The blood red moon is back
Grey cliffs and rocks and
Promontories
Ocean and desert of dust
And ruin
Single eye staring

Dying orange sunset
Before the blue fades to black
A wound in the sky
Lost dreams and desires
Single eye staring

As certain as the ways
Of scheming men and women
The grey mist and fog
Of haze
Return

Arthur Neong is a Malaysian Chinese hailing from Sungai Petani, Kedah, Malaysia. A school teacher for 11 years, he now channels the maelstrom of thoughts and visuals into lines, hoping to make sense of it all.

The old news

wakes me from another manic dream
about my sons, 4 a.m., a solitary bird
whistling to no answer, news enough
that my night is over, day begun,
time to receive the old news—my father
no longer alive again—as if it were new,
though only through sentences
that circle like this one—circle
like yesterday’s drab cardinal,
who blended into the uncut lawn,
the leafy hedge, circling repeatedly
from another yard to the dogwood
to the overhead wire to feed her chick
who barely clung there, while the flashy
father tried with flapping antics
to distract me, watching from the patio
as descending dusk enshrouded
my father—dozing again on the porch,
his newspaper unfolding to the floor—
who died five years ago last night.

D. R. James, retired from nearly 40 years of teaching college writing, literature, and peace studies, lives with his psychotherapist wife in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. His latest of ten collections is Mobius Trip (Dos Madres Press).
https://www.amazon.com/author/drjamesauthorpage

The olive drabness of rejection rots
A fruitless branch of unattached, pruned parchment.
Black night of doubt surrounds the judgement. Lots
Of missing feedback for the sapling talent

Erodes the ego. Friendless fears, like dew
Drops, warp and wrinkle paper. Pencil nubs
With warn eraser caps provoke anew
The memory of their lead-sweat traces. Shrubs

Get sheared, but, writing is a gift that grows
Like graceful grape vines. Read how others write.
Agree or disagree. Allow your prose
Or poetry to be critiqued in light.

Engraft into a writing league, and sow
Revised words till they hang as mistletoe.

V. Paige Parker is married, has 5 children, and lives in San Antonio. She is a poet with an MFA in Creative Writing in the Catholic Literary Tradition, with a focus on formal poetry, from the University of Saint Thomas in Houston, Texas. She is a member of Well-Read Moms. Her hobbies include playing the guitar and the flute, taking long walks with her husband, and traveling with him. Her website is https://substack.com/@vpaigeparker.

I sit mindlessly on the floor playing solitaire for the seventh
time. Numbness, like nova cane, numbness that blurs
the stars. Sadness that plays with my hair, parting it over and
over. Eyes float through the succession of blinks. They flood
spilling over. Trickling down my cold, pale face they fall on my
spaghetti-stained t-shirt. I force thoughts down, dreadful, unwarranted.
Hues of warm yellow fade into the carpet from the adjacent
window. Light feels good.

Luther, my incorrigible black poodle abruptly takes over my space.
He stumbles in, falls at my stubby feet and swears he’ll always love
me. Scattered, his thick black hair is matted beyond repair. His breath,
simple, like coffee grounds, endears. Shiny coal eyes that look at me
like my mother. Eyes that fall all over me, wanting no more of me than
I bring. No pretense. No foul. Luther’s presence, his acceptance, his warmth,
negates thoughts now adrift.

Katie Barnett is a speech-language pathologist who spends most of her spare time writing poetry.

Ralph bought a new squid dog toy for Frodo, his Labrador, and a miniature sunken treasure ornament for Zeus, the goldfish. It’s better to give than to receive. Still, on that overcast Saturday, he felt a little, well, down. Alone with his pets, he took out a frozen dinner. Frodo was happy and coated the squid with saliva. Zeus darted eagerly back and forth from the treasure to the artificial weeds. Soon they would have dry dog food and fish flakes.

As he ate his microwaved mac & cheese, the doorbell rang.

“Hi, Ralph.”

“Oh, hello, Rayette.”

No longer living with him, she was still friendly enough to show up unannounced.

“I was in the neighborhood. I hope I’m not interrupting, but I bought you something.”

“No problem… My birthday was last month, though, Rayette.”

“I know. But better late than never.”

“That’s…”

What was the word? Thoughtful? Kind? Nice?

“…fine.”

“Here, Ralph. I hope you like it.”

She handed him an octopus dog toy for Frodo and a ceramic mermaid for Zeus.

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

on a forest trail
warm wind whispers through the trees
God and man commune

Seas transport safely
or serve as cemeteries
during all seasons

Janice Canerdy is a retired English teacher from Potts Camp, Mississippi. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications
over the last thirty years. Her second book, From Serious to Slapstick, Poems Like Life is available on Amazon.

“Thank you, Aunt Gert.”

“You’re quite welcome, Otto. I’m glad you enjoyed them.”

They were on their phones. Had Otto said he enjoyed her present?

“I like Argyles, Aunt Gert.”

“They were two of your Uncle Frank’s favorite pairs, Otto.”

Everyone needs socks. And it was Otto’s birthday. Well, actually, the week before was his birthday, and the socks had just arrived. His aunt couldn’t be expected to be perfect on dates. She knew, she explained, that his deceased uncle would want Otto to enjoy some of his favorite socks. Though he’d been gone for three years, she still kept Frank’s clothing, which she offered as birthday gifts.

Yes, Uncle Frank, with his cigar, his pear-shape, his cough, and his ill-fitting clothes.

Should Otto say that one pair of Argyles had holes in the toes?

It’s the consideration that counts. Already, his aunt thought of Otto’s next birthday and of two stretched-out undershorts that her husband used to enjoy wearing, especially in his final years. From what the 78-year-old woman understood – for she knew her nephew – Otto always needed underwear.

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

Mel pointed with his spoon to his oatmeal.
“Do those look like two flies to you, Ed?”
Ed squinted, lifting his glasses for a better view. He and Mel were at AL’S counter that Tuesday morning.
“Nah. I think you must’ve separated one fly’s head from its body with that spoon, Mel.”
“Just one, huh?”
Ed nodded, then pointed with his fork which had some yoke on it. He’d ordered fried eggs.
“See, the head’s there. And the body, which’s still moving, is over there.”
Thanks to a decentralized nervous system, a decapitated fly can actually move around and engage in activity, even sexual activity, for several days.
“Thanks, Ed.”
“What’d you mean?”
“Well, I certainly don’t want two flies in my oatmeal.”

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

David is also a regular contributor to Rue Scribe with his witty and pithy stories.

When flags relax at half-mast, will we be ready with them to rise?
When the sparks of insolence weed gardens of themselves, will we create a new shared home?
When homonyms parse themselves out of likeness, will there be new bones?
When there is only weather for the birds and bodies of the forgotten, will we seed light?
When the space between quiet and intonation fills with thought will there still be voice?
When children invent new clouds will we allow our hands to inhabit a different dance?
When imagined wise teachers emerge will we recognize their faces?
When we decide the earth is ours and equally not our own will we find new places to roam?
When skin tones accept the moon as kin to sun will we find golden nests?
When we learn to have been separate will we clasp shared history to share?
When we finish practicing cadenzas will we codify magnetic earth?
When we perform the baseline will our hearing faculty reprise foundations of first birds?
When we decide to retrieve our childhood will we locate matching softness?
When breath leaves wind behind will leaves still be trembling?

Sheila Murphy has been writing for a good deal of time and lives her poetry. She walks prolifically, just as she writes. She writes, “I will spare you the biographical details and emphasize that I’m a kind of jet propulsion engine filled with joie de vivre! :)”

“Up there, in the sky…”

“It’s not Superman, Ed. How many times do I have to tell you?”

“But up in the sky, Edna. Look up…”

They were on their back patio, a small, uneven area beyond the back porch, Ed’s failed attempt at brickwork.

There was nothing in the sky, although Ed pointed – no bird at all, no plane.

And it wasn’t the Man of Steel, either, although Superman occasionally zipped over the neighborhood northeast of Philadelphia.

Why not? It was Philadelphia. It needed his help.

Edna had to go over it again.

“Its not him. It’s your glasses, Ed.  Without your glasses, you can’t see worth a damn.”

Squinting, Ed couldn’t gauge distances. He couldn’t differentiate a fly up close and bothersome from a plane moving from east to west in the heavens above.

“If you had ‘em on, Ed, you’d see it’s a fly.”

“Not Superman, huh?”

“No… It’s just a common fly.”

That was the end of it. They had little more to say to one another for the remainder of that Saturday morning.

Even when a dozen more flies joined them, she didn’t ask Ed to go into the kitchen to retrieve the flyswatter. Without his bifocals, what were the chances he’d come back with the dead insect-splattered tool rather than, say, a large plastic salad fork?

The patio was uneven, so they rocked back and forth in their chairs.

There’d be no aerial Superman antics to improve the day.

And the flies?

Most of them decided to go into the kitchen through the torn screen door, to check out the counter and sink with its unwashed breakfast dishes, before Edna and, later, Ed, went inside.

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