An Emperor Penguin, upright, statuesque,
puffed chest deflects the snow seeming to fall
from a giant pillow shaken over the silent
bird below in a stark place at night. The artist
paints light—feathery flakes illuminate
the silhouetted head, orange neck, black feet
locked to an ice floe and the etched dark-blue
shape, its solitary shadow in blowing snow.

Nicolette Reim is a poet, visual artist, and translator who has been published in Brushfire, Maudlin House, Mojave River Review, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Poetic Sun, The Rail, Glint Literary Journal, Voices de la Luna, and other publications. She studied art at The New York Studio School and creates visual art pieces based on abstractions from writing and topography. Nicolette is a member of Noho M55 Gallery. She holds a Master Degree in Life Science from Columbia University and a Master Degree of Fine Arts in Poetry with a Concentration in Translation from Drew University.

He’s biking uphill,
standing up and pedaling.
But still, he reaches
for a cardinal feather
spinning in a spiderweb.

Hannah Jane Weber’s poetry has been published in I-70 Review, Plainsongs, The Poeming Pigeon, Ponder Review, Rosebud, Slippery Elm and more. She is also a recipient of the Dylan Thomas American Poet Prize. Hannah Jane is a children’s librarian and tennis enthusiast. She lives with her husband and their golden retrievers.

And I say to you, as your father
said to the private club member
who invited him for lunch one day
in New York City and said to him,
there are no Jews here, you know,
and your father said, there is one now.
So I say to you, our daughter, when
you put some of my ashes next to
your father in the Jewish Cemetery,
if someone says to you, only Jews
are buried here, say— that isn’t
true, as your father always knew.

Nicolette Reim is a poet, visual artist, and translator who has been published in Brushfire, Maudlin House, Mojave River Review, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Poetic Sun, The Rail, Glint Literary Journal, Voices de la Luna, and other publications. She studied art at The New York Studio School and creates visual art pieces based on abstractions from writing and topography. Nicolette is a member of Noho M55 Gallery. She holds a Master Degree in Life Science from Columbia University and a Master Degree of Fine Arts in Poetry with a Concentration in Translation from Drew University.

#1

As the dog
slept on the bed
I crouched down

and tried to kiss him
but he snapped
his jaw

At my nose
and I pulled away
buried my head

into the pillow of
my boyfriend’s
freshly made bed

#2

As you sat
on the couch
in my living room

I moved my lips
towards yours
while you

slowly tried
to reciprocate
and fell

into the light of
new love’s
burning sun

#3

As the dentist
scraped my teeth
with a smile

Glimmering pearls
whiter than mine
he said

to brush the front
then the back
so my teeth

will be as bright
and happy
as his.

Janelle Finamore is a musician, poet, teacher, and fairy tale writer located in Orange County, CA. She was Poet of the Month for Moon Tide Press and her fairy tale “The Girl Who Stuck Out Like a Sore Thumb” was published in Bohemia magazine. Her poem “Space Shop” was also published. Her poems were also featured in Poet Magazine online and the Academy of the Heart and Mind. Her writing is inspired by the beat poets as evinced in her self-published book “The Power of Silly Putty and Lipstick Kisses”, available on Amazon. She has featured her book in poetry venues in California including The Ugly Mug in Orange and many more.

yesterday’s storm tossed
sycamore skins everywhere
each thin curl of bark
thrums and sways with cicadas
who wear their music like gowns

Hannah Jane Weber’s poetry has been published in I-70 Review, Plainsongs, The Poeming Pigeon, Ponder Review, Rosebud, Slippery Elm and more. She is also a recipient of the Dylan Thomas American Poet Prize. Hannah Jane is a children’s librarian and tennis enthusiast. She lives with her husband and their golden retrievers.

Grace hit the city, ready for roses.
She’d seen all the films; knew all the poses.
Without fear of traps or any entanglement,
She came for the glitter, and maybe a gentleman.

Small towns and small people had all had their day,
Now there was nothing to stand in her way.
With a slinky black dress and open toed shoeses,
She put on a smile and practiced her ruses.

At a posh corner bar, brass and mahogany,
Lousy with lawyers, bored with monogamy,
She stationed herself at a small corner table,
Playing her part in this little fable.

Tony’s not one you’d take for a sucker.
Streetwise and charming, almost a huckster,
He knew what he wanted, and just how to get it;
There wasn’t much he’d ever regretted.

From out on the street, he glimpsed her within –
Beautiful hair, exquisite skin.
Changing his plans, he walked on inside,
And up to the bar without breaking his stride.

Louie the barman was there at the ready.
They were old friends, come up in the city.
Scotch on the rocks, Tony’s regular drink,
Slid ’cross the bar with a welcoming wink.

“Who’s that over there?” Tony asked his old friend.
Lou chuckled a bit before he began,
“Don’t have a clue; she looks mighty classy,
I hope you’re not thinking of trying that lassie.”

“No disrespect Lou, but what do you know?”
Tony replied while he pulled out his dough.
Heading for Grace after paying his bill,
Tony swooped in, like a hawk to the kill.

Swirling his ice cubes, he coolly sat down,
Playing his part like some man of renown,
While our lady Grace tried not to reveal
Whether her interest was feigned or for real.

Bright conversation was one of his charms,
But something about him set off alarms.
Tony’s not one to hide what he felt,
But Grace never showed the cards that she held.

Tony’s smooth banter assailed her gates,
But nothing impressed our cool lady Grace.
She’d seen this scene in movies at home.
Tony soon knew he was leaving alone.

But Grace knew this hustler might help her to find
The highlife and city seen in her mind.
So she coyly suggested touring the park
Next Saturday, sometime well before dark.

They met in the park, come Saturday noon,
Strolled past the boathouse and on to the zoo.
Cool as her ice cream, she asked him point blank,
“Just how much cash have you got in the bank?”

“Hold on girl,” he said, “Just what do you mean?
I’m here for fun, not the ’merican dream.”
“That’s what I thought,” she replied in a snit,
“I’ve got places to go and a big life to live.”

Taken aback, he paused to consider,
While Grace explained the thought that had hit her.
“How about if we just work together,
So in the end we each get what we’re after?”

“Tony you’re cute, but you can be a jerk.
And that’s what I need, if this thing’s to work,
‘Cause the Belmont Stakes are on for next week,
And that’s where I’ll find the people I seek.”

“High rollers and big money all will be there.
We will be too, as a quarreling pair.”
Grace laid out her plan, she had it all set,
She even promised she’d pay Tony to bet.

So Saturday came; they went to the race.
Lines were rehearsed, and things were in place.
Tony placed bets and was playing his part –
A gambler breaking his poor lover’s heart.

Just for the yuppies standing beside them,
Grace added more to this scene of mayhem.
“You’re wasting our savings,” she wailed aloud;
“What will I tell Grandma?” she cried for the crowd.

Tony then cursed and pushed her down roughly.
She fell to her knees while he turned abruptly.
Deaf to her cries, he stomped away madly.
The yuppies all gasped as she whimpered sadly.

Quick as a flash, Rex was there with a hand
Helping poor Grace to a wobbling stand.
“Forget that crude bastard,” kindly said he
While offering her his initialed hankie.

With tears in her eyes, she stifled her smiles,
Seeing the payoff from all of her wiles.
“What will I do now? I’m so all alone.
I’ve nowhere to go,” she pitifully moaned.

Later, by months, while out from the loft,
Where living with Rexxie is boring but soft,
Grace finds herself outside Lou’s corner bar
So inside she goes, to check her co-star.

Lou’s tending bar and recalls her quite well,
Says “Tony’s in Rome, he’s doing just swell.
He told me about your thing at the track,
But he’s never said just when he’ll be back.”

“He didn’t tell you; one ticket you bought,
A trifecta pick, oh boy was it hot!
He travels a lot now, with bucks in the bank.
Says in his postcards ‘It’s you he should thank.’”

The point of this ditty is whether our Grace
Picked the wrong horse when she went to the race.
Sometimes we get all the things we go after,
But then in the background, all we hear is laughter.

Jack Wallick is a retired engineer, tech writer, and microbiologist. He started writing poetry forty some years ago and today writes in a wide variety of formats – traditional rhyming and metric poetry, memoirs from his time as a draftee in Vietnam, fiction, and essay. Up to this point he is unpublished, likely the result of not being an MFA from an expensive midwestern liberal arts school.

This started out as a novel,
a major work of fiction.
Nothing less than 100,000 words would do.

Not even close.

Bother.

Bruce Greenhalgh lives in Adelaide, South Australia where, amongst other things, he reads, writes and recites poetry. His work has appeared in anthologies, journals and online… He is yet to master being ‘fashionably late’ or being ‘the life of the party’. Some things are just beyond him.

i’ve never understood the people who
gently toast their marshmallows to golden
perfection. but sometimes i envy them –
going ever-so-slowly, patiently waiting.

i’m always rushing right into the fire,
welcoming the heat, mesmerized
by dark edges, with no regard for the
scorched and sticky consequences…
hoping to make something delicious from
burnt sugar and smoldering remains.

Julie Clark is an attorney and mixed media artist who is currently pursuing her MFA at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Asheville, North Carolina. (She’s still trying to figure out what she wants to be when she grows up but, in the meantime, writing poetry makes her very happy.)

I’m a bucket-traveler,
a bread-on-bread mate,
like a hobo
with breath-crushing-gypsy-gas,
a yeasty timberland (just look around),
a flinty nugget and hardworking-slouch,
a knitted skeleton,
a cord-clotting emergency.

Later I’ll be blood fodder for bugs and webs.
O, the places I have traveled!
And God wrote on the bread wrapper:
“Tell me your story.”
And thus, always an obedient root,
I have.

Suzanne O’Connell’s recently published work can be found in Brushfire, Delmarva Review, El Portal, Flights, Midwest Quarterly, The Opiate, Pine Hills Review, Tulsa Review, Visitant Lit, Wrath-Bearing Tree, and others. Her two poetry collections, A Prayer For Torn Stockings and What Luck, were published by Garden Oak Press.

You, a tree, in me,
over time.
If it dread, if it darken, if fall
to ruin, you will do, this too,
the next thing…over time.
Now one foot now the other. Now
late, even. I am keeper of undermined,
you are patient.
All of us, any of us, you said, I wasn’t born
this way.
I, unbuilt.
See how the thickening clouds yield light snow.
Why am I unseasonably cool?
Friend of my mind:
We restore ancient things, sweet, salt, &
bitter. We bring things back and back.
The dark is big.
I met you in the district of rain, the tears
of things. Later than we might have known,
but both still vivid.
I am in the habit of you, and sometimes
able to, my soft parts, tenderly.
Things that have to do with enlargement.
What had been required of you.
If I had not submitted, nowhere.
Also, what you yourself went through affects
interpenetration:
We investigate each other’s bearings.
Things come up between us, wide.
I am glad this journey with you, you said.
Sometimes, with you, I luminate.
Abiding.

Sarah Stemp is a poet and psychologist/psychoanalyst in New York City. She has published poetry on various topics related to the role of grief and mourning in the creation of something new.