To learn the ABC’s,
at least to learn them all with ease,
demands a kind of mind
now growing rare in humankind.

With thoughts now fossilized,
and eyes and minds all colonized
by cells’ and tablets’ spells,
most children huddle in their shells.

Once words become extinct,
how will our lives and minds be linked?
Emojis may seem fun
until we see the world they’ve spun.

Once simplified, that world,
now clipped and stripped, all curled and furled,
will make us think, “That’s all.”
And, once again, will Adam fall.

Maurice O’Sullivan, a former teamster, jail guard and pub owner, found a way to combine those skills as an award-winning teacher, editor, columnist, and film maker who lives in Orlando, Florida. His most recent book, Have You Not Hard of Floryda, surveys 300 years of Florida’s colonial literature. www.MauriceOSullivan.com

People walk around this city
As fragments of larger pieces
(Imagine chips fallen from ice blocks adrift)
They have no idea
I only know because I have been
Many fragments from many wholes
Many times before my current fragmented state
I am not smarter than anyone else
I have just come together and apart more often
Quietly with no dramatics
(Imagine this scenario involving a work break and people)
It was ninety-three degrees yesterday
A suited man orders a coffee and two donuts
Hot? Yes, with two sugars
I bought a manilla folder from a rundown office supply store
Cashier tells me to enjoy the folder and hands me seventeen cents
Rounding the corner I lock eyes with the often over-dressed deli clerk
I just haven’t connected with yet
One of us nods and we both move on
I sip the grape slushie I couldn’t resist and develop instant brain freeze
Simultaneously thinking about Afghanistan

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.

It was rough being a Christian in the Coliseum in ancient Rome before Constantine declared Christianity the state religion. Pagans fed Christians to the lions. After Constantine, it was the other way around. Then, the lions dined on pagans.

It was a Sunday afternoon, and little Marcus was at the Coliseum with his grandfather. It was a beautiful day. There were plenty of lions and pagans to go around. The Empire had not yet fallen. But even little Marcus could sense a kind of decline. He followed the action. Gladiators hacked at one another. In his box, the Emperor turned thumbs down time after time. Then came several of the lions.

– Grandpa, was it like this in the old days?

– Come again, Marcus?

– Well, do things seem to be getting a little worse?

– I guess it was better back then. I suppose you’re talking about the decline that everyone mentions.

– How about it, Grandpa?

– Well, thinking back, I guess it was better… I know the lions seemed to enjoy eating the Christians a lot more than eating the pagans now.

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

Mel was irate. He called the waiter over.

“Look at that.” He pointed to the bowl with his soup spoon.

“What?” The waiter’s glasses needed lens wipes.

“There’s a fly in my clam chowder.”

What kind of place was this, Mel wanted to know. Flies in his clam chowder?

“I’m sorry. You’re mistaken,” said the waiter.

“That’s a fly floating there. That’s disgusting.”

“You ordered the shrimp bisque.”

“I thought I ordered clam chowder. But there’s a fly in that soup.”

“The world’s full of flies,” said the waiter, now irate with Mel. “But I’m sure it was shrimp bisque.”

David Sydney is a physician. He writes fiction in and outside the EHR (Electronic Health Record).

At seven I was cured
Of fast boats – Ned
Of Ned and Eileen
Had a quiet heart
Attack as if he fell
Asleep in the stern
It wasn’t the conveyance
Or speed that killed him
He simply happened to be
Roaring over Pleasant
Hill Lake at the time –
Still the stark association
And the depth of bodies
Of water fixed my resolve

At nine I was cured
Of smoking after
Two timid drags
Burning sucking in
Burning coughing out
From my neighbor’s
Mother’s unfiltered Kools
(Which eventually wrecked
Her lungs and killed her)

At ten thundering
Flying headlong down
Quarry Chapel Road
I was unequivocally cured
Of motorcycles – a little
Boy precariously astride
Uncle Gregg’s Honda 450
My skinny arms clinging
Wrapped around him
I screamed into his back
Certain I tempted death

At thirteen
A bit more courageous
I was never quite
Cured of kisses –
Girls girls girls
No matter how capricious

David Sapp, writer, artist, and professor, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, he was awarded Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and the visual arts. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior, chapbooks Close to Home and Two Buddha, a novel Flying Over Erie, and a book of poems and drawings titled Drawing Nirvana.

Is triskadekaphobia
just another phobia,
illogical, irrational
but not quite pathological?
Or does that thirteen angst and dread
reflect the fate for which we’re bred,
when innocence begins to flee
and we confront reality?

Maurice O’Sullivan, a former teamster, jail guard and pub owner, found a way to combine those skills as an award-winning teacher, editor, columnist, and film maker who lives in Orlando, Florida. His most recent book, Have You Not Hard of Floryda, surveys 300 years of Florida’s colonial literature. www.MauriceOSullivan.com

We saw him at the park, holding his mother’s hand, pointing at the row of ducklings,

making sure to include her in all that he observed. He must have been three, maybe four.

A towhead, with a big cowlick shooting out the top of his head. Yet he feigned sophistication in sunglasses almost as big as his face, and a leopard print fleece jacket.

I nudged my husband. “How gay is that?” I said, adopting my tired old queen voice.

He leaned in as if sharing a secret.“I would have killed for a jacket like that at his age.”

“I’d kill for it now,” I said.

We kept walking, quiet now, and I watched the boy run ahead as his mother shouted at him, “Slow down!” Which he did, for two minutes, before running off again. He was boundless in his energy, like a puppy, constantly distracted by ducks, squirrels, sounds.

I don’t hang with boys that age, but aside from the high fashion, I didn’t pick up on any

glaring effeminacy. No dramatic hand-waves, no sashay in his walk. Just an average boy, I thought.

Was I once that way? Or was I always pretending? Watching other boys my age, doing what they did, while really wanting to do what the girls were doing. Playing kitchen rather than football. Making things pretty, rather than tearing them apart.

School shopping for fourth grade, I spotted a burgundy trench coat complete with a wide belt across the middle and a shiny black buckle. It could have been the leopard print fleece of its time.

“This is what I want,” I said, dramatically, as I grabbed the hanger and held the coat

up to my body, as if I was about to dance across the young boys department of Macy’s.

My mother stared at me with a tired expression I had begun to see more often. Like I was a human rubik’s cube she had no idea how to solve.

She didn’t have to say anything. I hung that trench coat back on the rack, letting her select my fifth-grade jacket, something that wouldn’t attract attention. A garment I put on every morning, as if it was a piece of armor protecting me from the primary school death knell of looking exceptional.

Maybe things are better now. Maybe this kid’s mom is preparing herself for what comes next, reading up on the lives of the gays. Maybe she talks to actual gay people, asking them, as they look out the kitchen window at the little boy playing in the yard, “Do you think he could be…different?”

Or maybe today he selected the fleece, and tomorrow he’ll choose the superhero cape.

Maybe his mom lets him be whatever he wants to be, every single day. Wouldn’t that be nice, I think, if that’s what parents do these days.

I nudged my husband again, pointing out the colors in the trees, seeming so much brighter to my eyes.

Brian Christopher Giddens (he/him) is a gay writer of fiction and poetry, writing from a standup desk while his dog Jasper watches, waiting patiently for his walks. Brian’s work can be found at https://www.brianchristophergiddens.com.

The EMS (Emergency Medical Service) transported Ed to the hospital. From there, it was into Intensive Care and onto a ventilator. He was monitored. And catheterized.

“We thought he had a bad stomach. He blamed it on my brisket.” Frieda, Ed’s wife, tried to recall what had happened in the time since his birthday dinner until the ambulance arrived.

“Anything else?” The nurse in the Unit entered information into the EHR  (Electronic Health Record). It was a computer on wheels.

“He wasn’t wild about the rice pudding either.” She bought the meat and pudding at the same time, hoping for a pleasant evening.

“Did he throw it up?”

“No, I’m the one who threw up,” said Frieda.

This was more information for the EHR.

More was needed.

“Here’s a printout of all his medicines.” Edna was prepared. “And here’s a list of his medical conditions from Dr. Fromkin.”

The EHR swallowed facts the way Ed had started on his brisket. What kind of birthday was this?

“Do you think he’ll be okay?” Frieda sensed that the nurse was worried. Was it that Dr. Fromkin was on the case? Was Ed’s 65-year history that complicated? Or, his new abdominal problem?

Damn. Vicki, the nurse, had forgotten to enter the insurance information.

“Do you have his cards?” She waited. The EHR was empty and demanding, so to speak. Did it really care whether Ed had a happy birthday?

“Damn,” said Frieda. She tried to explain. In haste, worried about her husband, she’d overlooked insurance cards. She had only a medical and medication history.

His chest moved to the setting of the ventilator. Ed’s catheter bag began to fill. Frieda was distracted by the heart monitor. The record was incomplete. What had she been thinking back in their condo when the EMS arrived? Ed certainly couldn’t be blamed.

Dr. Fromkin. Frieda’s brisket and rice pudding. The ICU. And now, a complete lack of insurance information in the EHR. Could it get much worse?

David Sydney is a physician. He writes fiction in–and outside–the EHR (Electronic Health Record).

I use a crayon to color in the sky,
and resist the urge to write your name in the stars.
A gust of wind carries me home,
and by the time I arrive, there is a huge storm.
My cat nestles by the furnace below the window,
darting his eyes every which way,
following the sudden sound of the leaves
rustling harshly in the trees.
I sit on the hardwood floor beside him
and remember a time when there was
a garden outside my window.
I close my eyes and remember
how the wet dirt felt on the soles of my feet,
how I met the earth with patience,
awaiting the possibility that tomorrow
there might be a yellow flower sprouting
from the vine of the cucumber,
how I reveled in my own solitude-
how I trusted the sun,
how I knew the water
would reward me in shades of green
and red
and purple.
Now I try to rearrange the stars
in a way that makes sense,
I allow the rain to make me weep
and I let you take the crayon from my hands
and color in the rest of the sky.

Julia Teters is a writer and yoga instructor from New Jersey. She has been teaching various styles of yoga for the past 10 years and began her own personal practice at the young age of 15. Yoga has been a staple in her life, along with writing and music. She is very passionate about advocating for accessible mental health care and awareness, based on her ongoing struggle with anxiety, OCD and depression. She has consistently turned towards movement and creativity when struggling with these issues and wants to share these experiences with others struggling.

Words can lose order
even as we say them, slide sideways,
realigning themselves
as if with minds of their own,
which I guess are really ours,
according to principles;
perhaps Freud knew best.

Entire voices disappear.
Talented women whisper
in their own homes, married
and entertaining, until
they divorce.

Alita Pirkopf received a master’s degree in English literature from the University of Denver years after graduating from Middlebury College. Later she enrolled in a poetry seminar at the University of Denver taught by Bin Ramke. Poetry became a long-term focus and obsession. Pirkopf’s poem “Shale Bluffs” was nominated for the 2022 Pushcart Prize. Her poem “Roadkill” has been nominated for the Sundress Publications 2021 Best of the Net awards.