Workers’ voices carry
black and white newsreel plays
machinery echoes
apparitions of
booming days gone by
when the gin
flowed cotton
in one end
out the other
ginned, compressed, sampled
wrapped and baled
ready for the mill.

Flash forward
present day
fences un-mended
folks abandoned upended
come and go
seeking shelter
empty buildings
forlorn desolation
abundant graffiti
metal arced skeleton
corrugated shell
other voices yell
then trail off
disappearing
in dusty winds. 

Christopher Nielsen is a writer and photographer. Traveling the many back roads has provided a wealth of inspiration out in nature. Working on book of Photo-Poetry.

There will be a deer
bedded down on the snow-covered ground
of the high valley in the rocky mountain
where you caravan to cast his ashes
in this last place. There is a time to mourn.
As you walk to the spot
and begin to speak, it will lift
its long ears and look straight at you.
You will see that eternity is in its heart
as it is in yours. And when the words
are done and the book is closed,
it will stand, its feet secure on the heights.
As you turn to go, it will turn to the rise
and disappear over the ridge.
And when you remember,
There will be a deer.

Michael Lowry is a semi-retired psychiatrist who grew up in Iowa and met and married a Montana girl and moved out west. He enjoys movies and poetry and the mysterious interface between mind and body.

The first surprise was the creek’s unexpected width.
My guidebook had said 80 to 100 feet. Then, I couldn’t see
where to pick up the trail on the other side, and didn’t want to be
aimlessly splashing back and forth over there with
forty pounds on my back, clueless about where to climb out.
And where were the rocks? I’d imagined hopping, boulder
to boulder. What I saw was a sheet of jumpy, fast water
that would mean a mid-calf to knee-deep ford, no doubt.
So, I sat, took off my boots, tied them to my pack,
rolled my socks into a ball, and stuffed it deep into a pocket,
velcroed sandals tightly—stalling—still taken back
by what I’d not foreseen, then eased onto a submerged rock (it
held without wobble) and started sloshing toward a gap
in the far bank’s brush through a rippling wash of whitecap.

Charles Weld is a retired mental health counselor/administrator, now working part-time in an agency treating youth, He lives in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York.

I am a bad seed,
For I come from bad apples,
And someday I will grow to be,
In turn, a bad apple tree.

And from that tree,
Bad apples will grow.
And one day that child of mine will ask,
“Mother, like you,
Am I a bad apple too?”

C.G. Nelson has been an avid reader of poetry since she was thirteen years old. Her first loves were Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allan Poe. C.G. Nelson is a new poet. She went to the University of Washington, where she graduated with a degree in English and Philosophy.

<
One day I’ll upload to the cloud.
I’ll leave this body and fly.

I might even come back,
do it all again.

Programmed to have forgotten
I’ll feel sweat on my brow,

taste salt running from my face,
salt of the earth,

written in code.
>

Nick seeks to bring a sense of contemplation to his work as a product manager of financial indices when not reading and writing poetry. A woeful Knicks fan, Nick resides in Manhattan with his wife Julia and their miniature pinscher, Emma. Nick’s work was recently featured in Grey Sparrow Journal.

Mama always did the dishes
after I made them dirty.
I’d carry as many as I could in one big trip
to the kitchen sink.
Pretended I was a waitress
ballerina, plates on my palm
balanced with empty glasses on top.
Only a handful
of times did they fall and shatter.
Mama’d scream like I deeply hurt her
only child, or spilled hot tea on her foot.
I’d plié in fear and horror
in lieu of running away
to a small town where I could change
my name, be a big time
waitress when I grow up,
get all the Coke I want.

Mama always did the dishes
while I thirsted
for something to do
other than watch TV or watch her
sob and do the dishes.
I listened to her sing
songs from childhood
more loudly than usual
over rushing water and
my high-pitched babblings
I’d thought of myself
or heard on the news.

Mama always did the dishes.
I danced and brought my own blues.

Amber Weinstock holds a BA in Literature from Binghamton University. After teaching in South Korea and traveling for over a year, she’s returned to Brooklyn, NY to pursue art things and fight the urge to float away like a helium balloon again.

Watermelons grow into shapes
as children, becoming soft squares
made easier to keep in a fridge.
Maybe our children will grow
into rooms, the press of objects
leaving imprints on their rinds, each
a story they didn’t know they’d bear until
their skin becomes a clafoutis
splitting with raspberry bedsores.
Unless the vine is severed,
their bodies are bonsai.

Kristin Eade is a writer and editor from Seattle, Washington. She has an ardent love for words, especially those that need a good edit, and enjoys daydreaming, playing with cats, and being in nature. One of her greatest accomplishments is memorizing all the lyrics of Bohemian Rhapsody.

I remember a cool breeze
After a hot day
Of youth rushing
To get older
And I remember
The warmth
Of ancient stone
Radiating
The history of a moment

Katarzyna is a psychologist with an interest in psychoanalysis and writing. She lives, works and writes in London. Her poems are short and nearly always rhyme – this may be due to a fear of long prose ever since school.

Seen as an ornament of beauty, but suffocating everything in its path.
Revered for its durability, but no one notices the strangling roots underneath.
They are seen as strong, yet they have to invade to gain their power—
And no one knows what else had to suffer for the stunning flower to gain its numbers.
It stands tall no matter the depths of the water,
But no one realizes that it completely obstructs the shimmering pond from view.

Rebecca Malachowski has been writing poetry since she was 14 years old and has found it to be one of the main comforts and constants throughout her life.