In different dimensions we exist
Side by side
Threads of fate tangling and interweaving
We walk,
Side by side
Our footsteps follow each other
But we could not be farther apart

I am you, if only you
Slept in five minutes
Listened to a different song on the subway
Missed that left turn

The rules are different for each of us
But each small difference gives us a chance
To make things right
In our own way

Butterfly wingbeats become typhoons

Nik Rajagopalan is a biochemistry student who enjoys writing poetry, motorcycling, candy making, and playing with his dog Tashi. He hopes to one day explore scientific ideas through poetry.

The many little corners of a day
Are stuck in places that you’ll never find
Until you’re ready to come out and say
Exactly what was furthest from your mind.

When nighttime comes you shouldn’t shake your head
At spaces you refused to enter in,
But know your willful choice to climb in bed
Will slickly end what you never began.

Smack in between these times of indecision
Just stop and take a moment to suppose
What might be lost without your lone revision,
The little whiffs only under your knows.

The empty spaces on a calendar
Are not just there so you’ll know where you are.

David L Williams is recently retired from 34 years teaching high school English in Lincoln, Nebraska, his primary residence since going to college there in the 80s. For inspiration, he enjoys sitting on the two steps leading down to their patio and looking out back. He shares the home with his 30 year living partner, Mary, who unknowingly models for some of his poems.

It’s quiet as Hell
The telephone rings
Ignore it or not
Either way your life changes
You pick it up
A deal is made
You’re unaware
but your path is now clear
Later your need will be great
And will be met

Howard Zugman an 82 year old man who has never written poetry before. He has recently written about 40 or so short poems to his girlfriend who thinks he should share them. So he’s sharing. This is his first move in that direction. What do you think?

isn’t it always like that
a blackbird in a headwind
blown back by something
it cannot see

your heart crushed
blindsided
by a bus suddenly
out of fog

your best intention
acres of corn crop
bitten by blight
ploughed under

where do you turn
in a world
that makes as little
sense as a scarecrow
in ballet shoes

Keith Polette has published poems in both print and online journals. His book of haibun, Pilgrimage, was published by Red Moon Press in 2020.

Awake. Breathe in sound to
surround the blue sky
spilling life unto the ground.
Make. Laughter in waves of
tidal green leaves
shaking the wings off demons.
Energy. Crying toward the moon
spinning laps of waltzing
rhythms home in phases.
New. Sleep against the sun
springing backward the molecules
marching across the path of time.

something new and good
about being you

Valerie Flanagan is an associate professor and graduate chair of education and mom to two boys who hold her heart. She enjoys reading novels and poetry of various genres, while waiting for poems to share their words with her.

He lay among
the background hums of deep night
on this more inhabited world,
anonymous machines vaguely at large,
gears and wheels and rotors
spinning in service of the sleeping
and the sleepless,
the half-life of jet lag
yawning before him,
with days to go before he’d be
accustomed again
and ready for the routines
of this other place,
his feet willing enough,
notwithstanding
the Greek chorus
of dead French philosophers
he kept squeezed
into silence
on an untended shelf.

Bob Brussack is oldish and therefore burdened with the usual accumulation of reasons to grieve. He lived in Manhattan first, then Long Island, then in the southern reaches of the ancient foothills of the Appalachians, and mostly after that in Athens, Georgia, teaching law. Now he divides his time between Athens and a sea town near the coast of the Celtic Sea.

This lavender looks dead even when it thrives
Its dry grey leaves point at the sun
I want it to be other than it is
What if I accept its very nature?
Its tired withered struggle
What then?

Vanessa Rose writes poetry whenever she can. She lives in Sydney Australia and is a member of Writing NSW. When not writing, Vanessa is a researcher at a not-for-profit social purpose centre based in Australia, Singapore and the UK.

I went to the market
To buy some cookies
Endless choices before me.
Peanut Butter Oreos
Sweet, yet savory all in one
I pay and leave,
taking one from the package
I bump into you and apologize
I’m so wrapped up in the taste
Of the cookie
That I almost didn’t notice
You call me
“Sandnigger”

Nik Rajagopalan is a student at George Mason University. He enjoys motorcycling, playing with his dog Tashi, and of course, writing poetry, especially for his young niece to enjoy.

I remember a soft, gentle delicate light
a slight breeze on my face
This memory of when I last saw you
A feeling as if it were today
And, I remember this memory
of turning back to look at your
sleeping body,
curve of your shoulder

When I was young
when I was with you secretly
in those
nights

Mary Ann Castle lives in NYC

July 1-3, 1863, American Civil War

Three days under clear skies in the lush courses of
Shenandoah Valley, General Lee’s forces
struck Northern lands cross the Susquehanna River.
Over ten roads they marched and rode to deliver
a crushing blow to General Meade’s Union jacks
surrounding Gettysburg and prepared for attacks.

Forests and farmlands, ruined rolling hills and pastures,
rocked with cannon fire, mortars, muskets, and fractures.
Wild animals fled, farm animals under yoke,
birds in the sky receded into distant smoke.
North against South, toddler nation blood-divided,
brothers against brothers, families blindsided.

Gettysburg —the bloodiest battle of the war
death from mortars, cannonballs, acres of horror
wounded, casualties, lying on a grassy crypt.
Afterward medics walked the battlefield and tripped
on numerous muskets unfired, atop shoulders.
Just four of every hundred died because soldiers
saw men facing them, didn’t shoot, just paused the strife.
Humanity hesitates to kill when faced with life.

Linda (Stormyfalls) lives in a world where ERA is the 28th amendment to the Constitution, Black Lives Matter, democracy thrives, climate change is taken seriously, and walls are built only to decorate not divide.