—
Debbie Strange is a widely published Canadian short form poet, haiga artist, and photographer. Her first collection, Warp and Weft, Tanka Threads, is available through atlaspoetica.org. She invites you to visit her archive at debbiemstrange.blogspot.ca.
The train’s grave whistle
ascends from every tree in the valley
spreads out in the sky everywhere at once
and I move quietly
through mansions of light
ascending along the clay road
dreaming all day
of impossible journeys
I’ve always done this
And as each light in each window pales
I wake and return
to the clay road
and a night sky full of holes
a reminder of what I chose
and what was chosen for me
as if they are somehow different
—
John L. Stanizzi — author of Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, and Hallelujah Time! His poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, The New York Quarterly, Rattle, and others. He teaches English at Manchester Community College. Find him online at johnlstanizzi.com.
A pink house;
a child,
kneeling in the dirt.
Clods of mud
like lakes on maps
stuck to the road.
—
Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco lives in California’s Central Valley, where she works as a librarian. Her chapbook, Various Lies is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.
(Watch Marie Craven’s video of “Lilies of the Field” on Vimeo)
Editor’s note: the text of the Laura M Kaminski poem “Lilies of the Field” and her bio can be read at The Poetry Storehouse.
—
Marie Craven is a media maker and musician from the Gold Coast, Australia. She has been engaged in online collaboration since 2007 and has contributed to works with artists in many different parts of the world. Website: pixieguts.com
The afternoon sky had turned
All West Coast or something,
And summer was seeming to say
“Sorry for everything”
By way of breezes and gray clouds,
With a few teardrop pigeons
Falling from the Biology building,
Coming to rest or to roost
In some hedges I’d never noticed.
So I burrowed down deeper
Into the debtor’s prison
Of my day job, and I thought
Of all the songs I wish I’d written.
And I played a few of them
Inside my head at low volume,
So as not to disturb those voices
In their slumber. But several
Woke anyway, and one sang
A ballad to silence the rest.
It was heartland in its origin,
Full of working-class sadness.
I’ve counted ten thousand verses
With no sign of it stopping.
—
Harold Whit Williams is guitarist for the Austin, Texas rock band Cotton Mather. Recipient of the 2014 Mississippi Review Poetry Prize and a featured poet in the 2014 University of North Texas Kraken Reading Series, his collection, Backmasking, was winner of the 2013 Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize from Texas Review Press. His latest collection of poems, Lost in the Telling, is available from FutureCycle Press.
Like winged licorice drops,
hundreds spill
across the pearly winter sky,
swoop simultaneously.
Down-then-up.
Connected by invisible threads,
flesh and sinew dot-to-dot,
shift in concert,
an inverse constellation.
Up-then-down.
To belong. To feel
such strength
in numbers, anise
bitter and sweet
on the tongue.
Or to be that lost
at dispersion,
strings twisted,
freefall imminent,
never – alone – enough.
—
Jennifer Hernandez lives in the Minneapolis area where she teaches middle school, dreams of Mexican beaches and writes for her sanity. Her most recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Gingerbread House, Mothers Always Write, and World Haiku Review. She has performed her poetry at a non-profit garage, a bike shop filled with taxidermy and in the kitchen for her children, who are probably her toughest audience.
I have never been at home here
so when the dragons rise
in rows behind the streetlights
I do nothing to show
I hadn’t been expecting them
they are less strange to me
smoke and iron and ice
than you are
sitting here beside me
as though nothing unusual
breathes all around us
—
Mary McCarthy grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, studied art and literature but spent most of her working life as a Registered Nurse. She has always been a writer. She has great hopes for the future despite the horrors reported endlessly in the daily news.
A moth is caught in the car. It flutters trying to escape through the back window, bangs uselessly against the glass. I open all of the doors, even the hatchback. Still it flounders, can’t figure its way out, wings dull brown on the outside, bright orange underneath.
all day long
wearing my sweater
inside out
A year has passed since my sister-in-law was charged with my brother’s murder. Between now and then, court appearances, bail hearings, a flurry of news reports, but for the most part, the days pass in an unsettling hum of normalcy.
needle stuck
in the trough of the LP
of the LP of the LP
—
Marianne Paul is a Canadian novelist and poet. In recent years, she has become fascinated with minimalist poetry, studying haiku, tanka, haiga, and haibun. Her work has been published in many contemporary journals, both online and in print. Learn more about Marianne’s writing at literarykayak.com and on twitter @mariannpaul.
—
Olivier Schopfer lives in Geneva, Switzerland, the city with the huge lake water fountain. He likes capturing the moment in haiku and photography. His work has appeared in The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2014 as well as in numerous online and print journals. He also writes articles in French about etymology and everyday expressions at Olivier Schopfer raconte les mots.
I love the smell and strong taste
of purple orange and white tablets
this man in white pours in my cupped palm
it smells like home before the war visited
and tastes like the gravy served
to us refugees in our own country
it will bring you back to your senses
a blue apron lady reassures
i like it here, i like it here
i don’t want to go back there
you must return home
they chorus an anthem in my ears
your children miss you and
your stories and blah blah blah
i nod my head in a sluggish ‘no no no’
in the background it’s bobby mcferrin
doing his classic ‘don’t worry, be happy …’
but it’s only me hearing, listening
dancing, moving my body like not, to the
beats flying from his unseen drums
my slight tenor overshadowing his baritone
as my index finger takes charge
of his guitar in the empty air…
nothing makes sense to me after all
not even this blue uniform and
the silence it maps in my heart
—
Ehi’zogie Iyeomoan hides his emotions in words and in photographs. He is so in love with human shadows. He Tweets like a bird @fulanibuoy, and can be followed on Facebook at /ehizogieiyeomoan
