“Do you have anything you want to say, Uncle Frank?” Felice bent over the old man’s bed, talking in the direction of his head propped on a pillow. The lighting was dim. “Any last words?”

“Huh?”

“He can’t hear well,” explained the nurse in attendance. Only a few of Frank’s remaining relatives were there in his bedroom.

“ANY LAST WORDS?” shouted Felice.

“What?”

Not only was he fading fast, but he also had poor hearing for years. The nurse fumbled in his bedside table for his hearing aids.

“Damn.” She couldn’t find them.

“What?” Frank still had a few questions left in his final minutes.

‘I SAID, DAMN,” explained Cheryl, the nurse.

“I can’t hear.”

“WE’RE TRYING TO LOCATE YOUR HEARING AIDS.” That was Frank’s niece Fredda, who could shout as loudly as Felice, her cousin.

“Is that you, Felice?” The old man’s eyesight was going fast.

“Can you get his glasses?” Otto asked the nurse who’d given up on the hearing aids, now searching for Ativan.

“What?”

“YOUR GLASSES, UNCLE FRANK. WE’LL TRY TO GET THEM.”

“Who’s that?” The old man almost sat up. He had no more sit-ups in him, however.

“THAT WAS OTTO. HE TOOK A PLANE ALL THE WAY FROM CLEVELAND TO SEE YOU.”

“Otto?”

“YES, OTTO,” chimed in Fredda.

“First Fredda? And now Otto?” questioned the dying man who was down to his last few words.

“RIGHT. FREDDA, AND OTTO, AND…”

Uncle Frank sank into his pillow. “Forget about the glasses…”

David Sydney is a physician who writes fiction in and out of the EHR (Electronic Health Record).

I am ankle deep in a stinking bog
which squelches, rudely pulling at my foot.
Stranded alone in so much sucking sog
I marvel at the places I’ve been put.

If I try to struggle against this slime
I know I shall go under with no trace;
perhaps I should surrender hope this time,
and, slowly sinking, muster dying grace.

Or, maybe if I, graceless, lay me down,
immersed halfway in lukewarm reeking muck,
and float, suspended, manage not to drown,
I’ll find myself aground on firmer luck.

   If, rank and damp, I knock upon your door
   will you mind my dripping on the floor?

Deb Levine is a (mostly) formal poet, scientist, and life coach. She is Academic Chair for Physical Science at Anne Arundel Community College. Although she majored in Physics at UNC-Chapel Hill, she also completed most of the coursework for the Creative Writing major as a short fiction author. Dr. Levine lives in Stevensville, MD on Kent Island with one cat, two parrots, eight chickens, and the neighbor’s rooster. She dreams in sonnet form.

“Bogged Down” was originally published in Sparks of Calliope

Dark multi-legged
feelings scuttle into the
light. Step carefully.

Deb Levine is a (mostly) formal poet, scientist, and life coach. She is Academic Chair for Physical Science at Anne Arundel Community College. Although she majored in Physics at UNC-Chapel Hill, she also completed most of the coursework for the Creative Writing major as a short fiction author. Dr. Levine lives in Stevensville, MD on Kent Island with one cat, two parrots, eight chickens, and the neighbor’s rooster. She dreams in sonnet form.

Wilderness gathers the few mountain folks
left around these parts,
facing extinction
with mountain frogs
and the purported albino pygmy wolverine.

Sitting in a circle around fire,
singing ballads of past days
still relevant in the wild,
of fetching water, sleeping under stars,
clandestine relations
played out in the dark.

Impromptu jam session of mountain minstrels,
unplugged chords escaping
a home grown guitar,
navigating stout smoky air
from brazen bone fire flames,
charred animal skeletons,,
chasing unwanted spirits away.

Tiny firestorms spin
to rhythm of upright bass,
Ponderosa pines and Sierra lupin
swaying, embrace energy of the music
with whisps of wind keeping tempo.

Simpler living perhaps,
away from gripped energy grids,
rolling blackouts never a worry where
the power lines don’t stretch.

Infinite number of stars
light the skies,
shooting brilliance through a universe
of mystique and speculation,
where gods battle for relevance
against the existence of time and space
and the cognitive shortcomings of the human brain.

Lillibit Ray has always written in her own personal journals, and she has taken several creative writing classes which helped her to develop and evolve a story or poem using real life experience and richer characters to bring the story or poetry to life. Lillibit writes both poetry and short stories, and these she shares, or sometimes just keeps them for herself.

A succulent sky stretches out before us.
Dark humid clouds tumble over one another.
It is 1969, June,
At the Glencoe Beach.
Perched on the masoned limestone wall
At the bluff lookout above,
My brother, twenty years old, and me, eighteen,
Extend our arms to challenge
The gusts kicked up by the wind.
Mint-smelling air blows through our hair
And fills our lungs with song.
We cry out in unison when we see
Lightning snap across the sky,
Bathing Lake Michigan in a milky white
That makes us wish we could walk on water.
We smell the looming storm move closer,
Charcoal thunder not so distant.
We grin at one another,
Sharing the thrill
Of daring the storm
To lick at our edges.
Overhead, the sturdy oaks
Brandish leaves through the thickened air,
While the ferocious sky churns
Into our forever.

Shelley Smithson is a poet living and working in northern Michigan. She is a psychotherapist by day in her work life and maintains a private practice. She writes in her free time. She also loves to spend time with family and friends, and wander the beaches of Lake Michigan.

Jordan lay in bed surveying the ceiling. When am I going to fall asleep? He closed his eyes, opened them, sat up, swung his feet over the edge of the bed, and waited for a moment before standing.

That cup of coffee after dinner was a mistake.

Careful not to wake Sarah, Jordan carefully arose from bed, walked about the room, and then the apartment. He rattled the front and porch doorknobs. They’re locked. He touched his phone and watch. They’re charging; the alarm’s set for seven. Once back under covers, he adjusted his pillow and rolled onto his side.

Like an explosion, a light bulb flashed in his head. His heart raced. He held his breath. A hollow feeling filled his chest. “I forgot I have an exam tomorrow. I’m not prepared. I haven’t studied,” he muttered aloud.

Jordan threw off the covers, jumped up, and ran to his desk. He turned on the lamp and rifled through his notebooks searching for the one from that course. Unable to find the notebook, he opened a text and flipped through the pages in a mad frenzy to locate the right material. Is this even the correct text for this class?

What will be covered on the test? He stopped turning pages and stared straight ahead. I don’t know what to study. He gripped the book with white knuckles, his legs weak. Words ran together.  Too much to master. Not enough time.

The speed of his breathing matched the rate at which he turned pages. Each breath came faster and faster. His head began to spin. He felt lightheaded. The information he tried to learn seemed unfamiliar. No surprise,he realized. I haven’t been to class; nothing sticks. I can’t concentrate.

I’m going to fail, echoed over and over in his head. How could I have let this happen? Jordan continued to rifle through pages, but uncertain what he needed to know, he learned nothing.

Dawn came and the daylight crept into the room. Time had run out. He threw on jeans and a tee. I’ll go by the Department office and apply for an incomplete or drop the course, but, e realized those deadlines have long passed.

Jordan emerged from the apartment building. Again, his breathing increased. His pulse pounded in his ears, and he wanted to vomit. Nothing appeared familiar. Where am I? Sweat ran down his face, and his mouth was dry.

Jordan looked around. Where is the exam being held? There was nothing to remember, he had never been to class and was uncertain where to go. How could I have blown this off?

Jordan began to run from building to building hoping to trigger a memory or find a classmate who might direct him. I’m going to fail.

Defeated, he fell to his knees and pounded the ground. People walked around him. No one stopped. As hard as he tried to shout, he emitted no sound. Breathless, sweat-drenched, limbs shaking, he reached for the sky and released an anguished prolonged cry.

“Jordan, Jordan,” Sarah called as she shook Jordan awake. “Are you okay? You were yelling in your sleep.”

“What?” he said, disoriented at first. “I must have been dreaming. What time is it?”

“Three AM. Are you still worried about meeting my parents tomorrow?”

He answered her question with a moan, slow even breathing, and a soft snore.

Dr. Peter J Barbour turned in his reflex hammer to become a fulltime writer and illustrator. He lives in Oregon with his photographer wife of over fifty years. They enjoy traveling and the outdoors. In conversations with his peers, he has discovered a common theme for their nightmares. This became the basis for his short story, “Best Not to Skip Class.”

I close the old novel I first read in my youth.
The one I have read several times since.
Its word hoard glimmers from the page
softly as the afternoon rain
sifting through the fresh leaves out the window.

Fine as inherited lace.
Human as a visited grave.
The day will come, sooner than later,
when I close the book for the last time
and not know it.

Mike Dillon lives in a small town on Puget Sound northwest of Seattle.
With his wife, he travels. He often writes about the places he has been. Not travel stories, but stories of place.
He and his wife travel so lightly that once a European customs agent questioned their Americanness.

My aging brain slows,
a train approaching its stop.

Quick math, rapid logic?
Not going to happen.

But in the slogging
a new kind of speed.

I saw an ad this morning:
Do you know your retirement goals?

Without a second’s thought
I sang—

“Stayin’ Alive.” “Stayin’ Alive.”

While Lynne Schilling has been writing poetry on and off for forty years, she began writing it seriously three years ago at age 75. Her day job was as an academic in an entirely different field. However, her love of words dates back to when she was a toddler. She currently spends her days in Connecticut happily playing with words whenever she can.

“Is your name Gromley?”

“What?” Mel, sitting alone on the bench, looked up from his cellphone to the stranger with a Chihuahua.

“Gromley? Frank Gromley?”

“No.”

“I could’ve sworn you were him. Frank, I mean.”

“My name’s Mel.”

The Chihuahua, named Pepe, wanted to pee over Mel’s trouser leg. It was obvious. It whimpered and shook as though chilled.

“I haven’t seen Frank since high school. You could be his double. You’ve the same kind of posture…”

“Sorry, my name’s Mel.”

What kind of posture was he talking about? Mel sat up straighter on the wooden slats.

“You weren’t in the correctional facility with Frank, were you?”

“What?”

“You just look like a guy who might’ve been there.”

“No, it wasn’t me.”

“Not out of the facility, huh? And not one of Frank’s relatives, by any chance? I mean, they all had that same kind of vacant expression.”

Mel tried to stop fumbling with his cellphone. ” I can’t say I’m a relative either.”

“No kidding? It’s hard to believe you’re not at least one of the Gromleys.”

“No, I’ve never been a Gromley.”

Was Mel even thinking before he spoke? Never been a Gromley?

The stranger, too, looked at him oddly after hearing that, then yanked the leash. “Well, c’mon, Pepe.”

The dog had finally finished urinating over the trousers.

David Sydney is a physician.

Once there were many birds.  Colorful and diverse.  Uplifting harbingers of hope: flitting, soaring, living.  Attracting sunbeams and light.  Spreading smiles and joy.

Now, the robins and bluebirds are gone from the damaged world.  No inspiring eagles, strong hawks, or reflective owls.  They’ve left a void and the harm can no longer be denied.

Their dark cousins stalk me as I trek the planet’s worsening, serpentine path.  The sky and trees are heavy with black birds.  Foul fowl with shimmering feathers and dead eyes.  Solo watchers and ominous flocks track my movements.  They are monochromatic shadows in the harmful sunshine.  A threatening presence in cloudy overcast.  Invisible, cawing stentors at night.  Stygian demons eager to tear at my flesh.

These omniscient judges know my part in our ongoing sin.  They understand the collective weight of our minor misdeeds.  All tribes sense these ebony heralds proclaim guilt.

Loud crows accuse.  Squawking ravens indict.  Obnoxious grackles hector.  Starlings and swifts scold.  They condemn and petition for punishment.  Sullen undertakers accompanying our demise.

To placate, I take token and painless actions.  I hope to escape their attention by skulking and embracing denial.  I avert my eyes and divert my mind. 

They persist and won‘t let me fly from the consequences of our actions and our fitting fate.  The dark closes in and the end is nigh.

Bill Diamond is a curious traveler from Colorado. He writes to try and figure it all out. He writes for catharsis and to try and figure it all out.