Three Poems by A.J. Huffman

I Blew the Candle Out

because I did not want you

to find me.  I was more

comfortable with the cold

cave I had carved for myself

inside the darkness.  The comforting

sound of your footsteps echoing,

already so familiar with my space

was terrifying, a trespass

I had never imagined.  I was

desperate to erase my footprints,

shining like breadcrumbs set on fire.

You gathered them too eagerly,

your fingers seemingly immune to the burn.

I Wanted Wings

when I laid on the beach

just beyond the house that was still

too definitively yours.  I sank

my toes into the damp sand,

gave myself over to the sinking

feeling of being pulled under. 

The cloudless sky offered no reprieve

for my burning.  I had no doubt

I would be ashes soon,

and I imagined the kiss of evening’s

breeze lifting me—my charred darkness

blending seamlessly into a starless sky.

Higher and higher I would rise,

an arid wave, grateful

for a moment of effortless breathing

before the inevitable crash.

In the Fading Blue of Everything

Your shadow is too big.  I cannot find
the exit.  Door after door,
I knock.  My head against the frames
that cannot fill.  This space
is haunted by a hazel-eyed smile.
Shiny as Hell.  Turned off.
Or maybe against.  My view
stands:  Distorted.  I am
fumbling for nobs.  Though any
handhold will do.  In a sea of lost,
I am queen.  Of the damned?
Or the damnless?  Silver
salt holds the key to my crown.
But inside out is still inside.  And I miss
the light.  And the sight of the waves.
And even your back.

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.

A Poem by Nancy Purcell

Ins and Outs

Love, coming in,
gives a kick to your engine,
a lift to your wings,
the heart takes flight,
emotion sings.

It's the salt on your lips
when a light ocean breeze
caresses your body and
cools down the tease.

It's the touch on your cheek,
the hand of your muse,
words like "mine" and "forever,"
strike the match, light the fuse.

Love, walking out,
quickly chokes off the steam,
reverses your course,
shuts down the engine,
leaves the heart in remorse.

It's division and longhand,
that is mine, this is yours,
sign your name on the dotted,
a stiff drink always cures.

It's words like "I'll never,"
harsh rain on your face,
black clouds above you,
"Get me out of this place."

Nancy Purcell served as a North Carolina Writers Network/Elizabeth Squire Daniels Writer-in-Residence, Peace College, Raleigh, NC, teaches Creative Writing in the Brevard College Community Education program, and mentors aspiring writers.  She was the County Representative for the NC Writers' Network-Netwest Writers for 6 years.

Two Poems by Dylan Sonderman

That Damn Green Bowl

Never again will I eat
diverse varieties of slop
from you
whether week-old leftovers
or freshly nuked creations
after thousands of rotations in the microwave
your plastic gut once held
terrible bean salad
decent chicken parm
ramen noodles
unthinkable amounts of ramen
Lipton pasta sides
Uncle Ben's rice
2% milk and Golden Grahams
oatmeal with apples and peanut butter
(which I liked to call "peasant soup")
chocolate pudding
vanilla pudding
cookies and cream pudding
so much amorphous matter
rested in your trough

I suppose we had some times
during one of those lonely stretches
you sat on my lap, in my efficiency apartment
while I watched my first Aronofsky film (Pi)
since I had no table, I balanced you as best I could on my legs
until I scalded my lap with hot soup
thanks to your flimsy green sides

And how many times did I break a sweat
scrubbing caked-on messes from your entrails
hunched over the tub, since my tiny apartment had no kitchen sink
the heat of the bathwater searing you and I
like some kind of Hell ritual
branding our joined flesh with soapy vows

But it wasn't all bad
I also served a romantic dinner in you
to a beautiful young woman
during our honeymoon phase
at least a dozen times, surely
I can just picture
your rough edges in the flickering candlelight
a glass of Pinot Noir at your side
the scraping sounds as the spoon hit your bottom
a sure sign my cooking was a hit

You followed me from my freshman-year dorm
to the cozy two-bedroom apartment
I shared with my fiance
until over a year after graduation day
when I moved out, when she broke things off with me
I left you behind
decaying in the sink

for a stupid, forgettable piece of plastic dishware
that I probably bought at WalMart or Target for three dollars
I can't help but seeing you as some half-baked symbol
death of my childhood, birth of cynicism
a lost relic of the transition period
spanning between 18 and 24
but ah . . . maybe that's too on-the-nose
you're gone now
and despite everything we had
I say
good riddance.



How a Keyboard Dies:

drizzling rain, Saturday,
November, maybe 7:00 pm
already dark out
no stars
and I stalk out of the apartment building
dragging this bulky thing behind me
yes, through the mud
preparing for the last performance
jagged asphalt by the dumpster:  12 tone concerto
I turn the volume on the Casio all the way up
set the voicings to layer piano and strings
turn on a cheesy jazz beat
from the pre-programmed library
and with both hands
lift the cheap synth over my head
drums build tension
in time with my heart rate
I'm tapping the Tempo + button
unstable crescendo
frenzied
rhythm rising
to the moment
when
I

SMASH
the keyboard against the ground
white keys, black keys
dead keys
natural and accidental notes cry
staccato bursts of pain
again and again my arms swing
imagine beating someone to death like this
I'm shrieking in harmony
alone in the parking lot
the dissonant wails are profound

To my pounding ears
this exorcism of my chromatic anguish
sounds better than any song
I ever played in serenade for her

I let go on the last swing
it clatters across the pavement, bleeding
I'm shaking, breath coming in gasps
but still I focus in
active-listening to the final gurgles
before discarding the battered corpse
of a fellow music maker
with the rest of the useless garbage
and then I go back inside, dry off
finish packing my shit
to leave this deaf place
forever

Dylan Sonderman has contributed to Pyrokinection, The Burr, Crab Fat Literary Magazine, and Luna Negra.  When not reading or writing, he lives to play music and sing.  He currently writes for AltOhio.

Three Poems by Margaret Holbrook

Funny Valentine

The hearts
he'd given her one morning
each wrapped in shiny foil.
All varying shades
of pink and crimson.
She'd eaten on straight away,
while she was in bed.
He laughed.
It was what she always did with chocolate.
Later on she'd pull too hard on the wrapper.
The wrapper holding the hearts
and watch as they tumbled,
haphazardly over the floor.

Another morning, later;
they passed in the kitchen.
They didn't speak, except in elephant,
and shuffled as they went about the
"early morning" business of their lives.
She'd changed.
He laughed;
realizing it was over.
She'd pulled the strings once too often.
All they had left were broken hearts.



Loose Endings

Slowly, lazily, she eases
herself into the morning.
The light is jagged,
it cuts her eyes.
Her hand touches the space
beside her, it is warm.
Closing her eyes she listens
for the drone of his shaver.
In the silence it is pleasant
like a summer's day.

Later, mid-day approaches
wraps itself around her like a blanket.
The warmth holds her.
She touches the space that has gone cold
listens for the absent hum that
reminded her of summer,
tries to tie together loose ends,
make sense of goodbyes.



No Goodbye

The gulf between them was wider
than the distance that separated
them at the breakfast table.

He didn't speak anymore.  Never
good with words,
he couldn't find the right ones.

She had learned to despise.  It had
taken 23 years.  But now, here she was,
tongue tied by anxiety.

He caught her eye across the breakfast
carnage and smiled.  They'd talk tonight.
He'd sort the words out in his head.

She saw his smile and returned it.
He felt better.  Things would be ok.
He got up and left.

No goodbye.  No kiss.  No I love you.
10 minutes later,
she closed the door for the last time.

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 Swans Press, and in the following magazines, Orbis, SLQ, The Dawntreader, The Journal, The SHOp, Reflections, Areopagus, the caterpillar.  Her first poetry collection, Hobby Horses Will Dance, was published in 2014.  Margaret leads the Creative Writing Workshops for Chapel Arts in Chapel en le Frith, Derbyshire.

A Poem by Ryan Stone

Toro Nagashi

Your flame flickers briefly,
a parting wink,
while some trick of the river
mimics your laughter.

We stood apart at sunset,
lost in natsukashii;
came together in darkness,
to watch the dead pass on.

Your light has fallen now,
to shadow
beneath the bridge.

Ryan Stone is a freelance writer, guitarist and poet from Melbourne, Australia.  He shares his home in the Blue Dandenongs with his wife, two young sons and a German Shepherd.  On daily walks through his forest surrounds, he often peers down rabbit holes.

A Poem by Ryan Stone

F=Gm1m2/r2

"It's gravity, baby,"

and that's how it started:
three whispered words
under the bleachers,
two bodies
pulled into orbit.

From tongues of flame,
halting caterwauls
     breathlessly
             stumbled
before flicking faster into long, thirsty nights

of lying this close, seeking new worlds
and unexplored places;
the smoke on your breath promising
freedom and danger.

A nevermore season of quicksilver moments
beneath a peeping-tom moon
suddenly ended,
just like it started--

there's a point during free-fall
where you pause to consider
whether to brace or just to surrender.
For a second or two
you feel like you're floating,
then the ground rushes up
to show you how endings
can sound like beginnings
but that
is just gravity,
baby.

Ryan Stone is a freelance writer, guitarist and poet from Melbourne, Australia.  He shares his home in the blue Dondenongs with his wife, two young sons and a German Shepherd.  On daily walks through his forest surrounds, he often peers down rabbit holes.

Three Poems by Gary Priest

I Want to Destroy You

I want to destroy you.
I want to dismantle that smile from your mouth.
I want to end this construed nightmare.
You pollute my routine.
Each day your tongue pokes through my skin.
The pink flick of it teasing every time I get within range.
I feel that sentient breath on my neck as I sprawl contemptuously on the couch.
Your swiveled seduction, your corrupting content pulling at me, trying to finger a response from the dead weight of my worthless intellect.
I hate your carefree dissemination of details.
That "don't care who's watching as long as someone is" spiral.
I am watching.
I always am.
An insect in the information.
The data dung that you present feeds every wretched instinct that I have.
The thick client of jealousy strung between the spaces in your messages.
The windows of imagination filtered through a grey past.
I know your perverted operating procedures.
I see your malignant machinery as it grinds through another host.
If not destruction then details.
Break down the syntax of your betrayals into flirtation, fixation and fucking.
Those are the parameters that define you.
Scare those daily batch runs of secrets that re-engineer your needs.
The outdated programs that no longer fit your architecture, scrubbed through filters, discarded with tardy unresponsive system message.
The new prospects, ready for beta testing.
The old glitches that you cannot reject.
The ones that cause you problems, fracture the continuation of service, demanding memory and speed of reaction.
But your encrypted deceit is unbroken.
Hidden behind a glossy user interface.
I cannot destroy you.
I cannot devil the details from you.
All I can do is watch.
And wait.
And not participate.
Hoping for the courage to one day disconnect.



Love Can Be So Fucking Dumb

Love can be so fucking dumb
an insolent, temperamental triumph
of stupidity over sense
because here we are defenses down
and everything means something else
in this fucked up lexicon.

Love can be so fucking dumb
a drunken cocktail of want,
volatile elements of war
with juvenile delinquents
those envious, devious, carnivorous
little bastards.

Love can be so fucking dumb
it makes good judgment redundant
with the slapdash accelerant
of lust,
drenched like paraffin across the skin
logic and every other survival instinct
are reduced to ash one by one.



The Grammar of Goodbye

In the last week
everything felt like an ultimatum
or a bad joke.
Nothing felt like farewell.
No full stop.
Just endless commas,
lists of faults,
lists of wants,
And a few changes of tact;
with uncertain use of semi colons.
Both of us unsure of
the grammar of goodbye.

Gary Priest writes poetry and short fiction.  He lives at the end of a dead-end road, which may explain everything.