A Poem by Donal Mahoney

Study in Fidelity

Breaking news:
Woman in a Cadillac
tries to run over
the husband
she claims is
a serial philanderer
and misses by inches.
She puts the car
in reverse
and roars over
another man
out for a walk
with his mistress.
the man dies
at the scene.
No word on whether
charges will be filed
or whether the widow
will testify on behalf
of the driver.
The women say
they're involved
in a long-term
relationship
both husbands
were aware of.
Details at ten.



Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.  His poetry and fiction have appeared in a number of print and online publications.

A Poem by Shaquana Adams

Signs

 

You were Chris McCandless, 

but I didn't like the wild.

It's far too unpredictable and consequently,

I've been stranded in rain's unforgiving storm.

But I wanted you, so I went anyway.

You were Jack Sparrow,

Fuck the Black Pearl, 

who knows what you were after...

I took my point hat,

stood by your side,

and drank to the pirates life.

You were Jack from Titanic

A few meetings and you were mine.

But we were from two different worlds...

“Where to miss?”

“To the stars.”

And we sank.

Shaquana Adams is a graduate of Francis Marion University. She has been published in several literary magazines and journals such as The Snow Island Review, The Bicycle Review, Dead Snakes, Twenty Something Press, and The World of Myth. Outside of poetry, she enjoys yoga, crocheting, and reading novels in her spare time

A Poem by Dawnell Harrison

Frosty Fingers

Your frosty fingers
on my warm face
reflected fragmented
shadows on my heart's bone.
My cold voice echoed
on heaven's hill as
transparent blue-white
icicles formed on my
back doorstep eaves.

Dawnell Harrison has been published in over 100 magazines and journals including The Endicott Review, The Journal, Fowl Feathered Review, Jellyfish Whispers, The Bitchin' Kitsch, Vox Poetica, The Tower Journal, Queen's Quarterly, and many others.  Also, she has had 4 books of poetry published through reputable publishers titled Voyager, The maverick posse, The love death, and The fire behind my eyes.  Furthermore, she possess a BA from The University of Washington.

A Poem by Theresa A. Cancro

Seething Blue

The turquoise of the Mediterranean
never clings to me.
It smiles, disappears
as I plunge hands in
like I plumbed your depths
but saw no reflection there.

Malocchio* watches now, 
unblinking on the side,
as I grip weathered oars.
Uneasy calm, a brusk wave
tosses my open heart,

buffets fishing boats --
black lies stare.

 

 

 

Theresa A. Cancro (Wilmington, Delaware, USA) writes poetry and fiction.  Some of her poetry has been published on online sites, including Three Line Poetry, Dead Snakes and A Handful of Stones. Her haiku has been accepted for publication in the December 2013 issue of A Hundred Gourds.

Two Poems by Dawnell Harrison

Thrashing

I was thrashing
my bones against
your heart in the icy
chill of December as
the white bursts
of snow numbed your
soul solid.
I did not reach out
to your broken hands
that could no longer
hold a thread of my
endangered longing.



Train Wreck

A squall of birds
bent down to see
the wildfire bellowing
near the train wreck
waiting to happen.
Above a blackened sky
I slept with empty dreams
as my mind crashed
against something
not called love.

Dawnell Harrison has been published in over 100 magazines and journals including The Endicott Review, The Journal, Fowl Feathered Review, Jellyfish Whispers, The Bitchin' Kitsch, Vox Poetica, The Tower Journal, Queen's Quarterly, and many others.  Also, she has had 4 books of poetry published through reputable publishers titled Voyager, The maverick posse, The love death, and The fire behind my eyes.  Furthermore, she possess a BA from The University of Washington.

A Poem by Dawnell Harrison

Fallen Away

What was soft inside me
has fallen away -
broken off like an icicle
from back doorstep eaves.
My heart lies within
but bleeds without.
The whispering of the stars
love the sky while the silky moon
bled white bursts of light.

Dawnell Harrison has been published in over 100 magazines and journals including The Endicott Review, The Journal, Fowl Feathered Review, Jellyfish Whispers, The Bitchin' Kitsch, Vox Poetica, The Tower Journal, Queen's Quarterly, and many others.  Also, she has had 4 books of poetry published through reputable publishers titled Voyager, The maverick posse, The love death, and The fire behind my eyes.  Furthermore, she possess a BA from The University of Washington.

Two Poems by Sarah Thursday

Lies To Tell My Body

 

My bones are steel-heavy

as I walk the days with it

Pores on my skin ache

weighted by an iron-core earth

pulling me towards her

Down, she says, lay with me

 

My eyes can't see clear

turn skull-bound, sinking

pregnant with memory

The fibers in my muscles

weep at their loss of it

motion, forward, direction

 

The nuclei in my cells

pull and push against-toward

refusing to agree with you

Everyday, they keep forgetting

why I can't just dial the number

or drive 23 miles northwest

 

My arms know the exit-curves

(like the length of your limbs)

my feet know how many steps

(like the edge of your sheets)

I don't need my eyes to guide me

my hands, they know where

 

But my heart knows to stay

in my honey-thick atmosphere

Lock the windows and doors

breath it in, long breaths

circulating it, the new oxygen

Lie to my body, if need be until

I don't need to remember why

 

 

 

Present Affirmations

 

I am almost ready

to be over this

I am almost ready

to see you clear

that you were never really

good enough for me

I am almost ready

to pick up the pieces

I set aside

connect those dots

to pull the curtains open

to rip off the bed sheets

flip all the light switches

call you on your bullshit

see you small

and entirely pathetic

this lost puppy

is finding a new home

so you can keep that

old bitch who returned

I will not be laying

outside your door

I am almost ready

to tell you I'm too busy

I don't have time for

this fucked up game

and I'm tossing out

all the possible scenarios

of your apology

of your seduction

of your returning

I'm done with it

I'm almost ready

I am.

 

 

 

Sarah Thursday was mostly raised in Long Beach, California.  She teaches 4th and 5th grade, is obsessed with music, and has only recently dove into poetry again. She has forthcoming or has been published in Stylus Magazine, The Long Beach Union (CSULB), The Atticus Review, Eunoia Review, East Jasmine Review, Yonic South, poeticdiversity, and a project called Please Judge: Short Stories Based on the Songs of Roky Erickson. She has also made five chapbooks over the years. Recently, she has become the editor of Cadence Collective: Long Beach Poets, almost by accident, but completely on purpose.

Announcing Kind of a Hurricane Press's First Annual Poetry Contest!

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE 2013 KIND OF A HURRICANE PRESS EDITOR'S CHOICE POETRY AWARD ARE NOW OPEN!

First Place Winner gets $200 (US)  Payable via PayPal

for more details check out the Kind of a Hurricane Press Editor's Choice Poetry Award Site:

http://editorschoiceaward.blogspot.com/

A Poem by Les Merton

Yesterday, Today and Last Summer

 

Their argument came out of shadows

so heated it left scorch marks,

notes of pain so well scored, yesterday’s

finale was their swan song.

 

Today, back in out-grown bedrooms,

childhood memorabilia is no consolation.

Once shared music plucks at heart-strings

their song played over and over…

 

last summer, shaded words filtered

the ultraviolet air as they sunbathed.

Long love-ins, tender words enhanced

by their song, in tune, marking time

 

letting their love bring them together.

 

 

 

 

At the age of seventeen, Les Merton was a film extra in Michael Winner’s film The System (USA The Girl Getters), the director advise him that if he wanted to write successfully, he should write about things he knew about and had experienced. Since that time Les Merton has had a lifetime of experiences, many of which provided inspiration for his writing.

 

He has 20 books to his credit and he has won numerous writing awards. His poetry has been published in magazines in the following countries: Algeria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Cornwall, Cyprus, Eire, England, Finland, Germany, India, Italy, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, USA. He also has had many poems published online and in anthologies.

During his writing career Les has also appear on: ITV’s That Sunday Night Show, BBC TV Spotlight News, and the following Radio Stations: BBC Radio Bristol, Duchy Hospital Radio, BBC Radio Cornwall, BBC Radio 4, Pirate FM, BBC Radio Five Live, Penwith Radio, St Austell Bay Radio, Redruth Community Radio and ABC Radio Canberra, Australia. He enjoys performing and has given readings all over the UK and in Ndola Zambia.

 

 

A Poem by Lance Sheridan

the visibility of the dance

she peeled back layers of his life and put them
in green jars with tarnished lids

sat them on faded, warped boards with rusted
nails and carpenter ants

left them forgotten on a porch where a broken
kitchen window awaits

a repair, where he once carved her initials in
a dying oak, birds no longer

nest for fear of falling; the corner of wood on
a swing brushes her footprints

in sand and a memory, her laughter painted
flowers and bees in flight

to hives in secret corners of forests; there,
they heard as they made love

warm breeze glided over nakedness and
lust, sun rays pushed aside

leaves to create shadows on moist soil,
her screams echoed

just like her passion for dance, more than
her passion for him

in ballet, in a pirouette, he tried to embrace
was jilted, dragged

himself into a bar and drank her away on
shots and dirty whiskey glasses

half stoned, sat in the back of a bus and
old seats; got off by a river

walked a bulkhead in acid rain and an
unshaven face; one foot

then one foot, into garbage and debris
hanging onto stagnant water

one less breath
one less breath…

Lance Sheridan—

Published writer—Bits and Pieces to Ponder/Self-Help/2002 

Published poet—Poet Interview on November 8, 2012 by a Salisbury University Journalism Major/Salisbury, MD; poem 'Night into Day/Goodnight Till the Morning Sun'/11-12/napalmandnovocain.blogspot; poem 'Night into Day/Goodnight Till the Morning Sun' has been accepted for inclusion in the 2012 Best of Anthology, Storm Cycle

blog—deadheadingpoet.wordpress.com; has received over 75,000 views since June 2012.

Three Poems by Christopher Hivner

One Morning, After it was Over

 

Stop asking me questions,

the lies will float

until dusk,

other worlds in other words.

The sun is shining

but it's still gloomy here,

the sun is shining

through the plastic over the windows

on the hand outstretched

touching the third finger

illuminating the ring.

Stop asking me questions, please,

I'm tired.        

 

 

 

Early Morning Gray

 

Twenty different trips

enclosed in a metal box,

close enough

to smell the soap

in your hair

and to steal a kiss

or a private touch.

Rolling down the highway

through tunnels

of early morning gray,

getting slapped open-handed

by the wind

to keep us awake.

Songs from the radio

play as backdrop

to our silly prattle

of a week alone

amidst 100,000 others

and love

in the time of youth

and revelations.

 

Easing into

the ocean city

with the sun's eyes

just opening,

each time

became rote,

until it

wasn't quite the same.

We talked the talk

and walked

hand in hand

not noticing

the sand shifting

beneath our feet.

 

At first,

it was swimming

in water that felt like a cocoon,

greeting each day

like Centurions,

making love

when the spirit moved

and floating

with the rhythm

of the time and place.

From the start

we suckled

to one another

feeding from

the same breast.

 

The fade began

as we tread

in water that

bit but never

drew blood.

We wouldn't

open our mouths

to talk about it

for fear

of swallowing

ourselves.

So we stayed out

drying up

in the sun,

letting our shades behind

to wander

the boardwalk.

 

Twenty trips

down the coast,

each one

meaning less

than the one before

and we're too lost

to figure out why.

In the end

there were no kisses

stolen or given,

the smell

of your hair

only left me longing

and the songs

on the radio played

to eat up

the empty space

between us.

  

 

 

Another Last Night

  

Drink down

the wine of the day

and let the thickness

coat your tongue,

a jacket for

a better night.

Now the moon

kisses your cheek,

a flirtation,

before dancing commences

along sidewalks

dirty for their art,

around buildings

that try to cut in,

and cross-town traffic

laughing into dangerous curves.

You're drunk

and lost

in a city

of drunks and losers,

trying to stop the sun

from rising

and the day

from calling you home.

Where are my friends

and that last bottle of wine

you wonder into sleep

as the taxi driver

starts your fare.

 

 

 

 

Christopher Hivner lives in Pennsylvania, usually writes while listening to music and enjoys an occasional cigar outside on a star-filled night. He has recently been published in Eye on Life Magazine, Dead Snakes and Illumen. A book of horror short stories, "The Spaces between Your Screams" was published by eTreasures Publishing. You can connect with him here: website, facebook, twitter: @your_screams, Goodreads.

A Poem by Jon Bennet

The Things

 

Between the two of us

you'd think

we'd leave less behind

but there are baskets

in the hallway

full of  phrases left in their wrapping

suppressed advice

compliments of course.

There was the time

I didn't tell you

that I loved you

and the time you didn't say

“I wish you’d die”

along with the fern and goldfish.

It doesn't matter now

in that hallway

with its

opposing doors

we each took one

and simply

walked away.

 

 

 

 

Jon Bennet has  also been published in Red Fez, Zygote in My Coffee, and others.

Two Poems by A.g. Synclair

I Was Just Thinking

 

it's better to write alone
in a dark room
with a full bottle
and a heavy chest

 

even when it’s all too much
the rain
the dark
the solitary thump of the heart

 

all of that
is better than suffering
her

 

because, clearly
she wanted me
dead

 

 

 

Aftermath

 

sitting all day

in a chair
banging out fragments of myself
the ones lodged in the bones
of a bird

failing victorious

 

 

 

A.g. Synclair is an unapologetic pessimist, rule breaker, and rebel without a clue. When he isn't editing The Montucky Review and serving on the editorial staff of The Bookends Review, he is drinking from glasses that are perpetually half empty and hiding from the sun, which is clearly trying to kill him. Despite being extensively published around the globe, he flies under the radar. Deftly.

 

Three Poems by M.J. Iuppa

Feeding a Fire

 

Wedged beneath a pile of papers

waiting to be burned, I

find rumpled sheet music

 

Words pressed against notes,

a tune like the sudden sweep

of snow in late March air . . .

 

A perfection of our labor that’s

difficult to give up, like this song’s

devotion as if anyone pays attention

 

Still nothing is the same and this

song’s refrain, wistful at best, not

love or blues, half-truths said

 

in low light, waiting for embers

to shift in the stove . . . 

I close my eyes, knowing

 

I will sing this without you

 

 

 

 

Household

 

Where can a blind man live

who is pursued by bees?

 

                      ~Neruda

 

Uncomfortable skin, incessant

itch to jump, to twitch, to hum

 

constant noise that gives him

hives–makes madness come

 

alive– a thousand wings fanning

figure eights until cells ignite

 

into fiery flight that burns

his eyes–tearless cries be-

 

come disguise, dodging

all that occupies his mind.

 

 

 

 

Temptation in Standard Time

 

A fish hook moon skims

a dark city sky, promising

to return morning

without being caught

 

in a corridor between lives,

tempting those who love

the stolen split-second kiss

to linger in the doorway

that’s damp with fallen leaves–

hard to forget, but

can’t be remembered

 

Who were you, really?

 

And I, in spite of

purity, claimed your

unexpected embrace

long enough

to let it go

 

 

 

 

M. J. Iuppa lives on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario.  Her most recent poems have appeared in Poetry East, The Chariton Review, Tar River Poetry, Blueline, The Prose Poem Project, and The Centrifugal Eye, among other publications.  Her most recent poetry chapbook is As the Crow Flies (Foothills Publishing, 2008), and her second full-length collection is Within Reach (Cherry Grove Collections, 2010).  Between Worlds, a prose chapbook, was published by Foothills Publishing in May 2013.  She is Writer-in-Residence and Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Minor program at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York.

A Poem by J.K. Durick

Custody

I’m not talking about the dog -- he stays,

Fetch was never my game anyway, but

I’m talking about the few dishes I brought,

Those things my grandmother left and

I brought along to play house, to play home,

There are the bookcases that fit the shape

Of rooms so well but are empty without me,

And there are a few other details I left:

My hours, my efforts, the things I thought,

And the things I assumed. I want my ghosts

To come along, to pack up all they can and

Follow me out to the car, down the road,

Follow me like the children we never had,

Children who now choose to live with me.

 

 

 

J. K. Durick is a writing teacher at the Community College of Vermont and an online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Decades Review, Jellyfish Whispers, Third Wednesday, and Up the River.

A Poem by Kelley White

Too late

 

you call

you remember a body

twenty-two years old

no visible scars

 

and I’d give you my heart

but in lives in a sausage

stuffed with anger and sewn

with despair

 

like a pit bull pup

it nuzzles and wheezes

for a hand on the muzzle

a pat on the back

 

you see

its hope-ugly visage

suspect the danger:

this one

might bite back

 

 

 

Pediatrician Kelley White worked in inner-city Philadelphia and now works in rural New Hampshire. Her poems have appeared in journals including Exquisite Corpse, Rattle and JAMA.  Her most recent books are TOXIC ENVIRONMENT (Boston Poet Press) and TWO BIRDS IN FLAME (Beech River Books.) She received a 2008 PCA grant.

 

A Poem by Abra Bertman

Smoke

 

When I gave you up I missed your fingers
like unfiltered cigarettes, brown as bourbon, long
as trains headed out of town. I kept seeing them move
 
the way some hammers move. Every day I reeled
my thoughts from the telephone, the cool receiver,
craving the short beige sounds you’d offer
before you pressed end. Air felt blank, just breathing.
 
I’m troubled by your music and the taste
of reverie, the hourly crackle of wild fire. Smoke
drifts west over miles of scorched sand.

 

 

 

Abra Bertman is a poet who lives and works in Amsterdam. Recent poems have appeared in Other Poetry, About Place Journal and the Midwest Literary Magazine. The poem "When the World Comes Home," the product of a long-standing collaboration with jazz pianist Franz VonChossy, appears in the liner notes of the CD of the same name.

A Poem by Shaquana Adams

To Cheating Ex Boyfriends

(inspired by Lucille Clifton)

 

I wish them endless nights of sadness and confusion,

I wish them the swirling internal pain of being cheated on,

I wish them bad headaches and loss of appetite,

I wish them a false hope of getting over it,

I wish them a weep-a-thon on a Monday and the last tissue.

 

Let them believe that they were right so that when they

have daughters, they will know that they were wrong.

 

 

 

Shaquana Adams is a graduate of Francis Marion University. Adams has been writing poetry since she was 12. She enjoys reading, crocheting, and yoga in her spare time.

A Poem by J.K. Durick

Moving Day

 

The movers will be here by eight

All the boxes are packed and piled

The furniture marked and labeled

Some go along, some into storage.

 

Now we walk through once more

Bedrooms, living room, and study

As if we might miss something

As if we had more to add to all this.

 

We have become these checklists

Inventories we can easily check off

This measure and weight of years

All that is left, worth bringing along.

 

There are times when things we have

Become more than possessions or symbols

They can speak to us, make claims on us

Become family pets, become our children.

 

We can call this, label it what we want

An end to one chapter and then the next

A door closing and a new one opening

A stage, a phase, just another passage.

 

We’ll leave behind the sounds we made

Our voices, the things we once said

The stories we told and lived through

Our familiar legends, our mythology.

 

And, we’ll leave behind all our ghosts

The ones that shadowed us, follow us

Even now through these empty rooms

Begging to go along or for us to stay.

 

The movers, we know, will be here soon

A truck on the lawn, a ramp up to the door

Emptying our house, rescuing what they can

As we look on and begin to understand.

 

 

 

J. K. Durick is a writing teacher at the Community College of Vermont and an online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Northern New England Review, Napalm and Novocaine, Third Wednesday, and Common Ground Review.

Two Poems by Martin Willitts, Jr.

Not Seeing Eye-to-Eye

  

Not seeing eye-to-eye, avoiding seeing

what is in front of us, when all we could see

was clear sailing. There is no boat in this story.

No oars to cling to. Only the drowining.

 

Not looking into the other’s eyes is a sign

of avoiding the obvious. What were we supposed to see?

The sign should have said: Danger ahead.

But we cruised as if the roads were speedways.

 

We ignored the turnoffs. We thought we knew

where we were going, and it did not matter

how we get there. We forgot to go together.

We could blame the maps. I could.

 

Now you are somewhere else. I got lost on my own.

I found another traveling companion.

When I look into her eyes, you are not hitchhiking.

 

 

 

After

   

No matter, burning darkness

or lack of indelible light, there are

always two kinds of unkind deaths.

Neither is silent restlessness,

nor noisy orchids.

 

This is echo and lack of echo,

guilty annexes

where heart refuses to listen.

Two dearth-whispers

from summoning.

 

Disorderly angels follow

banging soft gongs. What remains

is silence, sweltering silence.

Burnt once by loss, seared twice

by memory, flailed skin.

What goes away returns

lost in ruins.

 

 

 

Martin Willitts Jr has four full length poetry collections and over 20 chapbooks including recently, “Late All Night Sessions with Charlie “the Bird” Parker and the Members of Birdland, in Take-Three” (A Kind Of a Hurricane Press, ebook, 2013). His forthcoming poetry books include “Waiting For The Day To Open Its Wings” (UNBOUND Content, 2013), “Art Is the Impression of an Artist” (Edgar and Lenore's Publishing House, 2013), “City Of Tents” (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2013), "A Is for Aorta" (Seven Circles Press, e-book, 2013), "Swimming In the Ladle of Stars" (Kattywompus Press, 2013),  and he is the winner of the inaugural Wild Earth Poetry Contest for his full length collection “Searching For What Is Not There” (Hiraeth Press, 2013).

A Poem by Rick Hartwell

After the Talk

 

Morning’s first whiff, sun burnt pine,

Nostrils spiced and alert,

Better than fresh baked rolls.

 

Splashed water from pond fountain,

Syncopated waterfall backbeat,

Ears pricked to goldfish music.

 

Early breeze dislodges hair strands,

Whisked arm hairs tickle, tingle,

Water blowback chills her face.

 

Plucked and sucked dandelion stem,

Transports several decades,

Sweet as recalled childhood.

 

Mourning doves atop the ivied wall,

A third in the pine, shunned,

Sad laments from an empty bed.

 

 

 

Rick Hartwell is a retired middle school (remember the hormonally-challenged?) English teacher living in Moreno Valley, California. He believes in the succinct, that the small becomes large; and, like the Transcendentalists and William Blake, that the instant contains eternity. Given his “druthers,” if he’s not writing, Rick would rather still be tailing plywood in a mill in Oregon. He can be reached at rdhartwell@gmail.com.