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.