Bleating Down

Filling before the throne and not of grace,
a bleat is risen from the sacrifice you bring
yet the king will not hear your plea
for a gift he seeks, perfect and blameless.
You beside your one-eyed goat
poor father that you be,
coming to plead the cause of your snatched land.
Why bring a goat bleating down?
Go! Go from here for this will never do,
the king will not hear this case.

Nowhere to Go

Beside the heavens or earth,
where else can I inhabit
for time and space will not permit
that I find a home without
even when humans my trust break,
my humour anger,
time and space will not permit
forcing my hand to live this life.
Living, vexing yet laughing all the same
crying, shouting, still dancing as I go.
Beside the earth or heaven,
no where else to inhabit
for time and space will not permit.
So I stand in the face of humanity,
human that I am.

Abasiama Udom is a Poet and Writer with words scattered all over including at Rigorous Magazine and U-rights Magazine. She lives in Akwa Ibom, Nigeria with her family (parents and annoying brother) and finds the time to sleep, dance or watch football. Twitter:@AneuPoet

Grey. Grey. Grey. We are shady, limmering
And fluttering. We don’t stride the air like
Eagles do. We belong to the city:
Small, narrow, crowded, oil stains shimmering
Competing with each feather. We don’t strike
When we fly up in startled bunches, we
Flap, scat, skitter. Grey. Grey. Like the beggars
We have become since there were places to
Beg in, or to beg from. Grey. Grey. Grey. Necks
Ringed with lilac. Wings white tipped. We demur
From taking food from people’s hands. We coo,
We strut. Grey. Grey. Throw the crumbs down. Expect
Us to be delighted. We’ll flit, peck, play
Our part. Rapturously coy. Grey. Grey. Grey.

Juleigh Howard-Hobson’s poetry has appeared in The Comstock Review, Noir Nation, L’Éphémère, Able Muse, The Lyric, Weaving The Terrain (Dos Gatos), Poem Revised (Marion Street), Birds Fall Silent in the Mechanical Sea (Great Weather for Media), Lift Every Voice (Kissing Dynamite), and other venues. A Million Writers Award “Notable Story” writer, nominations include “Best of the Net”, The Pushcart Prize and The Rhysling Award. She lives off grid in the Pacific Northwest next to a huge woods filled with shadows and ghosts.

After we younglings
in choir loft
intone our last song
we close our hymnals
wander down uneven steps
kneel beside statues
lit with flickering candles
burning with intentions.
so silent
just listening
smell dripping wax

After awhile
a few fidget
wiggle up
disappear
to backyard
tree forts
Box Car children
adventures
rowdy
hop-scotch

But the rest of us
so silent,
not even a fragment
of hymn begs attention
But the rest of us
so quiet
are here
still listening

Marianne has been a music teacher for 43 years. After teaching in Hong Kong, she returned to the Napa Valley and has been published in various literary magazines and reviews including Ravens Perch, TWJM Magazine, Earth Daughters and Indiana Voice Journal. She was nominated for the Pushcart prize in 2017. She is a member of the California Writers Club and an Adjunct Professor at Touro University in California.

“That ocean,” said Marvell (and meant the mind).
To be half-right is not exactly wrong,
for though the ocean functions as a kind
of hidden wellspring for the careless throng,

there is in fact the land with air and light,
receiving, like an artist, what it’s dealt,
transforming that into a holy rite
at which a bronze-age human would have knelt.

But rites should have a reason that makes sense.
A round and knobby planet without spine,
and lacking verbal person, mood or tense,
reflects on outer space its modest shine.

Here is reason, although logic is still mute.
It rises through the ether as dispute.

John J. Brugaletta is the first member of his family to finish high school and then three degrees from universities. He is now professor emeritus at California State University, Fullerton, where he edited South Coast Poetry Journal for ten years. He lives with his wife on the redwood coast of California.

Studying the ceiling
tracing the migration patterns of angels there
along the fractured boundary of imagination
(a place where they love to kneel and drink)
I set traps; yes, I have sunk that low.

But I have to tell you—it is beautiful to see
that torn gossamer streaming like the spun sugar
we used to pull off paper wands at the parish fair, the magic
of its abrupt crimson color when the strands met
the sweat of our eager fingers, our stained tongues.
My sister would pinch off small puffs and brush her nail tips
like we saw mom do, or powder my face
leaving a rouge web across my cheeks.

It’s like that, just like that,
easing their fine wretchedness from the snare
in glittering strands, ingesting their brilliance,
licking my lips with a grotesque sort of satisfaction.

Judith Solano Mayer is a Pacific Northwest transplant with an ancient history in physical science. She enjoys the porosity of the multiverse and tries to incorporate its character into her poetry whenever possible.

   might sound, tapping a metal bucket,
for all the lack of sun this morning,
the dim gray light, no heavier than that.
As though God’s not into dramatics today.
No fire and brimstone.
No rending of earth as when Jesus died.
No storm lashing Adam and Eve out of Eden.
No cataclysmic meteor striking the Yucatan
to extinguish the dinosaurs.
No glacial sheet of ice overwhelming Europe
to drive the Neanderthals south.
A day of forgiveness perhaps,
or an intermission.

Joseph Hardy is one of a handful of writers that live in Nashville, Tennessee, that does not play a musical instrument; although a friend once asked him to bring his harmonica on a camping trip so they could throw it in the fire. His wife says he cannot leave a room without finding out something about everyone in it, and telling her their stories later.

Six foot six
Giant of a teddy bear
Well over 200 pounds
Much to my mother’s chagrin.
Came out of the Army
Scarcely 140
Before they married in
The Swiss Alps,
Then he discovered
Marlene’s cooking.

The first time I remembered
My father crying
Was when
I was bouncing across
Lemon-lime colored
Love seats
At nine-years-old
And the phone rang.
Daddy,
In his wild mutton chops
And Steve Allen glasses
Quietly answered.

It was mid-air
When I caught his face
Twist in a knot
Of pain
“Jesus no, dear God, no. Please, not my son.”
A good Catholic man
He rarely took the Lord’s name
In vain.

Splintered downward
Into a thud
Knees empty
Mustard yellow phone cord
Twirled
Around his fisherman
Hand-knitted sweater.
He fell hard
Onto that kitchen tile
Splayed
Like a broken marionette
My brother, Paul, the elder
Crushed
in a car accident.

Second time
Me
Running around the basement
Dad bursts the door open
Screaming in gurgled angst
A death grip on his wrist
Like a muscle tourniquet
“Call your mother,”
He choked out barely
Poor fellow
He was only trying
To get the wet leaves
Out from under our hand mower.
I grab some gas rags for bandaids
Tossing them at him, running
Frightened of my dad’s fear
But nothing could stop
That bloody stump of a finger
From soaking my mom’s
New beige rug.

Third time
Another phone call.

His whole life he had been
The caretaker
The breadwinner
A published engineer
Devotee to sonar submarines
But his love was never work
It was always
Art.
Painting, poetry, books
Foreign movies and those damned gladiolas
He could recite
The Song of Hiawatha by heart
But please don’t get him started.
His weekends,
Always, pure bliss
Pabst Blue Ribbon Sunday
Wearing baggy JC Penney jeans
With cobalt blue paint stains
And a gray-white t-shirt
Sitting in front of his easel
“Putzing About” as mother would say
In his labyrinth underfoot
Acrylic portraits
King Kong posters
And unfinished birdhouses
Awaitied his masculine touch.

Now back to the phone call

Mr. McTaggart
You have won first place
For your landscape
At the Mystic Art Association.

Caught him off guard it did
He looked at Marlene, curiously
Before turbulent tears rained down
Upon soft wrinkled cheeks
Unstoppable.
He was embarrassed
And looked away
Out the window
At the gossiping chickadees
Trying to wipe his face
With that ancient pocket handkerchief
Of his
Years in the basement
His dream validated
This was a big one
Somebody finally took note
It meant
He could at last be called
A true artist.

My father cried.

Laura Stroebel is a published author and poet from Connecticut. She enjoys attending local open poetry mics. Currently, she is working on her second children’s book, which is also poetry. She is married to a writer, works as a middle school math teacher, and has two children in college. In her spare time, she enjoys chess, photography and selling vintage books.

What was the hardest thing you’ve ever done, grandma?
My granddaughter, such a light

Oh, that’s easy, I say
All the caretaking
Yes, when my children were young
My dog was old, my cat was wild
Grandpa was there but he was working
The world was still
But I was moving as fast as ever

Oh, she says, slightly unsatisfied
Her fierce green eyes burning into me
My granddaughter, so curious

But I was lucky, I say
I was healthy, I was loved
And you know what, baby girl, I say, pulling her in for a hug
It doesn’t get any better than that

She smiles

Courtney Robb is a bilingual, Canadian aspiring poet. Mother of two young children, currently on maternity leave. Former flight attendant formerly scared of persuading her love of poetry and expression. She plans on re-attending university in the fall to pursue her passion.

Hanging onto the thread of September
Hoping each fiber will pull me closer
To packed boxes taped
To the corners of our four-door

When the rubber licks the road
Tears tiptoe the fine hairs of salted cheeks
To a sweat speckled lip
Trembling with sweet possibility

Fraying the end of a fiber
With every goodbye and
You have to come visit!
The sparkle never leaves an eye
Even when it cries

Camille is a writer and out-of-practice gospel singer who has lived in Boston, Harlem, and Paris. In her spare time, she thrifts vintage picture frames and takes way too many pictures of her elder cat.

You speak as if you aspire
to something holy and perfect.
White light attracts moths.
They are blinded by mystery.
Like the light, your words
are no greater than you.
Like the moth, you are
scalded by hubris.

Hugh Findlay lives in Durham, NC, and would rather be caught fishing. He drives a little red MG, throws darts on Thursdays, reads and writes a lot, dabbles in photography and makes a pretty good gumbo. His work has most recently been published in The Dominion Review, Literary Accents, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Bangalore Review, Burningword Literary Journal, Wanderlust, Montana Mouthful, Souvenirs, Dream Noir, Proem, San Pedro River Review, New Southern Fugitives and Arachne Press. @hughmanfindlay