Issue 10: Dark Water

Issue 10: Dark Water (Oct-Nov 2016) is an unthemed issue featuring poetry, prose, videos, and artwork from writers and artists around the world.

Night of the Dead

by on Oct 31, 2016

night-of-the-dead

 

Photographer’s Note: This was taken at Thrillingham, a Halloween event in Bellingham WA. People dress as zombies, parade through town and then dance in a park to Michael Jackson’s Thriller music.

 

—
Annie Prevost studied art as well photography. She is a street photographer who embraces ambiguity, abstraction and the surreal. People stepping outside their everyday selves by donning costume are a favorite subject. Her photos have been shown at Allied Arts and the Whatcom Art Museum, both in Bellingham. WA. and in two calendars.

Jake Forgets It

by on Oct 27, 2016

His guardian consigned him to the Memory Unit,
though he wasn’t far gone as the other no-hopers
warehoused at the place. Someone must be the healthiest
of the afflicted. Jake sees in fellow residents
the route this one’s going. Rolling. He’s a run-off risk,
libel to duck out if the CNAs blink twice. If they’re blind
to motivation. Being spoon-fed soft food ‘til the Reaper
visits Geezer Manor? Not this man’s man’s way.
Forty-some years of vetting stories for explanatory power,
for flaws with their fabrication. And how much now smudged over,
out of order? Whose iris did he almost drown in? Which sins
did he work off since commission? Certainly not all of them
before they cashiered him to this Sleepy Acres situation.
There were some bad ones. Patience isn’t on the menu
where they send you when your city doesn’t need you
like it used to, but before they pray and set a stone.

 

—
Todd Mercer won the Dyer-Ives Kent County Prize for Poetry (2016), the National Writers Series Poetry Prize (2016) and the Grand Rapids Festival Flash Fiction Award (2015). His digital chapbook, Life-wish Maintenance, appeared at Right Hand Pointing. Mercer’s recent poetry and fiction appear in 100 Word Story, Flash Fiction Magazine. Fried Chicken and Coffee, The Lake, Literary Orphans, Plum Tree Tavern, Split Lip Magazine and Star 82 Review.

still not yet done

by on Oct 26, 2016

 

still not yet done
with his youth
an old man
passing smoke
through his nose

 

—
Adjei Agyei-Baah is co-founder of the Africa Haiku Network and Poetry Foundation Ghana. He also serves as the co-editor of Mamba Journal, Africa’s first haiku periodical and champions an avant-garde type of haiku dubbed “Afriku,” which seeks to project the unique sights, sounds, and settings of Africa. His short Japanese poetry form has appeared in many international journals. He was picked for the Editors’ Choice Award at Cattails and The Heron’s Nest Journal and is the winner of The Heron’s Nest Award, March 2016 and the Akita Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Award of the 3rd Japan-Russia Haiku Contest, 2014. Adjei recently released his first haiku collection Afriku, published by Red Moon Press (2016) in the US and hopes to publish more collections as well of the other short forms of Japanese poetry.

Shaky Hands

by on Oct 25, 2016

deep lines
and dark spots
decorate his shaky hands
a pacemaker
pumps his heart

Sunday mornings
he passes the
gold collection plate
it shakes
in his grip
dollars, coins, and checks
dance

McDonald’s
he sits with his
styrofoam coffee cup
he raises it to his lip
trembling

every passing year
his shaking worsens
and I fear
soon

his coffee

will spill

 

—
Cheyenne Bilderback is a 20-year-old native of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. She currently calls Nashville, Tennessee home while she studies at Belmont University. Her work is forthcoming in the Midwestern-based literary journal Twig. When she is not posting poetry to her blog, vinyl muse, she is often found writing songs or serving coffee.

There Is a Season #2

by on Oct 24, 2016

there-is-a-season-2

 

—
Steve Tomasko has written about himself in the first, third and possibly fifth person (don’t ask). He often verb-ifies things he shouldn’t and trips over his own dangling participles. Despite these possible disqualifications, he has published one poetry chapbook, “and no spiders were harmed.” You can read more about him and Jeanie (his wife, also a poet) at Jeanie & Steve Tomasko.

dark water

by on Oct 21, 2016

 

dark water
my ambiguous
mammogram

 

—
Martha Magenta lives in England, UK. Her poems focus on a wide variety of topics including love, loss, spirituality and meditation. Recently, she has begun to write haiku. A number of her poems and haiku have been published in online journals. She is co-owner of POETS, the second largest poetry community on Google Plus.

Crossing

by on Oct 20, 2016

Destrehan-Luling Louisiana Ferry Crash Kills 78—October 20, 1976

 

There are ways
the dying say goodbye—

on a river waving hands
greased in oil that slip away

in a hand that grabs a rail
while the other grips a girl

in hands let go while struggling
to the shoreline in half-light

in the hand over a mouth
holding in one last exhale—

and then are still.

 

—
Alan Perry holds a Bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Minnesota. He is a member of the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, and is involved in programs at the University of Arizona Poetry Center in Tucson, Arizona. He and his wife divide their time between a suburb of Minneapolis and Tucson, and he has poems forthcoming in Sandcutters and The Moccasin.

Ocean Watch

by on Oct 19, 2016

For days I study
the architecture of clouds
the prehistoric silhouettes
of pelicans chaining past
dark wings riding
invisible rivers of bright air

I sleep and dream the moon falls
into the arms of the ocean
their long dance ending
in this strange embrace
where the waves take her
and polish her to pearl
smooth and lustrous
unmarked by time
a promise just remembered
small enough to keep

 

—
Mary C McCarthy has always been a writer, but spent most of her working life as a Registered Nurse. She has had work included in many online and print journals, including Expound, Third Wednesday, Earth’s Daughters, The Evening Street Review, and Caketrain.

‘A Man Was Lynched by Police Yesterday’

by on Oct 18, 2016

It’s 10 minutes after midnight
and threatening rain, and though
I’m looking out the kitchen window,
I can’t see anything, only the blur
of my reflection, and all around it
darkness, complete darkness,
but for a Death’s Head moth,
drawn by the one light still on,
crashing against the glass to get in.

 

—
Howie Good co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely.