainbow amidst white,
Though I was in white, but awaiting you;
And you dreamt me as strands of onyx,
Scarlet, and sapphire twisting round you,
Like licorice round a marble statue.
And I understood
Your Love, waving by your grace.
And you understood me twisting round you.

We both live and Love, my Michelle.
So when you weep, I think of this
Doubly layered dream and wonder
Why you, so full and frank and alive,
Should dread what dreams may come,
Though they arrive through me,
Or through you.



The Meeting

     -- for Michelle

I culled you from the background:
From foamy forest green and lethargic yellow
You arose in bright blue and bright red,
Your eyes like lanterns of strange fire
Thrusting onyx into the air.

You culled me from the background:
I was one--one among many--
Staring at you.

Our first encounter was but appetite.
Our words like stupid symbols.
The handshake was a masquerade,
Seconds long.  And more masquerading
For many minutes.

Then something else happened.

Does life erupt this way?
Does fate reign this way?

It's as if a thousand arrows
Were shot by some drunk
And only one found its mark.

Bryan Damien Nichols was born in Houma, Louisiana, on August 30, 1978.  He earned a B.A., summa cum laude, in Philosophy from Baylor University, and a J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law.  He has practiced law both in Houston and in Texas' Rio Grande Valley.  Bryan currently lives in Los Fresnos, Texas, with his loving wife, Michelle.  Bryan is best known for the poetry he writes through his two heteronyms:  (1) Kjell Nykvist; and (2) Alexander Shacklebury.  These two heteronyms were featured in Bryan's debut poetry collection, Whispers From Within (Sarah Book Publishing).  In his new collection, by contrast, Bryan writes in his own name, and explores numerous themes and issues that are important to him personally.  Through his heteronyms, and in his own name, Bryan has been published in dozens of literary journals, ezines, magazines, and anthologies.

Three Poems by Linda M. Crate

a raven called karma

cut down to the bone
my feathers
stuck out of my shoulders
at weird angles as you
struck out
with your parallelograms
of rage and insincerity
seeking to destroy every fabric
of my being into the
same void that sings your name,
but you forgot that i am
like persephone
preferring peace but also knowing war;
i will burn you in the ashes of
your chaos--
once you witnessed my descent,
but now watch my
rise
burning through memories like bones
ripping out your fur the same way you did my feathers
without touching you at all
because my best revenge
is success.



you are your own noose

i offered you
my naked heart and soul
you saw neither
all you ever did was satisfy
your need,
but nothing was ever enough;
you were gone
far before you left me
i kept holding on
knowing that patience is a virtue
you killed me with all that
distance--
but when you came back to me
it was only to tell me that it was over
maybe it was something i knew
before you said it,
but i kept clinging to hope with all of my
talons insisting that we could
one day be one;
i think the more you didn't need me the more
my heart decided to love you--
it wasn't fair, it wasn't right
what you did;
but life is seldom fair or right yet i know one day
i will see you stumble and fall and i will be
on the ladder of success--
you will call my name,
and i will pause but for a moment before
leaving you to drown beneath
the waves of your own lust.



you never let me be me

i come alive
when i feel the memories
of you and i slip away
because i know
my heart is
healing,
and there are no harpy claws
needed on my part
to rip you to pieces
because karma
will hit you harder than i ever could;
let her have your liver
i never could
stand the taste--
your gilded cage doesn't taste
so sweet to me anymore
because my song
is for
everyone,
and i don't have to succumb to your
rage or whims anymore;
i can just fly wherever i want--
you tried to tame me,
but i am wild
don't need your instruction to be me
i've done it all my life.

Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville.  Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print.  Recently her two chapbooks, A Mermaid Crashing into Dawn (Fowlpox Press, June 2013) and Less Than a Man (The Camel Saloon, January 2014) were published.  Her fantasy novel, Blood & Magic, was published in March 2015.  The second novel of this series, Dragons & Magic, was published in October 2015.  Her poetry collection, Sing Your Own Song, is forthcoming through Barometric Pressures Authors' Series.

Three Poems from JD DeHart

D. Spare

He thought he was
the perfect man, just
wanted to help, a fine
being, strapping (and
that's not even a term
he ever used), but then

all the best plans
he could fit together
formed a blasting cap
and all he could watch
was the splintering.



Human Shaped Human

They mused about
their mismatch, how their
words often tried
to replace the other's,

How they could not
escape their own essential
ingredients anymore,

They were cartoon characters
with endless bubbles
of dialogue trying to overstep,
overshadow the other

So they had their cafe
ending, letting the sun set
on an empty park bench.



What a Hero He Was

Yes, he made promises
and pictured a mailbox
with their names on it,

yes, he made observations
and corrections, thought
himself a good father,

but the emblem on his chest
turned pale, too much washing,
I suppose,

his beacon in the sky
became cloudy, his efforts
muddy, and his cape

became another bunched
mess on the bedroom floor.



JD DeHart is a writer and teacher.  His chapbook, The Truth About Snails, is available on Amazon.

Three Poems by Rose Mary Boehm

Going Over Old Ground

It all happened so fast.  Before we knew
each other we'd said "yes" and many more
things we regretted.  Still, we meant them
at the time.  You were into peace and love,

and I earned the cash, desperately
trying to be hip with the young
crowd you pulled in.  I suppose the kids

didn't help.  You felt guilty, I washed
the nappies by hand.

Then, one day, you found the golden stone
and there were parties, designer clothes
and private schools.  You drunkenly buzzed
from flower to flower.
I got lost in your excesses.

Once the kids had left home, I was ready.
You took me to the harbor.  When my ship
pulled anchor and I saw you getting smaller
on that pier and in my heart, I wondered
where do good intentions go?



Spite

I pulled up my collar.
Discreet dark-blue scarf
wrapped around my mouth.
Dark glasses.

Right at the front.
Conspicuous
but for the camera.
Just another groupie.

Hundreds of years
after leaving this town
I had nothing better
to do than freeze
on this winter day in London,
outside my famous
ex's town house.
And there he was.
A common sound rose,
a sonorous sigh.

His new blonde trophy
tried to make herself visible.
He remained firm.
There could only be one
point of interest.

For a moment I thought
he had seen through my disguise.
For a moment I wanted
my camera to be a gun.



The Girl Without a Head Scarf

Amira left home.
Dumped her headscarf
somewhere between Tangiers and Marseille.

Marcel strutted.
Frigid Arab bitch,
he hissed to her denial.
Whispered secrets into her skin.

Amira had become voiceless,
adrift at a great distance from herself.

When he buried his need
deep insider her
in that room-by-the-hour,
no salvation was offered,
and none taken.
He stared at her with malice.
Amira exhaled
and was empty.



A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru.  Author of Tangents, a poetry collection published in the UK in 2010/2011, her work has been widely published in US poetry journals (online and print).  She was twice winner of the Goodreads monthly competition, and a new poetry collection is earmarked for publication in May/June in the US.

Three Poems by Ken L. Jones

The Poet's Revenge

The red cupid silhouette thumb tacked to our wall
Like the one I once had a child has a torn heart
Which will soon detach from its hand
But the roller disco break dancing gangsta'
In Michael Jackson's Bad is the greatest thing I ever saw
On my TV since Topo Gigigo first kissed Ed Sullivan
And the long hungered after onion rings
Being cooked in our black skillet in forbidden oil
Will complement the almost raw steak with which it will be served
Yet I am still overcome with emotions painted by hand
That are as evolved as any amphibian
As I become lost once again
In her eyes that were wider than the blossoms of orange trees
And were bluer than the bluest willow china
That ever appeared upon this earth
As I walked with her down a prim avenue
Teeming with miniature dolls where her message of love
Was my afternoon rum and I need none other besides it
On the island's north shore that like sugar dissolved
But soon after she abandoned me to a shelf in the local discount store
Someone who thought I was something else
Soon took charge of me for a well intentioned makeover
But no matter how hard I tried to fake being what this wonderful woman wanted
It was a festering mistake and when I finally burst free after many a spring
She was repulsed by my talents and said that they were trivial things
And so now as I listen to the night's musicianship
And I long beyond longing to cross o're to it
But lack the surrender which would accomplish this
Still I want to say that I am unshaken
In my belief in true love even after this Valentine's Day
That screamed with bared teeth
From inside of the mouth which once gave me such peace
But then I can't give what I don't have and neither can she
But oh how I wish she would stop shrieking like some banshee
About things that never were and can never be
Perhaps in this reality or any other



I Reveal

When I needed something to begin to thaw
She had empathy for my yen to experience the rosy tint of dreamland
And then as she smiled like Gone With The Wind
She wasn't afraid to flash forward in that November
That was like ghost peppers growing
In the intense sunlight of the waterfalls of Jupiter
And all was still and fine until we met Loki on the Yellow Brick Road
On that midnight that was as hazy as a painting by Basquiat
As our love once so constant became like swirling wine
Pregnant with the first born of nothing happened
Back during those skyscraping years in flux
Just before my journey into all that mutates
Cast me adrift upon this mummified sea
That ends in one blind alleyway after another



And Shrink

I want to live in the past there is no future
The present reeks like a war zone
That can no longer breathe
And our long lost love is a frozen goddess
Tucked in a wicker basket full of dead sunsets
Where once we were star crossed lovers
Who went to see The Stones
But these days we know
Only the questionable delight of being rusty machines
Now that we live together alone



For the past thirty-five years Ken L. Jones has been a professionally published author who has done everything from writing Donald Duck Comic books to creating things for Freddy Krueger to say in some of his movies.  In the last six years he has concentrated on his lifelong ambition of becoming a published poet and he has published widely in all genres of that discipline in books, online, in chapbooks and in several solo collections of poetry.  

Two Poems by Renata Connors

I Wish You Loved Me

Pitch dark, icy, indifferent sunrays
spread on my back
and through the window
your hand lay on the floor,
warm, firm, loving.

Don't hurry cloud,
wait a little,
give me a chance
to step on it.



I Can't Think of a More Attractive River

You've walked through me
like a ghost of pain
leaving heavy grey sludge
in your wake
and awake I am, all night,
until the narrow hour
between the dog and the wolf,
the weakest hour of the night,
darkness gone,
light yet to come

I'm desperately trying to suck the balm out of one word
but receive the strings of a hundred treadmill thoughts.
Pinned to the center of the flutter wheel
I'm holding anger like a crucifix
and I wish the stream
that makes it all go round and round
was called Lethe.
I'd drop everything, I'd let go,
the water would have it,
the water would swallow me,
I'd sleep.

Renata Connors is a poet and songwriter based in Tynemouth, Tyne & Wear.  Her poems were published in an online poetry magazine The Fat Damsel.  She has performed her poetry and songs at many different venues around the North East.

Three Poems by Ken L. Jones

No Admittance

My mission in life was her rosy cheeks
As she looked into her freckled mirror
In the motel that was in her stomach
Where I once stared at the ceiling of a racy novel
During that lost time that was her last child
Back when she was still the queen bee
Of the diamond brilliance of each breath that she took
Until I gravitated towards the eerie green tomatoes
That were the same color as her eyes
And lost forever her cinnamon laughter
So neurological and repeating
And yet still all of that is a thing with wings
Even now in the donation bins and the garage rafters
That are my late night sleeplessness
And oh how I long for any kind of freeing sensation
But my thoughts are like a needle getting picked up off of a record player
Near a motion sensitive river that is in an early freeze
Where I wish oh how I wish that I would have had it in me
To bow down low and surrender to her bliss



Remove the Paint

In years back whose flesh was bright red
There was something freeing about our untrapped appetites
That put fresh batteries in my brain
Every time we suddenly she our clothes
But now I am frostier than ever
As I groan for you in this bed made of lumps of coal
Remembering how we went back and forth from one body to another
Until whatever else there was to learn
Became the boundary that separates so many rivers
Even as it freezes them to their very cores



It Doesn't Take Long for the Gold to Come Off

Long ago when I first got lost in the crimson brokenness of the Beatles
I met a woman whose room was lit with sweat and her perfume
Her blue eyes were a mismatched tea set
Her old children's books were her pet cats
Purchased after she explored Mary Shelly's lumbering old antique shop
One day because of a rainstorm on an island of molasses
Like boundless beauty that I sing of now
Like a Roswell guitarist in a faraday cage without ears
Since I am no longer a farmer of revelations
But what does it really matter now that all of that chips and rusts away
And my Mona Lisa has become a Sapphic dreamer
But still I can't forget our first time together
But like the most effective of narcotics
That is something that I long for
But that will never again to me get prescribed
In the Martian opera that is my old age that I can barely hear
In the sad, sad hours of midnight
That holds me like a spider's web above these aborted fetal tides




For the past thirty-five years Ken L. Jones has been a professionally published author who has done everything from writing Donald Duck Comic books to creating things for Freddy Krueger to say in some of his movies.  In the last six years he has concentrated on his lifelong ambition of becoming a published poet and he has published widely in all genres of that discipline in books, online, in chapbooks and in several solo collections of poetry.  

Three Poems by J.J. Campbell

certain scars

lost loves finding
each other after
many years

many, many nights
of he said she said

and other bundles
of bullshit

yet a smile

a hug

a gentle kiss on the
cheek erases so much

except for the burning
pit in my stomach that
will always remember
you as that bitch there

certain scars never
heal

no matter what
medicine or god
you believe in



the bitter pills of life

i close my eyes each
night knowing there's
a likely chance i will
never get to fall in
love again

and the more that
sinks in the easier
it is to swallow the
bitter pills of life

i keep hoping to be
wrong but i stopped
believing in miracles
when i was a child

one day i'll close my
eyes and be granted
the wish of never
opening them again

now there's something
to look forward to



smothered with what could have been

your soft
lips and
my cynical
eyes

i suppose i
can look at
the past and
be happy i
got to
experience
those
women
at all

or i could
think back
and be
smothered
with what
could have
been

as i fumble
through old
letters and
articles of
clothing

while
finishing
off another
bottle of
wine

J.J. Campbell is old enough to know better.  He's currently trapped in suburbia, watching his mental health erode.  He's been widely published over the years, most recently at Pyrokinection, Horror Sleaze Trash, Mad Swirl, BoySlut and Dead Snakes.  You can find him each day on his highly entertaining blog, evil delights.  http://evildelights.blogspot.com

Three Poems by H. Edgar Hix

Hebetic Reunion
(for Ellen)

when i heard you'd gotten married
someone inside me died 20 years ago

it seems the 18 year old is in the 38 years old
like a layer of gravel in the ground

or a ring in a tree that records the winter was mild
but the spring was plagued by hard frosts



My Bed

Soft fortress
offering protection from
dragons of thought
black knights of fear,
wizards of summoning
things bright and dangerous.

Focus of my night light:
mini spotlight on
a sheet too clean
for too long; X-rated stage
for G-rated plays.

The place marked "You Are Here"
on the map on the wall of my life;
just off shore from my water bottle.



Now We Have

I knew her when those eyes were fourteen
(and mine sixteen).

Our faces have been sculpted by the chisels of adolescence
and painted darker by the white sable brushes of marriage.

I knew her when those lips were red with cherry ice cream
I bought her when my date canceled one Saturday night.

Now we have blue veins in our wrists
shaped like lightning bolts.

I knew her when our hands were sticky with stolen sweets,
when our feet were bright, clicking on hardwood floors;

before our faces found their lines,
before we heard the slow thunder.

H.Edgar Hix lives with his wife, seven cats, one dog, and numerous collections in a little white house in south Minneapolis.  He hopes his writing will live many places with many people.  Recent poetry has appeared in Time of Singing, Mutuality, Pyrokinection, One Sentence Poems, and Right Hand Pointing.

Three Poems by A.J. Huffman

I Dreamed I Was a Seal

and you were a shark,
predatory and prepared
to attack.  I knowingly dove
into your ocean, baiting your teeth.
Neither of us was surprised
when our subsequent contact
turned both our worlds red.



Because There Were Things Missing

Seven sleeping capsules.

His keys.

My heart.  Failure

is what happens outside

the dark.

Pieces of Heat

In this growing, moving softness,

you are a valium.  I swallow

without thought.  You handle like liquid,

coating my mouth in repressed desire.

Like a prism of memory, you tickle,

and I choke on my own

desperation.  Together we have become

a prison of blindness.  No bed remains

unstained by our regret.

A.J. Huffman has published twelve solo chapbooks and one joint chapbook through various small presses.  Her new poetry collections, Another Blood Jet (Eldritch Press), A Few Bullets Short of Home (mgv2>publishing), Butchery of the Innocent (Scars Publications), Degeneration (Pink Girl Ink) and A Bizarre Burning of Bees (Transcendent Zero Press) are now available from their respective publishers and amazon.com.  She is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a two-time Best of Net nominee, and has published over 2400 poems in various national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, Bone Orchard, EgoPHobia, and Kritya.  She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press.  www.kindofahurricanepress.com.

Three Poems by Joanna M. Weston

Expectant

chained to my chair
I wait for words
to rise from the table
adjectives I can eat
to digest separation

I fly action outward
pile nouns before me
while verbs circle
pulling the ache
of your absence
into my mouth



That Dancing Time

you and I shared
so many silences

those of dawn before
birds broke darkness

mid-morning as we
headed into work

hours dreaming
of where we'd been

where we might be going
before love spoke again

we lulled the evening
into long farewells

and forgot the months
of dancing hearts



Heard by Night

    1st line from Thomas James' Going Back

yes, I have known something of the dark you speak of
sentences vibrating through a distant night

an impenetrable conversation of verbs
the last cocktail party before we left

spectral discussions even as midnight chimes
opening the door to a blank looking-glass

or a confusion of absolutes on the phone
texting foreign languages by candlelight

moments of romance at the winter solstice
words tossed like stars to cover embarrassment

hold darkness as the perfection of love
nothing can be said when all is done

Joanna M. Weston is married, has two cats, multiple spiders, a herd of deer, and two derelict hen houses.  Her middle reader, Frame and The McGuire, was published by Tradewind Books, and her poetry book, A Summer Father, was published by Frontenac House of Calgary.  Her eBooks can be found at her blog:  http://www.1960willowtree.wordpress.com/

A Poem by Margaret Holbrook

We Had Nothing

We had nothing, so much
of it that we could
hold it in our hands,
let it slip through our fingers
fine as gold,
weightless, abundant.
We had so much
saving everything we had
for a rainy day, hoping
it wouldn't come,
it didn't.

We got through,
found ourselves in a
better situation, less
nothing, more of something
tangible.
We saved and saved and saved.
Anything we wanted
was ours, yours and mine.
We set some aside for a rainy day,
hoping it wouldn't come,
it didn't.

We got through, we were
on our feet,
everything we wanted
more than we needed.
Too much to hold in our
hands, too heavy to slip
through our fingers.
We knew the rainy day
must come,
it did.

A deluge swept all of it
from under our feet, took
the whole lot from us,
left us with nothing, except
each other, shop-soiled
goods left on the shelf
after all else has
been taken.

Do you remember when
we had nothing?

Margaret Holbrook is a writer of plays, poetry and fiction.  She lives in Cheshire, UK and has had her work published in several anthologies, most recently Schooldays published by Paper Swan Press, and in the following magazines, Orbis, SLO, The Dawntreader, The Journal, The SHOp, Reflections, Areopagus, the caterpillar, and online in, The Poetry Shed, Jellyfish Whispers and Napalm and Novocain.  Her first poetry collection, Hobby Horses Will Dance, was published in 2014.  Margaret leads the Creative Writing Workshop for Chapel Arts in Chapel en le Frith, Derbyshire.

A Poem by Joseph K. Wells

My Time With You

Your presence
is like a gentle perfume

nestled in the grooves
of the crooked fate lines
on my palms

that evaporates
into thin air
as I struggle to stop it
in my clamped fists

and am left with
two tired, sweaty
hands.

Empty . . .

Joseph K. Wells earns his livelihood as a businessman, occupational therapist and adjunct professor.  He was also paid for being a special police officer for a week.  He has been published but has not been paid for his poetry yet.