“Cowboys” by Don Niederfrank


On a horsehair sofa next to my Uncle Bud
watching Westerns on his old RCA.
He starts laughing at a cowboy in a bathtub.
When I ask him why, the old man says:
Your great grandpa told me the horsemen of the plains
didn’t want a soak after a hard day’s ride.
They’d wait for a night when there was a summer rain,
then they’d all get naked and go outside.
One would play a fiddle, and one would start to sing.
Young men being young men, they’d all dance around
tossing soap back and forth and getting themselves clean
in the fresh downpour stomping on the ground.
Far older now than Bud was then,
I still dream of cowboys dancing in the rain.


Don Niederfrank is a retired clergy person living in Wisconsin and delighting in the companionship of his wife, the wit of his friends, the forgiveness of his children, and often commutes to Chicago to enjoy the growth of his grandchildren. He is usually a very grateful and happy person.

“La Brea Tar Pits” by David Radford


These are asphalt pools with placid surface
Bubbles emerge in a slow graceful dance
Traps for large creatures in bygone ages
Who weren’t careful enough at pool edges

Just a few steps in and the seeds were sown
For the creature’s fate to be set in stone
To slowly sink into a toxic glue
Finally pass completely out of view

Though La Brea pools are a hazard no longer
There is a pool posing immediate danger

An expanding pool with seething surface
Bubbles emerge in an explosive dance
A trap for all things in our current age
Which do not evade its dynamic edge

Just a few yards in and the seeds are sown
For the victim’s fate to be set in stone
To slowly sink into a toxic glue
Finally pass completely out of view


David Radford is a retired college professor who loves gardening and the great outdoors. Creative writing has been a welcome change from the technical writing his career demanded.

“Here’s That Map of the World Again” by Kate Bowers


I handed you a map of the world.
“Been there. Done that,” you said.
But what do you remember of those
Jewel dark caves, the green drip of moss
Across trees?
“No one ever asks me that,” you said.
“Not once in all this time.”
Maybe you should tell them,
Let them see where the waves touched
You.
“Here’s a map to the heart,” I said,
“Start with this.”


Kate Bowers is a writer based out of Pittsburgh, PA. She has been published previously in “The Ekphrastic Review,” “Rue Scribe,” “Sheila-Na-Gig,” and in the anthology “Pandemic Evolution: Poets Respond to the Art of Matthew Wolfe,” edited by Hayley Haugen.

“The Turning Point” by Veronica Robinson


The rich ripe smell of avocados in Portland market made me remember the sunny Sunday when I chased a butterfly. I took it on my middle finger, then let it fly away. Blue skies. A gentle breeze. The smell of over-ripe mangos. Cashews and avocados rotting on the ground. The strong smell of lilies and roses.

I tripped over my Daddy as he lay in the long grass. His khaki shorts around his knees. His penis was pink at the top.

His voice was coaxing.

‘Come give Daddy’s teapot a kiss.’

‘No.’

‘Aunty Mavis will leave, if you don’t.’

I began to cry as he reached for my hand. ‘No. Daddy. No.’

‘Time to say goodbye,’ Aunty Mavis called from the veranda.

I stumbled into the house. Aunty Mavis handed me a set of clay kitchen toys.

‘Give back those toys,’ my father hissed.

I felt pee run down my legs.

‘Get a rag and wipe up that pee,’ he said.

I got a rag. Wiped the wet tiled floor.

I took the rag into the back garden. Washed it under the tap. Hung it on the line to dry. I took off my wet panty. Washed it under the tap. Hung it on the line to dry next to the rag.

‘I know what you are doing to this child Baz. I can’t prove a thing but I know she’s scared to death of leaving you.

Aunty Mavis was my father’s girlfriend. Now she was leaving.

‘I want to go with you. Don’t leave me with Daddy.’

The door bell rang.

‘Answer it,’ my father barked.

It was Sidney. He was a friend of Aunty Mavis and the reason she was leaving. He smiled a wide smile.

‘Hello pet,’ he said. ‘Like your gifts? I made them especially for you.’

‘Thanks Uncle Sidney.’

‘Baz won’t allow her to keep them,’ said Aunty Mavis.

‘Be a sport Baz,’ said Sidney.

‘You are taking my woman. Stay away from my child.’ My father looked at Sidney with ice in his eyes.

‘She can keep the toys,’ he said. ‘But not as long as she is under my roof.’

I went into the back garden. I took my panty off the line. I put it on. I took the rag from the line. I went back into the house.

I looked my father in the eye. ‘I’m leaving Daddy.’

‘If you do, never let me see you in this house again. Remember that.’

I gathered up my gifts. I put them in a carrier bag. Aunty Mavis held out her hand. But, before I took her hand, I walked over to my father and dropped the rag at his feet.


Veronica Robinson is Jamaican/British. She started writing in Jamaica for the evening newspaper, producing stories, articles and an advice column. She also contributed in two short films and a flash fiction story to City Lit magazine ‘Between The Line’. For the past 10 years, Veronica has been attending a writers’ group focusing on writing short stories and flash fiction.

“Memory Loss” by April Best


I forgot how to exist
without

picking up socks,
mittens,
putting away legos,
wiping uncapped
toothpaste squirts,
preparing eggs
for more than

one,

laundering four times
than what I wear.

A decade of dying to
myself –

A decade more and
I will walk through
rooms unchanged,
echoing

absence

forgetting these noisy,
cluttered days.


April Best is the writer and photographer behind stillsmallmomentsblog.com. Her pursuit of living wisely is a hopeful one, filled with dog-eared pages of books, and attempts to start and end each day in kindness. April studied English and French at York University in Toronto and has her Master’s Degree in English Literature.

“A Most Eccentric Girl” by Lisa Finder

The mother like no other
stood
whisking eggs
with a disappointed gaze.
Sighing.
“This child I raised!
Never in my days!
Such peculiar ways.
Extraordinarily
ornery.
Scant ability
to do anything with facility.
At least a pleasing face would’ve saved grace.
Such a bright sister and
exemplary brothers!
If I had my druthers…
she’d be, at least a bit, like the others,
so I could kvell. I do it so well.”


Lisa Finder is a librarian at Hunter college/CUNY. She is a longtime resident of Inwood in New York City and is originally from Albany, New York. She started writing rhyming poetry in 2020.

“After a Snow Storm” by Evalyn Lee


The steel bones of a city
bury me. I fasten
my seat belt while seated.
Skyscraper icicles collapse

into black filigree river
roads. More snow.
This is when I begin to be glad.
This is when I begin to be sad.

I will not lie. I love the time
between takeoff and landing.
Walls fall, rooms open,
doorways and windows flash,

crystal clarity bends
to a blue horizon and every-
where is snow, and birds,
looking for a place to land.


Evalyn Lee is a former CBS News producer currently living in London with her husband and two children. Over the years, she has produced television segments for 60 Minutes in New York and the BBC in London.

Three short poems by Russel Winick


Brevity

When someone first says they’ll be brief,
Don’t be too quick to feel relief.


Path Taken

Those with honest introspection
Tend to take the right direction.


Faultless

Relationships may not last long
If neither side is ever wrong.


Mr. Winick began writing poetry about two years ago, after concluding a long legal career. Most of his work tends to be short and formal.

“The Day They Knew” by Donald Sellitti


The day they knew
Was in the 50’s I think, when
On the Sunday drive to
Nowhere families took back then

While gazing out a window
At a Maxfield Parrish sky
I yelled to my father to
Stop the car and he did
Asking ‘What?’
Or maybe ‘Why?’

And at the sight of such obvious beauty
In silhouette against the fading light
I replied: “Look at that tree!”

It was then that they knew
The kind of son their
Second son would be.


Don Sellitti is retired after a thirty-eight year career in research and teaching at a university. His publications number in the fifties, but all are in scientific journals and the closest thing to poetry in them is a well-turned phrase in the Discussion section.

Nonetheless, he admires the way poets can tackle the same unknowns of life that he as, but in a way that’s more fun to read, and that sometimes rhymes.

“Beyond” by Gregory E. Lucas


Beyond
this grief’s torrent,
beyond this pall of clouds
that conceals everlasting light,
soar gull.

Carry
my loving touch
upon your tattered wings
through this deluge, this steely sky
to him.

Through hail,
through wind-swept sleet,
over these clashing waves
flecked by a sun far past this sun,
fly on.

Defy
holey borders
barring living from dead.
Soften your wails for the bereft.
Rejoice.

Ashes
spread in the sea,
while in eternal gleams
once more a husband and a wife
embrace.


Gregory E. Lucas lives on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. He swims in the ocean every day about seven months out of the year. He is 63 years old and he has been playing classical guitar for decades. He worked as a tutor in Delaware for 32 years and he is currently a caregiver to his old-aged mother.