A Poem by Iain Macdonald

Already Broken

As soon as my elbow grazed
the wineglass left carelessly close
to the counter's edge, I was
already reaching for the broom,
knowing that was all she wrote.

Somewhere in the final years,
long after we'd given up
on trying to find the perfect gift,
you came home from a yard sale
with four glass goblets, each one
large enough to hold a good
half-bottle of Sonoma red.

I loved them on sight, while you
grew to loathe that love.
Now, only two remain, and
as I sweep up sharp-edged
shards from the linoleum floor
of my single-room apartment,
I imagine that I hear you laugh.
Sympathetically, I hope.
Enough's been spilled already;
no need for malice now.
Whatever we think we have,
we come to learn, will not endure.

Born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland, Iain Macdonald currently lives in Arcata, California.  He has earned his bread and beer in various ways, from flower picker to factory hand, merchant marine officer to high school teacher.  His chapbooks, Plotting the Course and Transit Report are published by March Street Press.  A third chapbook, The Wrecker's Yard, has been accepted for publication by Kattywompus Press.

A Poem by Deborah Cole

Shopping for One

Went to the store
like I always do,
walked right by those pies.
No, stopped, considered--
lemon meringue, cherry, apple,
all stacked neatly there.
Then walked on.
You won't be there to
eat them.
Went home with a
lighter bag, heavy heart.
Hope someone will
buy those pies
so they won't be left alone.

Deborah Cole is a psychologist and does counseling and coaching with adults and adolescents.  She resides in Massachusetts, where she has had a private practice of psychology for over 30 years.  Writing is her avocation and she has a special interest in poetry that expresses aspects of everyday human emotions.

A Poem by Rick Hartwell

She's Gone Again

Just visiting this time
Maybe
So I expect her back
Maybe
But lonely for all that

House echoes are different
With too few bodies in bed



Night Reversal

Used to being counted among
prowling people of the night,
somehow my circadian rhythm
reversed polarity over years.

Now I break day differently,
greeting each dawn graciously,
rather than defiantly cursing
threads of light and noise.

Bubbling gurgles of runoff,
well-kept sprinklered lawns,
more soothing now than
soft swirls of soiled toilets,
dispelling smell and stain,
vomit and alcohol diarrhea.

In past serving as beds and comfort,
depending on one's point of view,
gutters now are salutary, rather than
discriminatory, liquid sounds melodic
counterpoint to early morning traffic.

Other dawn breakers now curse the sun,
longing for dark, hiding desires of the night;
secretly I know best who's better off,
being no longer hunter or prey, but
just another member of the dawn patrol.

Rick Hartwell is a retired middle school English teacher living in Southern 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. 

A Poem by Liz Egan

When He Leaves You

I.

When he leaves you, he will say, "It's not you, it's me."  He will say it is all his fault.  He will say
he has changed, there's nothing you can do, things are not the same anymore.  He will say he
knows it hurts you now but this will make you happy later.

                                                    (You will say, out loud, "Can we please just talk about this?")

                                                                      He will say his mind is made up.  He will say he still
                                                                      loves you.  He will say I hope we can still be friends.

II.

When he leaves you, he will say, "Of course it's you, you crazy bitch!"  He will say it is all your
fault.  He will say you changed.  He will say you are not the girl he married.

                                (You will say, to yourself, "Well, no.  Mostly because I am no longer a girl.")

                                            He will say none of his friends ever liked you.  He will say you were
                                                            a mistake.  He will say he doesn't love you, not anymore.

                                                                  He will say he is keeping the television, by the way.
                                            He will say don't call me.  He will say I don't want to see you again.

                                                                                                                                         Ever.

III.

When he leaves you, he will say nothing.  No explanation, no reason why.  When you scream
and cry and thrash on the ground shouting, "Just talk to me!" he will only blink and say, "I
don't know what you want me to say."  He will be gone by the time you come home from the
grocery store, arms loaded with the apple juice and Little Debbie snacks and rack of lamb you
know he loves.  He will leave you in the bed that smells like him, alone in a hurricane with the
wind rattling the windows and a leak sprung overhead.



Liz Egan holds an MFA in fiction writing from George Mason University.  Her writing has been published in ink & coda and Sliced Bread.  She teaches writing and directs the writing center at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi.

A Poem by Paul Tristram

A Naive Trap for Love-Sick Souls

She unclasped the ornate
silver Celtic chain
from around her neck
and held up the little
coffin shaped locket
to my ear and I listened
at the little hinge upon the side
just like to the sea inside a shell
as she had instructed.

"It's faint but I can hear them.
It's like being in a back bedroom
of a terraced house late at night
when it's perfectly quiet outside
then hearing someone groaning
loudly in every consecutive house
all down the side of your road.
How fascinating and remarkable,
will you show me how it's done?"

"In its native tongue it is called
'a naive trap for love-sick souls'
Yes, I will show you soon enough
just be patient while I finish tiring
of our present moments together!"


Seven Severely Severed Sentiments

I was going to write an intricate essay,
bringing into play
both the weight of rumours
and the coldness of known fact.
Woven intelligently and skillfully
with outside influences; the weather,
the privatization of both
British Rain and Royal Mail,
morning hangovers and other general
irritabilities, curses and daily obstacles.
Interjected with sarcastic humour
and peppered with cold-blooded horror.
Segment the entire lot into seven meaty parts
to later psycho-analyse, point fingers at,
tar and feather, flog publically
and use as some form of insane evidence
for a horrible-yet to be decided-future date!
But what is the point, really?
When I simply just do not like you anymore
and it is all your fault not mine, sunshine.



Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems, short stories, sketches and photography published in many publications around the world, he yearns to tattoo porcelain bridesmaids instead of digging empty graves for innocence at midnight, this too may pass, yet.

A Poem by Ken L. Jones

Shared Memories

The warbling birds left plenty unsaid during the hours
That wilted in the winter sun on that icy beach
That cooed sweet nothings that were never meant for me
But unknown to the world of many sizes
I was born and raised in life on the moon
And even though my existence has been
Far from a pool of honey at least I always had you
You never exactly left
Even if you weren't always there for me
And if sometimes you filled me with regrets
Still you are here
Something you've always told me counts for everything in the end
And so for that I will have to take your work
I wanted all of this to be much more than that
But perhaps that's neither of our faults but is the very nature
Of this mortal world where little that's good or right ever gets done
And when it does it's at the highest of prices and is very little fun
Which explains why at the end of most people's lives
The smart ones always seek elsewhere than here when they search for paradise

For the past thirty-five plus 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 his poetry.  This volume held a great allure for him as he has long been an aficionado of such places of chance and fun.  His earliest memory almost six decades ago was of the well-known The Pike amusement park in Long Beach, California, which he lived very close to.  Later when he was in grade school his parents bought a house in Anaheim, California, that was only a skateboard's ride away from Disneyland where he often went and was lucky enough to become friendly with its creator Walt Disney which years later resulted in him being employed by Disney Studios doing various creative things there for a time.  Just prior to that when he was first married he worked full-time at Knott's Berry Farm where he met its founder Walter Knott.  To this day he remains fascinated by places like this and they often seep into both the poetry he writes and the many works of prose fiction that he has also concurrently published in the last decade.

A Poem by Susan Dale

Us

A barb wire
         hour
              around us
A ragged tear
   Beyond repair
             Arrow piercing
      this bloodless vein

Susan Dale's poems and fiction are on Kind of a Hurricane Press, Ken*Again, Penman Review, Inner Art Journal, Feathered Flounder, Garbanzo, and Linden Avenue.  In 2007, she won the grand prize for poetry from Oneswan.  She has two published chapbooks on the internet:  Spaces Among Spaces on languageandculture.org and Bending the Spaces of Time on Baromentric Pressures Authors Series.