A Poem by Inna Dulchevsky

After Snow Fall

Snowflakes hug tree branches
with its restful sleep
may freeze my veins
                         you are not here
I will be gone
as if late winter's ice
touched by the sun's smile
leaves nothing but a vapor
ghost no one perceives

I fly on the flames of your tongue
you see nothing   but
stunning sparks
you feel nothing but
unbounded desire
like a playful child
who plays with fire
and burns my wings

                           my soul sings
starling in the spring
flying free in an
infinite presence
on the limitless air

vapor covers flame's ashes
molten snow floods the earth
streams all pain in nowhere
dries in the gust of butterfly wings
burns green leaves on tree
drinks the flower's nectar

Inna Dulchevsky spent her early school years in Belarus.  She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.  She was awarded the Frist Prize 2014 David B. Silver Poetry Competition.  Inna's work has been published in numerous anthologies, books and journals including Pyrokinection, Jellyfish Whispers, Napalm and Novocain, Petals in the Pan Anthology, Element(ary) My Dear Anthology, Happy Holidays! Anthology, book Lavender, The Cannon's Mouth, The Otter, New Poetry, Calliope Magazine, Calliope Magazine Anniversary Issue, Aquillrelle Anthology 4th annual Lummox Poetry Anthology, KNOT Magazine, Antheon, and is forthcoming in Secrets and Dreams Anthology.  Her interests include metaphysics, philosophy, meditation and yoga.  The light and expansion of consciousness through the connection with inner-self and nature are essential in the writing of her poetry.

Three Poems by April Salzano

Everyone But You

was in that room, in dream
or in form, counting
blessings like prayers.  The ghost
of a son, shadow of a childhood
spent flapping and blocking sounds,
each one the new worst offender.
I waited a lifetime for one
acknowledgement of fault.  None
was made or implied, though all eyes spoke
what you could not find strength to say.



You Took Me Years

to undo.  I never thought you would
be something I could say
I survived.  In truth,
I miss loving you less
than I miss loving who I was when we were
young, empty, full
of nothing but ideas
about who we would become.
That was certainty, those clear
days without nostalgia, before
we had anything to look back on,
before you ate our children whole,
licked your fingers.
Before you emptied
the picnic blanket
of crumbs, killed all the ants,
and blocked out what was
left of the sun.



What Happens When We

outgrow our old metaphors,
when they deconstruct,
return to original meanings
like they are naked,
standing, waiting to be clothed
by someone else?

April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania where she lives with her husband and two sons.  She is currently working on a memoir on raising a child with autism and several collections of poetry.  Her work has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Award and has appeared in journals such as Convergence, Ascent Aspirations, The Camel Saloon, Centrifugal Eye, Deadsnakes, Visceral Uterus, Salome, Poetry Quarterly, Writing Tomorrow and Rattle.  Her first chapbook, The Girl of My Dreams, is available from Dancing Girl Press.  The author serves as co-editor at Kind of a Hurricane Press.

A Poem by Bryan Crumpley

Where Rivers Flow

The ocean's waves rage and crash at their feet
The weather is cool, the wind is soft, and there are stars
The night reveals nebulas and sleeping giants
He questions the effects of stars on souls
She chews her nails

Love is stingy, like the placement of rainclouds
Between them there is desert
"Like California, I am dry," He says to her, shrugging, empty.
"Unlike California you have hoses and oceans and rivers and rain," She says.

The blood moon is here and the waves rise leaving nothing in tide pools
"Salvation is so deep down, I know I'll drown."
"You can swim."
"The undertow is too strong."
"So you will merely stand by the shore?"
He shrugs, "I am destined a desert."

"But look at Mars where rivers flow!" She says.
"In little streams and tributaries, barely visible!" He says.
"But there they are, patient and waiting, slowly eroding stone!"
The two stare into the heavens.

He has felt without rivers for longer than he can remember.
"Sometimes things just end, without purpose, without reason."
"And sometimes there's water on Mars, just waiting."

Bryan Crumpley is a Chicago writer and human person.  He is the cofounder and editor of Dali's Lovechild Literary Magazine.  Bryan likes stars and sunshine.  Bryan has been recently published in Crack the Spine and Johnny America.  More of his work can be found at bryancrumpley.org.

Three Poems by J.J. Campbell

playing in these fields

i can still remember
sitting on the porch

holding hands

sharing a cigarette

laughing

talking about our
children one day
playing in these
fields

the only time
in my life that
a future felt
like it was
even possible

you are married
to another woman
now

and any kids are
left in the towel
on the floor

not exactly the
future i thought
of on that old
porch

the kisses taste
somewhat bitter
in hindsight



come over and play house

sometimes the hate
bubbles up inside
of me

i look for your
beautiful face
to calm me down

but you left years
ago and i'm pretty
sure that means
you're not coming
back

walking alone in
a grocery store

wondering if any
of these lonely
women want to
come over and
play house

the demon always
looks for streaks
in the hair and
yoga pants

i tend to look for
stunning eyes and
a sophisticated brain

i would compromise
and settle for the
middle but

there is no
compromising
with the evil
inside of me



slowly going to hell

the last time
i kissed your
lips the world
was broken
and slowly
going to
hell

it's almost
like time
has stood
still ever
since

J.J. Campbell is stuck in suburbia slowly going insane.  He's been widely published over the years, most recently at Dead Snakes, Mad Swirl, Your One Phone Call, Horror Sleaze Trash and Misfit Magazine.  On most days, you can find J.J. bitching and moaning about things only he cares about on his highly entertaining blog, evil delights.  http://evildelights.blogspot.com

A Poem by Jimmy Pappas

Last Words

The message was brief:  She's dying.  She wants to see you.
In twenty years of marriage, nothing was ever that simple.
Even the divorce we both wanted turned into a thousand-
piece jigsaw puzzle.  Curiosity trumped all other feelings,
so I made the trip.  Her relatives greeted me with affection.
No one wanted to ruin the final wish of a dying woman.
They led me into the room where she had been propped up
on pillows while she waited for my arrival.  She looked like
Skeletor, a Masters of the Universe character our son
played with before he went through a windshield searching
for the dryad in the tree.  With all the guards having fled,
her skull planned its escape from prison.  It did its best Edward G.
Robinson imitation.  Nyaaah, try and stop me now ya lousy screw,
nyaaah.  Then she gave me one of her patented cliche smiles.
What the hell,.  I smiled back.  The others left so we could be
alone.  I sat down by her bedside, held her hand, and bent over
to whisper in her ear, I am going to piss on your grave.

Jimmy Pappas received an MA in English Literature from Rivier University.  His poems have been published  in such journals as Atticus Review, Dead Snakes, Kentucky Review, Cha:  An Asian Literary Journal, Off the Coast, Boston Literary Magazine, and War Literature and the Arts.  He is a recent first-prize winner of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire's National Contest.

Two Poems by Bea Garth

Sunlight

Sunlight crumbles
drifts like snow
everywhere we look
it is white
--the air cracks
flashing lights
cameras poised
click at our
singed eyebrows
knock kneed
we hurry off
to wash our hands
lather elbows
teeth gummed
from a sweet caress
--everything must froth:

fingernails shine beneath
their white halos
reveal pink moons,
ears buzz
from hydrogen peroxide
waste baskets careen
while your smile floats
a brilliant ghost
stairs dribble hot wax
coat your back
as they carry you down
and away
--the cold hits hard,
my hand reaches,
the sunlight cracks,
emptiness remains.



Apart

I felt your voice
whisper to me
causing the down
on my neck to rise
chilled then warmed
with pleasure.

Now I stand alone
facing this massive bed
heavy white knotted
like a white capped sea
bobbing, twisting
under the moonlight
--I crawl under a corner
and fall asleep.

It is this persistent unreality
that hurts when I see you
--a thousand nuances
sink and fray
sea tossed
in this rough no-time.
You look at your watch
and I set my own.
Salt-water mists
swirls about our legs,
congeals, pulls us
like peanut brittle
a sudden slap--the door shut--
our hearts hardening
there is nothing we can do
but break
apart.

Bea Garth is known for creating visually rich narrative poetry as well as for her unique visual art.  Early on Bea was influenced by her grandfather and great aunt's love of poetry and Asian art plus her parents' early occupation as archeologists.  She has been an extemporaneous poetry and arts organizer and editor off and on for many years in the San Jose, California area as well as Eugene, Oregon.  Currently she is president of Quicksilver Artists, a San Jose art and poetry group.  She is often found painting and writing in her studio with her cat Keiko or renovating houses as a property manager.  She will have her manuscript of poetry and drawings called, Eating the Peach, published sometime this next year by Blue Bone Books.  She has previously had poems and artwork published in a variety of small press magazines including The Song Is, Synchronized Chaos, Lake City Poets, Alchemy, Poetic Space, Denali, Coyote's Dance, The Other Paper, Writing for Our Lives, Caesura, Fresh Hot Bread, Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts, Sheffield Phoenix Press (cover for Where The Wild Ox Roam) and the poetry anthologies Elegant Stew, Women's Dreams/Women's Visions and Song of Los Gatos.  You can find examples of Bea's artwork and poetry at http://beagarth.com

Three Poems by Ken L. Jones

A Year Alone in Oz

Long Beach was a bowl of Chinese porridge
A storm of honeybees in my autumn parlor
Where my old quilt became a calligraphy brush
As I chased the seagulls and kissed her treasure right on its lips
And ours was indeed a most delicate merging
In the midst of those wispy one way streets
Back when there were still harps a'plenty
And more than enough angels to strum them
When 'ere they pleased
Until I looked for a summer that didn't yet exist as
I learned my own great expense
That eventually we all become artifacts
And that all of that happens much too fast
As decades crumble and cannon last
Till only chimera like memories of the past
Become a tunnel of love ride in a swan boat made for one
Smelling of stale dust motes and setting suns



Buyer's Remorse

Once long ago near the gilded splendor of secondhand book stores
The tide pools of Saturday night revealed blue steel waves
That were served up on toast and then sparkling without a map in hand
They settled on the deserted sunset thoroughfares of the origami like water
That was blooming with all that we didn't plan
Back when the pale moon hinted at free love
Back before I first became the shepherd of dinosaurs
Back when such darkness was but the prelude
That coiled in her "I will always love yous"
That eventually wilted since they were blurted out too freely
And therefore could not stand up to the price of purchase
Once they had been bought



A Tangle of Glances

The brambles and thorns of morning quivered like a koi fish
In that gentle dream of haystacks where she first made freckled love to me
That trembled like a painting of that dawning in the mirror of her hair
So like burnished gold and then while she gestured like a daguerreotype
Explaining how all this could not last because it was never meant to be
But still none of that matters anymore now that it's all devolved into summer repeats
But still I hear her voice so fetching in the secrets of its own dance moves
Where something struggled to make a baby that could never be
A 'borning because we had become imaginary in the acid rain much too soon



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.