SOUND CHECK – RAMZI ALBERT RIHANI

Sound Check A sound check ignites a flame In a distance of incendiary nights Back and forth the ringing breaks As the dawn announces a new appetite Hendrix and Joplin overdose and die Others overdose and fly Pour it slowly little one As the thirst for more brings a new might Like a shooting star, […]

DARING DUO – Fred Gerhard

Daring Duo Coyotes and bobcats have been spotted in my rural New England town. Not actually spotted, but there have been sightings. And not together, never together, having the same approximate jobs. Like competing dentists, we are obliged to see one or the other as they extract what they must. It was a very good […]

3 POEMS – DANIEL SCHULZ

Blackboard Your opinion on the chalkboard, the one your teacher wipes away. You are just another student, after all. Who gives a damn about opinions, when you as a person do not matter? Stand up, get up, scream! Refuse to stand down, insistently! Go to the principal’s office. Go to the dean. Go to your […]

2 POEMS – Caroline Reddy

Pods I sit on a black cushion and wonder if the electric pulses I feel are lightbody healers transmuting energy through the crevices we have created with our breaths to make us whole again. I rest my head on a pillow and imagine if the infinite impulses I feel are silver starseed-pods traveling through the […]

2 POEMS ~ Bradford Middleton

OH PHALLUS OF RIDICULOUSNESS Oh phallus of ridiculousness you tower over our town like a monolith fucking the sky as the denizens fuck with themselves anyway we can. Some chose to shop whilst I try to forget as life moves on in a drunken wasted state towards my ultimate escape and a place where life […]

Gaby Bedetti – 2 POEMS

Motion

You speed through

the Minotaur’s labyrinth

hoping to avoid the monster.

The motor responds.

You have another

someplace to go.

You look into the wind,

a lop-eared hound

head out the window.

Complicit,

the GPS tracks your

departures and arrivals.

In your sonic life,

you are the hip hero pointing

toward the next adventure,

the lover with the ball
of thread to navigate

the labyrinth.

Her Final Email

Days you stayed in bed.

Migraines. Texas heat

and medications

made you sweat. And then

another week had slipped away,

unlike your chores and wishes.

At your desk, a compost heap

of essays. You even began grading

and then Shadow would sigh

to say it was past feeding time

and you abandoned them. You called

him the best dog in the present world.

One son announced he was moving back

so you removed the sewing machine

from his room. You then grew angry

with your husband for leaving.

The other son mentioned downsizing

and you heard nursing home.

Your grandchildren were delightful.

In your final email, you acknowledged

you were lucky, but only so far.

And soon after, the fatal dose.

We could have reunited,

here in Kentucky or there in Texas.

We could have remembered,

and renewed, our luck.

JOHN TUSTIN – CUT OFF

CUT OFF

I used to rush home from work,

Especially if I knew my wife wasn’t going to be home yet

And if some asshole tried to cut me off

I’d gun it and curse him out,

Sometimes as we drove side by side.

I wasn’t going to take that shit,

I got cut off enough when I was home with my wife.

I would drive home and the best days were the days

When I had some time to myself before I had to pick her up.

Oh, the feeling of false freedom in those precious minutes!

Later, another good time was reading to my children before bed.

After they would finally fall asleep I would lie in bed with my son

And elongate the moments before I would have to get up

And get into bed with Her.

If I fell asleep in his bed or pretended to she would come and get me.

Finally I had had enough and I told her I wanted a divorce.

Her reaction was to unleash Hell all at once

Instead of little by little like she had been doing for fifteen years or so.

I lost everything and just about everyone I had

But now if I get cut off in traffic

I just stare in wonder at the taillights

Of whoever feels they need to get somewhere before I do

Thinking about a time that feels like decades ago

But was much less than that

When I decided a life of boiling pasta alone in an echoing kitchen

Was better than a living death in a house filled with anger

And that final day that

It was as if I was Yertle the Turtle

And I sneezed down there

At the bottom of the stack

And that bitch came tumbling down.

ANDREW HUBBARD – 2 POEMS

Sharing the Bathroom

I over-analyze everything

I know it’s true

(And you’ve told me enough times.)

But why on earth

Would I find it sexy

To watch you shave your armpits?

Knowing me you won’t be surprised

To find I made a list:

Because everything you do is sexy

Because you touch yourself

With such unconscious concentration

Because you say you do it

To look pretty for me

Because I love the smell of your hair

Because it’s something nobody else

Sees you do

Because it’s commonplace

And mysterious and intimate

All at the same time.

And because the lines of your raised arm,

Your neck, and your wrist

Make me think of a Rodin sculpture.

Turn Down the Lights

Hey, it was more than kind of you

To come home with me

And you so much younger

And thinner and all.

And I’ll do my best

Not to disappoint you.

Honest to God, if I disappoint you

I don’t think I’ll ever

Go to a bar again.

But hey I’m going to be honest,

Only because there’s no alternative:

I look better dressed,

So I’m going to turn down the lights.

Those horrible white curvey smiles

On the skin behind my thighs,

They’re from the hip replacements.

The thick-soled shoes

Just bring me back

To the height I used to be.

I joke that my ears pop

When I take them off,

But it’s not that bad. Yet.

I’m not tearing my eyeballs,

I’m just taking off my contacts.

Hopefully you can’t see me

The same as I can’t see you.

Now excuse me, I’m going to the bathroom

To take some pills.

The flatulence ones work pretty well

And the little blue one

Had damn well better work.

What’s that look you’re giving me?

It better not be

The “I-made-a-mistake” look.

I have many fine qualities.

You said so yourself

Not two hours ago.

Now hang on,

I’ll be right back.

SEPTEMBER 2018

Julia Gerhardt – The Invisible Stranger

The Invisible Stranger

I love lying,

in my own bed,

with my hands

stretched above my head

and my fingers barely touch one another—

as if they are unfamiliar,

as if they are unknown to the rest of me.

And now it’s not just a touch, but a graze,

an affectionate line drawn onto one finger

by the other.

I wait.

The line ends

and becomes a hook,

an unwillingness to part;

a stage to go through,

a grief.

I don’t want to let go

of the unfamiliar hand,

lying next to mine

The invisible stranger,

I hope to see again.

Douglas Collura – Her Third Date After a Twenty-Five Year Marriage

Her Third Date After a Twenty-Five Year Marriage

She says, “Look. The rain’s harder now.”

I say, “Yes, but the theater’s close.”

She thumbs a path across

her melting glass.

Her daughter in third-year law.

Her granddaughter a swan.

When did I say I believed

in anyone’s tomorrow?

Her cupped hands; lines

connect, curve, cross,

predict nothing. She stares

into the passing moment.

“I never thought I’d be this person,”

she says, “never this alone.

I’m afraid sometimes, though

it’s nice not to be second guessed.”

My bedroom a chaos of shadows.

She’s unsure what comes next.

Then her legs clamp my hips,

and her mouth finds my neck.

Cacti Fur

a poetry high ground

photography