“Night Woods” by Donald Wheelock


As a child,
night surrounded everything outside;
even the daytime woods were wild,
no places I could hide.

Now, clumsy collisions in the dark
are mainly what I have to dread—
to stub a toe or bark
a battered shin. The dead

are closer to me now. Woodland trails,
once gained, are in the past, the roots, the rocks.
All matter threatens me travails—
a trundle down the hall in no-slip socks,

a drip and trolley at my side,
a chair, a bed the goals of day and night.
It is the errant step I must avoid.
It’s not a welcome sight.


Although a poet since his 30s, Wheelock’s intense immersion in the writing of poetry is relatively recent; his lifelong career has been in music, as a composer of chamber, vocal, and orchestral music. He is Professor Emeritus of Music at Smith College. He lives with his wife Anne in an old house at the edge of a hayfield in Whately, Massachusetts.

“Death” by Douglas Colston


We stubbornly hold to our own opinions
concerning the ‘self’, our life path and ultimate reality.

To fall or slip into a subject, a discipline or a school of thought
may be like a curfew, a gate allowing free flow in either direction, family,
a teaching institution, a set of academic doctrines, mediocrity,
monks creating festivals to honour the spirits of our ancestors or ultimate reality.

To comply with, to be like, to be comparable to or maintain such a position
is akin to being what is modelled.

What is the price, burden or direction?

Is it investigation leading to enlightenment,
or is it trifling and tedious interrogation and scolding criticism
of others who are perceived as ‘lesser’?

Knowledge, wisdom and intelligence alone
is astute and clever enough to hear, know and share the message
to be responsible, discerning, mindful, appreciative and friendly –
to speak, guide and lead while living one’s life in an ideal manner …
in accord with walking the path of virtuous principles and reason.

Of killing –
whether it is subjects, disciplines, gangs, clans, family, kin,
institutions, academic doctrines, folk, monks or festivals –
this is true …
the dead are always inanimate.

The answer is rigidly fixed and the investigation impassably closed –
whether a death results from killing,
dying for the sake of a cause
(including a sacrifice),
in the company of others
or alone,
it is fatal.

Life-or-death situations are dangerous and life-threatening
(as they have always been and will always be).

It causes a disappearance so final
that it is dealt with by metaphors
invoking myths and fantasies.

It is, however, as clear and obvious as the bullseye on an archery target
or the white marking on the forehead of a horse –
that one thing is a certainty for us all at the end …
not ‘deafness’ or some other euphemism.

我

們

如

何

知

道

我

們

是

死

旳

Douglas Colston holds a few university degrees and decades ago he garnered some lyric and song
writing credits playing in Australian Ska bands – now, much of his spare time is spent preparing a
PhD project and writing (some of his poetry, fiction and nonfiction has even been published).

“In a Pandemic” by Laura Vitcova


a poisonous
breath howls

wind and sand
across lips

longing to fall
onto something

warm and porous
moisture spits

shore shaped
waiting,

baring hope
the earth cannot die.


Laura Vitcova was born in Northern California and writes from her home near San Francisco. She is a multidisciplinary artist – poet, musician, photographer – with a passion for language. For her poetry combines words, music and images in ways that create powerful emotional experiences. In her spare time, she attends workshops, hikes with Eli the shaggy dog or is found looking through the lens of a camera. Twitter: @lauravitcova IG: @starlinglaura

“Dance Macabre” by Alexander Perez


I cough out
Earthworms as I
Claw my way
Up to you
Son. I hear
You stomp, pack
Down the dirt
Up there as
Hard as you
Can as if
Jigging on my
Grave.


Alexander Perez (he/him/his), a self-identified gay poet, lives in Albany, New York. There, he works at the University at Albany, where he obtained a master’s degree in philosophy. Alexander has poetry published in Trolley, journal of the New York State Writers Institute. He is a member of the Hudson Valley Writers Guild. Mr. Perez can be contacted at perezpoet.press or @perezpoet on Instagram. Alexander dedicates his life, love, poetry to James Adriance.

“A Lived Poem” by Elizabeth Hykes

1.
Awake at 3:00 AM ruminating
Dried tears scrape my skin as
I brush them from my lashes.
I want to understand the language that wakened me.
I want to understand the poem I am living.
I could write.
Instead, I turn to Ross Gay
contemplate his grandfather’s hands,
his grandfather watering his own grave.
2.
Neuropathy is what they call
the nerve damage caused by chemotherapy.
Neuropathy tingles between my bones
and the pen, numbs my writing.
You could compare it to lightening
though it lacks self-importance.
It seems determined but
disinterested in language
disinterested in tears.
An alarm I cannot silence
it does not speak
but rants its screech
in the hands of its only listener.

3.
This poem I am living has no meaning.
This poem I am living did not arrive bound
in a book, words scattered on pages.
This poem that I am living might better
have been left unstated.
This is the poem I am saying:

     There was a little girl
     with summer burnished skin
     who fell to the ground
     from the ancient apple tree
     lost her breath,
     then got it back
     and is breathing yet today.

4.
One cannot revise a lived poem.


Elizabeth Hykes lives and writes in a small town in Southern Missouri. Previous publication credits are few and local.

“Undertow” by Daragh Hoey


God bless the undertow
and the cold slap
of waders on the Sound.
Above are the black echoed waves
of nervous fiber,
a Jesus bug tension
that fills and lifts the fly line.
And between current and surface
is just a heaven
that touches here and back there and back then.

Pray with false cast after false cast—
the line like a lifting shawl unfurls and licks the sky—
breach the caul of the water with a tongue,
a dialect, and call the god of it all
with mumbling and tasting.
Hook the sea
and set its course
to amniotic waters.


Daragh Hoey is an Irish emigrant who has lived on all three American coasts and earned his degrees in computer science and law from Dublin City University and the University of Houston, respectively. Now settled in Seattle with his wife, son, and cat, he is a new writer, learning, and happy for it.

“Photographic Evidence” by April Best


Black and white photos fill the wall –
a platinum blond in a bikini
holding her baby in a pool,
three gangly kids in skis,
a curly haired teen in a football uniform,
three senior photos of women with
glowing skin and feather bangs.

Around the corner a bookshelf
piled with photo albums –
kids pausing to smile for the camera.
Behind the camera,
mom and dad sip rum and coke,
gin and tonic, beer, wine,
smoke virginia slims and camels –
documenting evidence life happened
because most mornings they’ve
forgotten.


April Best is the writer and photographer behind stillsmallmomentsblog.com. Her pursuit of living wisely is a hopeful one, filled with dog-eared pages of books, and attempts to start and end each day in kindness. April studied English and French at York University in Toronto and has her Master’s Degree in English Literature.

“Epitaph” by Sara O’Rourke


Along the pier into the blackly swelling sea
We amble in the queue, and cold

While nearing the last planks

Some stop the waves
And some fall


Sara O’Rourke is a teacher and mother of two from Derby, UK who likes to write about all the messy bits of being human while drinking too much tea.

“Il Penseroso” by DB Jonas


It’s said you say that one who knows
does not speak, while the chatter
of thoughtless souls
never ends.
I think perhaps, dearest
master Lao-Tzu,
you might consider
that the thinker has no choice
but speech, yet can only speak
in the unheard, unaccustomed
voice of thought, captive
of the strange inflection
of unfamiliar word-strings,
sounds that sound suspiciously
like silence.


DB Jonas is an orchardist living in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of northern New Mexico. Born in California in 1951, raised in Japan and Mexico, he has returned to poems after a long hiatus in business and the sciences. His work has appeared in numerous journals.

“The French Woman” by Deron M. Eckert


Why do you keep watching her? What is it that’s so appealing? Maybe it’s just that you can. After all, her curtains are open. Are the curtains usually drawn? They must be because you would have noticed her by now, someone that beautiful.

She must be getting ready for a date. Of course, she has a boyfriend coming over. How could she not? But maybe she doesn’t. There’s food out and some wine. Although, the table isn’t set and the only wine glass is the one in her hand. Look how gracefully she holds the glass, how she slinks and dances without spilling a drop.

How have you never seen her? Surely, you would have spotted her in the courtyard. Maybe even crossed paths at the coffee shop on the corner or the bar downstairs. Did she just move in? That explains it. You couldn’t miss someone that perfect, so she must be new to the building.

What could she be listening to over there? You can only imagine it’s something cool, some jazz you’ve never heard, or something French, like they play in Godard films. It’s probably something French. She looks French with her red lipstick and bobbed hair.

You open the sliding door and move onto your balcony to get a closer look, to maybe hear the music. How cool would it be to date someone French? Not just someone, but this woman, the one who looks so free and alive. You remember what that was like, don’t you? Before all the bills, being strapped with the mortgage on this cramped condo you can barely afford, and all the jobs with their slightly increasing salaries and corresponding increases in hours. You think she must rent. Could be that her parents pay for the place while she’s in school. No one with a house payment could be that full of life.

You’ve got to meet her. Someone with that energy and those looks is exactly what you need to pull you out of this rut you’re in. You can’t just keep going to work and doing the same thing everyday. It’s not healthy. You feel dead, but you’re too young to feel dead. You’re not that old. Plenty of people get married in their thirties. Why couldn’t you?

But how? How would you meet her? Can’t just wait downstairs on one of the garden benches. That would be creepy.

She’s drinking wine. That’s good. Maybe she’ll go to the bar after dinner. You can head down there now and get a few drinks in before she gets there to loosen up a bit. It’s Tuesday. Joe’s bartending, and there might be a band. She loves music.

There. The music from her place. You can hear it, but it’s not what you imagined. She’s still dancing, but it’s to “ABC” by The Jackson 5.

You’re watching her when you see something run down the hall of her apartment through the open window to the right. Was the window open this whole time? Could be a dog, but it’s not. It’s a kid, a boy. She grabs his hands, and they dance together until her husband puts down his wine glass and cuts in. You grab your coat and head to the bar. There might be a band.


Deron Eckert is a writer and attorney who lives in Lexington, Kentucky. His poetry has appeared in Rattle Magazine, and his fiction has appeared in Sky Island Journal. He is currently seeking publication for his Southern Gothic, coming-of-age novel, which explores how personal experiences change our preconceived notions of right and wrong.