A succulent sky stretches out before us.
Dark humid clouds tumble over one another.
It is 1969, June,
At the Glencoe Beach.
Perched on the masoned limestone wall
At the bluff lookout above,
My brother, twenty years old, and me, eighteen,
Extend our arms to challenge
The gusts kicked up by the wind.
Mint-smelling air blows through our hair
And fills our lungs with song.
We cry out in unison when we see
Lightning snap across the sky,
Bathing Lake Michigan in a milky white
That makes us wish we could walk on water.
We smell the looming storm move closer,
Charcoal thunder not so distant.
We grin at one another,
Sharing the thrill
Of daring the storm
To lick at our edges.
Overhead, the sturdy oaks
Brandish leaves through the thickened air,
While the ferocious sky churns
Into our forever.

Shelley Smithson is a poet living and working in northern Michigan. She is a psychotherapist by day in her work life and maintains a private practice. She writes in her free time. She also loves to spend time with family and friends, and wander the beaches of Lake Michigan.

Jordan lay in bed surveying the ceiling. When am I going to fall asleep? He closed his eyes, opened them, sat up, swung his feet over the edge of the bed, and waited for a moment before standing.

That cup of coffee after dinner was a mistake.

Careful not to wake Sarah, Jordan carefully arose from bed, walked about the room, and then the apartment. He rattled the front and porch doorknobs. They’re locked. He touched his phone and watch. They’re charging; the alarm’s set for seven. Once back under covers, he adjusted his pillow and rolled onto his side.

Like an explosion, a light bulb flashed in his head. His heart raced. He held his breath. A hollow feeling filled his chest. “I forgot I have an exam tomorrow. I’m not prepared. I haven’t studied,” he muttered aloud.

Jordan threw off the covers, jumped up, and ran to his desk. He turned on the lamp and rifled through his notebooks searching for the one from that course. Unable to find the notebook, he opened a text and flipped through the pages in a mad frenzy to locate the right material. Is this even the correct text for this class?

What will be covered on the test? He stopped turning pages and stared straight ahead. I don’t know what to study. He gripped the book with white knuckles, his legs weak. Words ran together.  Too much to master. Not enough time.

The speed of his breathing matched the rate at which he turned pages. Each breath came faster and faster. His head began to spin. He felt lightheaded. The information he tried to learn seemed unfamiliar. No surprise,he realized. I haven’t been to class; nothing sticks. I can’t concentrate.

I’m going to fail, echoed over and over in his head. How could I have let this happen? Jordan continued to rifle through pages, but uncertain what he needed to know, he learned nothing.

Dawn came and the daylight crept into the room. Time had run out. He threw on jeans and a tee. I’ll go by the Department office and apply for an incomplete or drop the course, but, e realized those deadlines have long passed.

Jordan emerged from the apartment building. Again, his breathing increased. His pulse pounded in his ears, and he wanted to vomit. Nothing appeared familiar. Where am I? Sweat ran down his face, and his mouth was dry.

Jordan looked around. Where is the exam being held? There was nothing to remember, he had never been to class and was uncertain where to go. How could I have blown this off?

Jordan began to run from building to building hoping to trigger a memory or find a classmate who might direct him. I’m going to fail.

Defeated, he fell to his knees and pounded the ground. People walked around him. No one stopped. As hard as he tried to shout, he emitted no sound. Breathless, sweat-drenched, limbs shaking, he reached for the sky and released an anguished prolonged cry.

“Jordan, Jordan,” Sarah called as she shook Jordan awake. “Are you okay? You were yelling in your sleep.”

“What?” he said, disoriented at first. “I must have been dreaming. What time is it?”

“Three AM. Are you still worried about meeting my parents tomorrow?”

He answered her question with a moan, slow even breathing, and a soft snore.

Dr. Peter J Barbour turned in his reflex hammer to become a fulltime writer and illustrator. He lives in Oregon with his photographer wife of over fifty years. They enjoy traveling and the outdoors. In conversations with his peers, he has discovered a common theme for their nightmares. This became the basis for his short story, “Best Not to Skip Class.”

I close the old novel I first read in my youth.
The one I have read several times since.
Its word hoard glimmers from the page
softly as the afternoon rain
sifting through the fresh leaves out the window.

Fine as inherited lace.
Human as a visited grave.
The day will come, sooner than later,
when I close the book for the last time
and not know it.

Mike Dillon lives in a small town on Puget Sound northwest of Seattle.
With his wife, he travels. He often writes about the places he has been. Not travel stories, but stories of place.
He and his wife travel so lightly that once a European customs agent questioned their Americanness.

My aging brain slows,
a train approaching its stop.

Quick math, rapid logic?
Not going to happen.

But in the slogging
a new kind of speed.

I saw an ad this morning:
Do you know your retirement goals?

Without a second’s thought
I sang—

“Stayin’ Alive.” “Stayin’ Alive.”

While Lynne Schilling has been writing poetry on and off for forty years, she began writing it seriously three years ago at age 75. Her day job was as an academic in an entirely different field. However, her love of words dates back to when she was a toddler. She currently spends her days in Connecticut happily playing with words whenever she can.

“Is your name Gromley?”

“What?” Mel, sitting alone on the bench, looked up from his cellphone to the stranger with a Chihuahua.

“Gromley? Frank Gromley?”

“No.”

“I could’ve sworn you were him. Frank, I mean.”

“My name’s Mel.”

The Chihuahua, named Pepe, wanted to pee over Mel’s trouser leg. It was obvious. It whimpered and shook as though chilled.

“I haven’t seen Frank since high school. You could be his double. You’ve the same kind of posture…”

“Sorry, my name’s Mel.”

What kind of posture was he talking about? Mel sat up straighter on the wooden slats.

“You weren’t in the correctional facility with Frank, were you?”

“What?”

“You just look like a guy who might’ve been there.”

“No, it wasn’t me.”

“Not out of the facility, huh? And not one of Frank’s relatives, by any chance? I mean, they all had that same kind of vacant expression.”

Mel tried to stop fumbling with his cellphone. ” I can’t say I’m a relative either.”

“No kidding? It’s hard to believe you’re not at least one of the Gromleys.”

“No, I’ve never been a Gromley.”

Was Mel even thinking before he spoke? Never been a Gromley?

The stranger, too, looked at him oddly after hearing that, then yanked the leash. “Well, c’mon, Pepe.”

The dog had finally finished urinating over the trousers.

David Sydney is a physician.

Once there were many birds.  Colorful and diverse.  Uplifting harbingers of hope: flitting, soaring, living.  Attracting sunbeams and light.  Spreading smiles and joy.

Now, the robins and bluebirds are gone from the damaged world.  No inspiring eagles, strong hawks, or reflective owls.  They’ve left a void and the harm can no longer be denied.

Their dark cousins stalk me as I trek the planet’s worsening, serpentine path.  The sky and trees are heavy with black birds.  Foul fowl with shimmering feathers and dead eyes.  Solo watchers and ominous flocks track my movements.  They are monochromatic shadows in the harmful sunshine.  A threatening presence in cloudy overcast.  Invisible, cawing stentors at night.  Stygian demons eager to tear at my flesh.

These omniscient judges know my part in our ongoing sin.  They understand the collective weight of our minor misdeeds.  All tribes sense these ebony heralds proclaim guilt.

Loud crows accuse.  Squawking ravens indict.  Obnoxious grackles hector.  Starlings and swifts scold.  They condemn and petition for punishment.  Sullen undertakers accompanying our demise.

To placate, I take token and painless actions.  I hope to escape their attention by skulking and embracing denial.  I avert my eyes and divert my mind. 

They persist and won‘t let me fly from the consequences of our actions and our fitting fate.  The dark closes in and the end is nigh.

Bill Diamond is a curious traveler from Colorado. He writes to try and figure it all out. He writes for catharsis and to try and figure it all out.

Cover me.

I have been shining for millennia,
Rising. Rising. Rising and rising.
Wherever I lay my rays, it is morning.
I cannot set, I do not sleep.

Cover me with your cool bright surface,
Bring me into alignment with your cratered face.
Keep me from shining —
For two long minutes, let me go dark,

Let my beams gush from the pressure of your presence
like honey from the comb.
See how beautiful I can be when we align.
See how beautiful the dark is when you hold me.

Anna Lenti is the director of choral and vocal activities at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. In her spare time, she writes poetry, runs long distances, and bakes elaborate cakes for her two children.

Winter trees
Branches like arms
Reaching out to the sky
Begging for leaves
As they shiver beneath gray skies
winds bring cold air,
ice and snow to its bereft branches

The evergreens smile in comfort
Snarky brats that they are
Spoiled by Christmas adulation
Loving to be decked out
In strings of popcorn
Sentimental ornaments
Glass Santas, elves, bells
Lights of red and green

But woe to the cut evergreens
When January comes
And they are stripped bare
Tossed to the curb
Bankrupt and useless

Sad sights down snowy streets
Winter trees and discarded evergreens
Melancholy taking over after
the holidays join the past

Linda K. Miller is a messed-up poet on her last lap, trying to stay up with so many world changes and yet knowing that nothing ever really changes. So where’s the swinging pendulum going to land this year? Next year? Ten years from now? Wish I knew. Wish I could find a true psychic. Any tips?

The grass is gray — the way a saint’s eyes
de-color, vision-blasted, after thirty
desert days. The shrubs are lean, the dirty
lies of worldly pride all stripped to bone.
Her door is there to knock. One old and wise
has guiding words for those who walk alone.

On certain nights, a bluish light escapes
the blackout windows, pulsing crazy streaks.
The chimney channels horrid cries and shrieks.
A tattered silhouette flies round the eaves,
grasping, crushing, rending empty shapes,
her gone-forever children, how she grieves.

The painted sign in front: Your Horoscope.
Love and Marriage, Riches, Loss, and Hope.

Karl E. Stull grew up with kids who were scared of La Llorona, a wailing phantom in Mexican traditions. Today his poems are about places, mostly in Los Angeles — listening for their voices and memories. He also writes the Metaphor Awareness Month blog on WordPress.

     George was  late again, darn it!  Mary glanced at the clock:  yes, it was six-thirty; George was due home twenty minutes ago.  How was she supposed to have his dinner ready for him when he came in the door if he was late?  And he was usually so punctual!

     She decided to call his office.  Maybe he’d had a late client?  Yes, that had to be it.  She would  wait a few more minutes before calling.

     She crossed the tiled floor to the pantry.  Darn!  They were almost out of everything.  She tugged at her earlobe for a moment, thinking…Hadn’t she given George a list for the store?  Maybe that’s why he was late/  Perhaps he had stopped at the Safeway to pick up those items?

     It was a long list; she remembered that all right.  They were running low on everything from paper towels to evaporated milk and coffee.

     She was getting hungry now herself.  Maybe she would warm up some soup, just until George got home with everything else.

     She looked in the pantry again.  There was only one can of Campbell’s left:  Vegetable Beef; that was all right, Mary liked Vegetable Beef…

     Late,late,late again!  Oh, George!  She would call the office.  Maybe he’d had a late client.  That had to be it–he was normally so punctual! 

     She lifted the receiver from the wall-mounted landline.  She didn’t hear a dial tone.  How odd!  Maybe that terrific wind two days ago had knocked down the lines.  Her android phone–but, no, that wasn’t working now either for some reason.  She remembered trying to call her sister-in-law to see if George had stopped by on his way home from the office–yesterday, was it?

     Well, what could she do, then?  If George insisted on being late coming home…It was the second evening in a row that he was late coming home.  She told herself not to worry, that worrying was silly.  George always told her that she was silly to worry so much about everything, especially all those awful headlines.

     Mary retrieved a small saucepan and turned on the back burner.  At least the stove still worked, she thought, as the blue flame sprang up.  George had been smart to buy this little camp stove; he had said at the time that no matter what happened they would at least have warm meals.

    She ate her soup.  There were only a few crackers left so she had them, too, in the soup.

     Oh,no!  She saw that she had left the darned burner on!  Quickly she got up and turned it off.  If George saw that, he would get on her about it, tell her she was getting forgetful…How silly of him!  She was only seventy-two, a whole year younger than he was.

     She glanced at the clock on the wall.  Six-thirty!  George was late, late, late!  He’d been late yesterday, too–she remembered that.  He must have had a late client at the office.  Maybe she should call to be sure…But, no, that’s right:  the phone wasn’t working.  Maybe that terrible wind a couple of days ago had knocked the lines down.

     Darn!  Now the neighbors’ dogs were barking again, loud, big-dog barks.  She went to the window and pulled aside the heavy drape.  The hurricane impact window was cracked all over, 

probably from that horrendous wind they’d had two days ago.

     Plus, it was awfully dark for being so early on a June evening.  And where had all that smoke come from?  Had anyone called the fire department?  She would do that as soon as the phone came back on.

     Now–oh, for Pete’s sake!  Those darn dogs were in her yard!  What were the neighbors thinking of, letting their dogs roam like that?  She should march over there and give them a piece of her mind…

     The dogs had finally stopped that incessant barking though–thank God!  But now they were tearing away at George’s scarecrow that had collapsed onto the ground.  That scarecrow had been one of George’s good ideas, Mary thought fondly.  He liked planting a few tomatoes, some summer squash, and a row of sweet corn, just a pocket sized garden he would  harvest in the fall.

     For a moment, Mary rubbed at her cheek in puzzlement.  They didn’t normally put up the scarecrow this early.  Why was the scarecrow there now?  And–oh, my God! she thought, why was it wearing one of George’s good suits!  They always dressed the scarecrow in any old rags that would stay on the frame.  She would have to chide him for that–those suits were expensive!  She sighed and let the drape fall back over the wrecked window.

     Anyway, it was time to fix dinner.  She glanced up at the electric clock over the drainboard:  six-thirty!  Darn it!  George was late again.

Attended the University of Oregon. Currently living in Las Vegas, NV with one son, two large dogs and too many books.