Swimming in deep waters
Against a stream of blackness
I try to keep my head up
Keep smiling while I fight
Swimming in deep waters
The current works against me
Cold hands are trying to pull me
Away from air and light

Thousand eyes are watching me
Witness my stupidity
And hope to see me fail and finally drown
Thousand eyes will testify
How I’m foundering by and by
Slowly sinking, slowly going down

I will never give in
Don’t you see me crying
I will keep my head up
Keep fighting while I smile
My weakness is a secret
That you shall never notice
If I ever go down
I’m going down in style

My cry for help will not be heard
My lips wont let a single word
Slip and sound and call for its regard
Those thousand eyes will never see
Im suffering to the third degree
And just pretending to be tough and hard

My strength is quickly waning
I see the shore before me
I struggle to keep floating
And keep my dignity
I made it to the shoreline
Once more escaped the danger
The thousand eyes have vanished
Into eternity

A reservoir of uncried tears
Is built out of my doubts and fears
It never drained, this dam did never break
Now that I’ve escaped the seas
Im drowning in those uncried tears
Im drowning in my inner secret lake

Natalie Broadhead is an architect and musician in her fifties who mainly writes song lyrics. Her subjects are mostly about family, relationships, and how to lead a purposeful and fulfilling life. She is a keen reader of English and American literature. Natalie has British roots but currently lives in Switzerland.

The sun scatters his glory before
Gilding the high clouds rose-gold,
Then fills the great bowl of the sky,
A lord entering his hall, striding,
The mighty oaks his many thrones.

After decades as an expatriate in Europe, Rick Kuenning lives in western North Carolina. His work reflects a keen interest in nature, art, culture, and religious studies. It also draws on a long career in international relations and national policy. His creativity is often sparked by dialogue with other poems. He is awed by nature, angered by injustice, and moved by the stories of those whose voices are not heard.

we played Heart and Soul
a living room duet
your last night on Earth

nothing stands in the
way between the full moon and
my wonderment

love descends like a
favorite down comforter –
a blanket for the heart

day opens
soft and gentle
with my eyes

your soft weight–
impossible to start the day
with you on my lap

when I’m full I write
when I’m empty I read
literary yin yang

your frozen brilliance
stops me in my tracks–
moment of thanks

outlined in lace
your silhouette of ice–
frozen-framed

touched by
Mother Nature’s
frosty fingertip

a lonely, soulful
saxophone
sends me

Jennifer Gurney lives in Colorado where she teaches, paints, writes and hikes. She grew up in Kalamazoo, which does exist. Jennifer enjoys riding in the canyons on the back of a Harley and dancing under the stars to live music. Some of her best friends are lakes, trees and pelicans. She collects heart-shaped rocks, manual typewriters and interesting words. One day she will travel to Madagascar and study lemurs in the wild.

going to live,
despite

days I thought I could not
days I thought I should not
days I thought I would not
never wanted to

work this out for myself
no rule book
no choice
die, cry, dry, lie, try

back of your throat
behind your eyes
you can’t breathe
tears catch fire

what would she want?
I loved her
I know she loved me
deep in her eyes

to be happy?
mustn’t forget the children
more pain than they show
not hoard my hurt

people called I didn’t expect
people I didn’t know
from unexpected places
became people I needed

something of her left
in me, bereft
something to cherish
like a plant

only tears to tie back together
my heart
somehow the seams
hold, must hold, despite

Perry L. Powell is a poet, author, and widower who finds it all too easy to stay at home alone with his terrier, cat, ghosts, and memories.

Leonard Cohen passed me in the subway this morning
His eyes were sunken in more than I thought
His face gray which I knew
As he passed, I had total recall of exactly what was the idea
Before now
I had a mini seizure on the escalator headed toward the street
A Mexican man noticed but didn’t disturb his peace to comfort me
I cannot fault him
I reached the pavement and opened my undersized umbrella
Moving onward, dodging taxis and pretzel vendors on the way to better corners

Thomas Salvatore is a regular person who has been writing for over thirty years; college educated but had to work so did not move on to post graduate studies which he often regrets but still has lots to smile about. Thomas is a New Yorker, born in Queens, home of the Ramones.

There’s not a single thing flying in the air,
not a flying thing of any kind flying anywhere.

5 minutes ago, there were flies damn near everywhere,
I told them quite forcibly to get “The hell out of here!”.

But they didn’t care,
they started buzzing around me like they had no fear.

Grabbing my trusty swatter, I suddenly saw them disappear!
Evidently, my intentions for them were crystal clear.

The next thing I knew, they were taking me on one on one,
I’d take aim, but before I could strike, they were gone.

Then they came at me two by two,
I’d swat at one and miss, then swish, I’d miss the other one too.

Now I truly didn’t know what to do,
I decided I hadn’t thought this thing through.

A minute or three of thought,
I came to remember something I had forgot.

From beneath the kitchen sink, 3 green cannisters I pulled out,
it stated on the label that it killed flies without a doubt.

The skull and crossbones had me convinced,
as off comes the caps, and I pull the pull-tabs, as I winced.

A heavy fog now started filling the air,
I smelled the gas, and I was like a flash, out of there.

When I came back, I was rested assured at last,
flies will be but an unpleasant memory of the past.

It will be so wonderful with those flies leaving me alone,
and they better pay attention from now on,
to the new sign on my wall, that says, “NO FLY ZONE”.

After a successful career as a Senior Architectural & Engineering Designer working with international mining companies, William David is retired now and living in Tucson, Az. His debut book, “Rhymes for These Tymes”, a collection of his poems will be published in November or December of 2023.

The winter-in-a-day that passed by like
an angry ghost made no demands besides
the drop in level of our fuel tank.
The wind blew like the Valkyries on their rides,
yet no snow fell. No power failure psyched
a nervous wife. I know not who to thank.

A fear, though, ushers in the arctic blast
that calls attention to the cosmic void,
where measurement of any kind is moot,
where human folly meets the asteroid
and stellar is diminutive of vast.
Where matter must meet zero absolute.

It took composer and college teacher Donald Wheelock forty years of writing formal poetry to reach the stage of submitting his favorites for publication. Formal poetry, once relegated to second fiddle in a career of writing chamber, vocal and orchestral music, has now demanded equal time. Indeed, it has taken over his life.

Chatty sea
carry my wild eyes
over your melodic meandering clefts

      swaddle me in depths and
      vaporise graphite veins in the vastness
      of all that billows beyond

humming honeyed tones of
Anything
Anywhere
Any time

      I will be
      forever bobbing
      on your crayoned whispering peaks

ductile and rusting
until I am nothing
at all

Megan Howson lives in Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, the largest city in Aotearoa/New Zealand. She grew up on the Kāpiti Coast, a beach settlement just north of the country’s capital city, Wellington. When Megan isn’t working in public health policy & research, she spends her time processing existential thoughts with a keyboard, creating excruciatingly detailed graphite drawings, bird watching in the Waitākere Ranges, and commenting on the weather.

Spring springing,
Like the greatest surprise.
As if I had to die like flowers,
In order to be born again.

They say that good things come to those who wait.
But now I see,
It was Spring
Who was waiting
For me.

Sarah Nabarro (born 1982) is a poet, visual artist and therapeutic teacher. Her poems seek to ‘touch the untouchable’, exploring self, psyche, and spirituality. They are frequently informed by Buddhist philosophy. Sarah is fascinated by the idea of expressing that which may not necessarily be put into words.

She read Social Anthropology at Cambridge University (2002-6) and has acquired a number of post graduate qualifications since then, in the arts and arts psychotherapies. Creativity is, for Sarah, a spiritual practice that ‘connects us back to ourselves and our own divinity’.

Sarah lives in North London with her husband and small daughter.

how little they think of women
considering
how often they think of women—
that intriguing mass
of legs and eyes and hands
ideally, pleasing ones
that, best case, caress them
and cure a persistent ache

and that, worst,
keep cats
and tell lies

Brigidh Duffey lives in Jersey City, where she is outnumbered by cats with bad personalities. She writes poetry about identity, ghosts, gender, and that lingering ennui that Catholic school graduates are forever stuck with. When she’s not writing poetry (which is most of the time), she’s an information scientist, nonprofit employee, and fantasy novel enthusiast.