Freestyle, free of constraints, let yourself go,
does it make any sense, who’s to know?
Express yourself, let yourself be known.
Let others feast on the words that you have sown.
But there are those who choose a bizarre form,
something way outside the norm.
They call it Freestyle.
If you have some kind of style, or no style,
it doesn’t matter you can get real wild.
Some can get real crazy, maybe even act like a child.
It might mean something to you,
but for anyone else does the meaning come through?
Would there be any touch of reality,
would it ever mean a thing to me?
With seemly no rules and no real structure.
Trying to find meaning or sense of it is torture.
Random words in some random composition,
mere ravings with no relevant revelation.
To be complex, intellectual, and “deep”.
It moves me not, instead it puts me to sleep.
Freestyle, what does it mean to me?
It’s got to be so mindless and quite easy,
putting any words down in any way at all.
Just throwing words out, let’s see where they may fall.
Freestyle, the weirder the better,
the strangest is prophetic, the “smarter”?
Viewed and sometimes read by the Elite, the “Top”,
-the cream of the crop!
Exclusively they eliminate the rest,
they’re selections are only for the best.
The commoner might care their emotions to share,
the commoner might enjoy common words to hear.
But for the ones who controls the pens,
or at least where their word ends,
this realm is not accepting new friends.
No, no one is allowed in at all,
don’t call them, they’ll call you- not at all.
Don’t tell them your words, upon deaf ears they will fall.
Freestyle so much the rage they say,
it’s what’s hip and in vogue today.
Still, trying as hard as I could,
no matter how many I read I found not one that was any good.
I couldn’t understand one single one,
and I could only be left with one conclusion when I was done.
It appears that the real meaning of Freestyle,
is ultimately having “no rhyme or reason” and no style.
Some people have some gall,
but I don’t care, Freestyle poetry to me isn’t really poetry at all.

After a successful career as a Senior Designer working with international mining companies, William David is retired now and living in Tucson, Az. He likes spending time now devoted to his passion: writing poetry. William writes for his pleasure and for the pleasure of those who might read his poems.

Off this shore
the lake is deep.
The loon’s cry floats
like rune of ruin—
startlingly close—
the cry of someone
who shakes the bones.

Paulette Callen has returned to her home state of South Dakota in retirement, after 30+ years in New York City. Varying degrees of culture shock in both directions — but always, the space she returned to has been made home by a dog.

When you say this poem,
Know you will read it when you know nothing of how you will say it later.
How it will feel under a cool sky of clouds in twenty years.
How it will edge along the bone.

Kate Bowers is a writer based out of Pittsburgh, PA. She has been published previously in “The Ekphrastic Review,” “Rue Scribe,” and “Sheila-Na-Gig.’

It strikes my soul
with crackling voltage,
leaves me trembling,
lost in space.

I feel you pass
and without looking,
I magnetize to pull
the current back.

You shoot through me
—shock and polarize
my power source;
suspended, still….

I search for pulse
for energy, a slight vibration
—your touch—at last,
regeneration.

Suzanne S. Eaton is an author and marketing consultant. She has written many corporate stories and marketing materials. She authored “Chinese Herbs,” and has written for various magazines and anthologies. Most recently, Down in the Dirt Magazine, Writer Shed Stories, Seaborne Magazine, The Purpled Nail, The Silent World in Her Vase (TSWHV), Scarlet Leaf Review, and Rue Scribe have selected her work for publication.

I’ve no reason to think he ever really left,
For the soil doesn’t allow us to rest,
It puts our bodies to work
As undersecretaries for flowers and oak trees.

I get to check up on him each autumn,
When his beard turns the leaves russet
And I imagine him being belched out,
To be mixed with the mid morning air.

Christopher Ware is a poet from London, England. He writes under the sobriquet, Charlton Poetic – an ode to his South London roots. Poetry is something of a therapeutic exercise for Christopher, who began writing again after suffering a breakdown a couple of years ago. As a result, he work uses the narrative of personal experience to explore wider themes, with an intense focus on the lyrical.

They are tying ribbons
on the trees now—
for the first responders
and emergency workers,
the caregivers, the doctors and nurses,
for all the healthcare providers
and essential workers
wearing their masks and their bravery
into the fray.

So, I tied a ribbon to the nearest tree
to honor those serving on the front lines,
only the ribbon wouldn’t reach all the way
around the trunk like I wanted it to, like a hug.
Instead, I tied the ribbon around a branch,
one that looked like it was reaching out to help
or to comfort, maybe a neighboring tree,
only there weren’t any other trees nearby.

Even at a distance, this tree could be connecting
deeply through its roots—together though apart,
as we write to long-lost friends, sew makeshift masks
for neighbors, and inquire whether we can donate blood,
all while gathering up our ribbons or perhaps some yarn,
braided & homespun, to tether to the nearest tree
or fencepost or latch—wondering even whether
our shoelaces would suffice for showing solidarity,
in times when we do our small part by staying home.

And this tree will wear its ribbon as a signal of aid,
like medics have worn during past pandemics & wars
because snow is falling on field hospitals this winter,
and the front lines feel like wartime—
and for us all, this is a time for love & grief
and heartache, and reaching out,
and digging deep.

Jenevieve Carlyn Hughes teaches humanities for university students. In her free time, she enjoys birdwatching, rarely with binoculars. You can follow her on Instagram @sea_thistle.

Another version of this poem was previously published in Front/Lines: Nurse Poets & Pandemic Perspectives (Jun. 2020) under the title Red Ribbons.

I’m so lucky, that’s what everybody has said.
The car was going too fast, and that tree too still.
Far worse has happened to those without intent.
I’m so lucky.

Dressed in starched blue,
I circle around my white room.
They check on me every ten minutes.
If I show promise it will become every fifteen.
They’ve taken my shoe laces.
I’m so lucky.

Mica Kanner-Mascolo is a student of creative writing, sociology, and French at The New School in NY, NY. Her writing consists of poems and short stories aspiring to give pause to her reader. Mica is currently waiting out the pandemic in Boston, MA with her dog, Willoughby.

I fear heights and highs
as depths and lows come after.
Unshakeable certainties,
absolute truths and forever sureties scare me,
in my head, the world is an eternal question mark.

Coffee and the endless possibilities of a new day
delight me in the mornings. I dislike too much sun
or not enough rain and afternoons that exhale gray.
Seasons move into one another, cold and warm,
warm and cold, months alternating in front of my eyes
that follow the unceasing circle of faraway nature.

So, I imagine a short poem,
for not having many likes or dislikes,
life’s evenness makes it fair in my mind.
Thus, I write my uncertainties, regrets
and misgivings mixed with solace,
peace and quietness.

My life is a balance of contrasts,
swinging like a pendulum,
back and forth and with each turn,
left or right, I open my ears
to Mozart, Chopin and Bach,
my eyes to Picasso, Van Gogh and Miro
and my sense of smell to the fragrances of my mother’s cooking.
And these music, colors and scents arouse my spirit.

For life won’t become more beautiful
because of my sensorial experiences, but
they add pleasure to my existence.
Rejoicing with that, as blues and grays are part
of the same rainbow and sunny days and rainy nights
are in the same spectrum of weather, I live these differences
as if I hadn’t noticed them
and that brings me comfort.

Cristina DeSouza is a physician and poet who holds a MFA in creative writing/ poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She has had multiple poems published by several literary magazines such as Sheila-Na-Gig, Raw Journal of Arts, Poetry Pacific, Edify, to cite a few in the US. She also writes in Portuguese and has had poems published by Mallamargens, Capitu, Vidraguas, Macondo in Brazil. She had a book of poems published by The Main Street Rag in November 2019, titled The Grammar of Senses. Her email address for contact is colo2309@gmail.com.

After twenty years I gathered the clues,
I’ve put them together right here for you.
The secrets to marriage you’ll want to hear
To use with your wife, your honey, your dear.

Our wives don’t want us to solve their issue.
Let them vent while you give them a tissue.
Women already know what they will do,
Just listen to them as they talk things through.

Speaking of speaking, you must lose the tone
Or else for that night you will be alone.
The way I fix my tone is an old one:
Less or no talking, silence is golden.

Roses and diamonds first make her heart swoon
Those may work fine up through the honeymoon.
But as you get older pick up a broom,
Do dishes and laundry, vacuum a room.

Do chores and tasks that will relieve her stress
Put your wife first, that is always the best.
No training to put the toilet seat down,
One night you’ll fall in and you’ll almost drown.

Why would you argue? You’ll sound like a grouch.
You’ll lose anyway and sleep on the couch.
Be humble and bring her humor each day,
Make joy a main goal and keep it that way.

Encourage your wife, be her biggest fan.
Support her and be a part of her plans.
You should act as a team, partners in life.
Stick up for each other, it’s only right.

And if you’re not sure what to say or do.
Things get too heated or she’s feeling blue. 
Remember, just use phrase one or phrase two.
One is I’m sorry, two is I love you.

David A. Grenardo is a professor of law at the St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas. He was a four-year letterman in football at Rice University and earned his J.D. from Duke Law School.

So intimate with Ishmael and Bartleby,
he must have been Herman Melville reincarnated.
Character analysis, plot, symbolism—so
enamored with his own voice,
so adamant about the
single
right
answer.
All I wanted
was to wander around words
and split a slice of cheesecake.
So when he asked
if I wanted to go out again,
I told him
I’d prefer not to.

Valerie Nies (she/her/hers) is a comedian, writer, and gluten enthusiast whose work has been featured in McSweeney’s, Reductress, and Oddball Magazine. Find her in Austin, Texas, scanning WebMD and ridding her clothing of cat hair. She’s also on Twitter/IG @valerieknees and at valerienies.com.