“My Father Cried” by Laura Stroebel


Six foot six
Giant of a teddy bear
Well over 200 pounds
Much to my mother’s chagrin.
Came out of the Army
Scarcely 140
Before they married in
The Swiss Alps,
Then he discovered
Marlene’s cooking.

The first time I remembered
My father crying
Was when
I was bouncing across
Lemon-lime colored
Love seats
At nine-years-old
And the phone rang.
Daddy,
In his wild mutton chops
And Steve Allen glasses
Quietly answered.

It was mid-air
When I caught his face
Twist in a knot
Of pain
“Jesus no, dear God, no. Please, not my son.”
A good Catholic man
He rarely took the Lord’s name
In vain.

Splintered downward
Into a thud
Knees empty
Mustard yellow phone cord
Twirled
Around his fisherman
Hand-knitted sweater.
He fell hard
Onto that kitchen tile
Splayed
Like a broken marionette
My brother, Paul, the elder
Crushed
in a car accident.

Second time
Me
Running around the basement
Dad bursts the door open
Screaming in gurgled angst
A death grip on his wrist
Like a muscle tourniquet
“Call your mother,”
He choked out barely
Poor fellow
He was only trying
To get the wet leaves
Out from under our hand mower.
I grab some gas rags for bandaids
Tossing them at him, running
Frightened of my dad’s fear
But nothing could stop
That bloody stump of a finger
From soaking my mom’s
New beige rug.

Third time
Another phone call.

His whole life he had been
The caretaker
The breadwinner
A published engineer
Devotee to sonar submarines
But his love was never work
It was always
Art.
Painting, poetry, books
Foreign movies and those damned gladiolas
He could recite
The Song of Hiawatha by heart
But please don’t get him started.
His weekends,
Always, pure bliss
Pabst Blue Ribbon Sunday
Wearing baggy JC Penney jeans
With cobalt blue paint stains
And a gray-white t-shirt
Sitting in front of his easel
“Putzing About” as mother would say
In his labyrinth underfoot
Acrylic portraits
King Kong posters
And unfinished birdhouses
Awaitied his masculine touch.

Now back to the phone call

Mr. McTaggart
You have won first place
For your landscape
At the Mystic Art Association.

Caught him off guard it did
He looked at Marlene, curiously
Before turbulent tears rained down
Upon soft wrinkled cheeks
Unstoppable.
He was embarrassed
And looked away
Out the window
At the gossiping chickadees
Trying to wipe his face
With that ancient pocket handkerchief
Of his
Years in the basement
His dream validated
This was a big one
Somebody finally took note
It meant
He could at last be called
A true artist.

My father cried.


Laura Stroebel is a published author and poet from Connecticut. She enjoys attending local open poetry mics. Currently, she is working on her second children’s book, which is also poetry. She is married to a writer, works as a middle school math teacher, and has two children in college. In her spare time, she enjoys chess, photography and selling vintage books.

“When The World Was Still” by Courtney Robb


What was the hardest thing you’ve ever done, grandma?
My granddaughter, such a light

Oh, that’s easy, I say
All the caretaking
Yes, when my children were young
My dog was old, my cat was wild
Grandpa was there but he was working
The world was still
But I was moving as fast as ever

Oh, she says, slightly unsatisfied
Her fierce green eyes burning into me
My granddaughter, so curious

But I was lucky, I say
I was healthy, I was loved
And you know what, baby girl, I say, pulling her in for a hug
It doesn’t get any better than that

She smiles


Courtney Robb is a bilingual, Canadian aspiring poet. Mother of two young children, currently on maternity leave. Former flight attendant formerly scared of persuading her love of poetry and expression. She plans on re-attending university in the fall to pursue her passion.

“Hanging by a Thread” by Camille McDaniel


Hanging onto the thread of September
Hoping each fiber will pull me closer
To packed boxes taped
To the corners of our four-door

When the rubber licks the road
Tears tiptoe the fine hairs of salted cheeks
To a sweat speckled lip
Trembling with sweet possibility

Fraying the end of a fiber
With every goodbye and
You have to come visit!
The sparkle never leaves an eye
Even when it cries


Camille is a writer and out-of-practice gospel singer who has lived in Boston, Harlem, and Paris. In her spare time, she thrifts vintage picture frames and takes way too many pictures of her elder cat.

“To the Poet, Reading” by Hugh Findlay


You speak as if you aspire
to something holy and perfect.
White light attracts moths.
They are blinded by mystery.
Like the light, your words
are no greater than you.
Like the moth, you are
scalded by hubris.


Hugh Findlay lives in Durham, NC, and would rather be caught fishing. He drives a little red MG, throws darts on Thursdays, reads and writes a lot, dabbles in photography and makes a pretty good gumbo. His work has most recently been published in The Dominion Review, Literary Accents, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Bangalore Review, Burningword Literary Journal, Wanderlust, Montana Mouthful, Souvenirs, Dream Noir, Proem, San Pedro River Review, New Southern Fugitives and Arachne Press. @hughmanfindlay

“Scattering the Poet’s Ashes in a Suburban Memorial Park” by Juleigh Howard-Hobson


Sunshine splashes out across green lawns;
Wreath petals, blown by breezes, fall
Down to sprinkle maintained plots
With tasteful accents. Shorn
Dandelions scrawl
Unspoken thoughts.
It’s all gone,
It’s all
…not.


Juleigh Howard-Hobson’s poetry has appeared in The Comstock Review, Noir Nation, L’Éphémère, Able Muse, The Lyric, Weaving The Terrain (Dos Gatos), Poem Revised (Marion Street), Birds Fall Silent in the Mechanical Sea (Great Weather for Media), Lift Every Voice (Kissing Dynamite), and other venues. A Million Writers Award “Notable Story” writer, nominations include “Best of the Net”, The Pushcart Prize and The Rhysling Award. She lives off grid in the Pacific Northwest next to a huge woods filled with shadows and ghosts.

“The Camel-Haired Clump” by James Barr


There’s an art form to commuting and it’s one I learned well while shuttling from my suburban home to downtown Chicago.

On a crackling cold January morning, very few commuters are seen. Most are huddled inside the depot or up against it, out of the wind. Then, as if a signal just shone from above, movement begins. The herd heads toward the track, artfully forming discrete clumps in very specific spots. These seasoned riders know exactly where they should be when the train stops and the doors open. And as an outsider clad in a journeyman cloth coat and a ball cap, I just didn’t dare to attempt to affix myself to this curated clump.

This station, being in a rather well to do suburb, has more than its share of well turned-out dandies. Camel hair coats are de rigueur. However, only an erudite few would know that their coat was made from the hair of the double-humped Bactrian camel. They just know they paid dearly for it and it alone gained them access to the herd.

As seen from above, these morphing brown clumps resemble a flock of Bactrian camels at a watering hole. Only these non-humped camels sport jaunty hats and oh-so-pricey Burberry scarves and kidskin gloves. Of course, highly polished wing tips or brogues complete the look. So these are definitely not your garden-variety camel.

These are well-dressed businessmen (and during the years I’m writing about, they were predominately men) heading to the Chicago Board of Trade, an ad agency or perhaps to some snazzy LaSalle Street law firm. The only other visual cue that proved these folks weren’t heading to less lofty jobs was a copy of the Wall Street Journal tucked under their arms.

Once settled into their seats, the conversations I overheard from these camel hair-clad corporate warriors were priceless.

“The wife and I just skied St. Moritz. We found the fondue lacking. The Swiss are just so uninterested and the wines, barely drinkable.”

“Recently visited the spa at Baden-Baden in the Black Forest. Doesn’t hold a candle to Parador de Corias in Spain, wouldn’t you agree?”

“We dined at Chez Mirage recently and found the wait staff indifferent. I don’t know what the world’s coming to.”

On the homeward train, the bar car was the place you always found these high-dollar commuters. Tales of deals made, trades consummated and clients acquired swirled through the car like a Sirocco wind in North Africa, only without the annoying sand and airborne fleas. It also didn’t escape my attention that while camels endure long periods of travel in harsh conditions without water, these guys couldn’t get through a day without a highball or beer.

So no camel hair coat for me. If I want to be at one with my inner ungulate, I’ll see them at the zoo. And they won’t care what I’m wearing.


Jim is a freelance writer and seasoned veteran with 25 years of creative experience at two leading advertising agencies. He’s proud to say that his stories are gluten free and that no artificial color is ever added to enhance their appeal.

“Tin Can Cowboy” by Issie Patterson


On graduation night we skip out on the dreaded ceremony with its foldable metal chairs and grandparents dabbing sweaty necks with lace handkerchiefs and walk single file along the dirt road to Cormack Beaver’s farmhouse. Ellis walks up front with a BB gun tipped against his bare, tanned shoulder, tobacco spit dribbling down his chin. Every so often he spits to his right and August flinches and curses. August always walks too close behind his twin brother, hovers in his shadow.

            Ellis can shoot a tin can off a tree stump from thirty paces. He rides horses bareback and sometimes barefoot, too. There’s a rumor that girls will run across the Quebec-Ontario border late at night in their jean shorts and flip flops if they hear Ellis will be at an Ontario party that night. Then Ellis will charm them in his broken French, and they’ll laugh because he has a good-looking face.

            “We’re going to get killed by Beaver,” moans August. August did not inherit the looks or the charm that his twin brother is graced with but instead an affinity for bugs and no hearing in his right ear. He often squats down in the dust and dirt and sticks his finger in the ground, admiring an ant or a spider or a fat caterpillar. At school people lean into his deaf ear and whisper “freak” and “queer” and “creeper”.

            At school people buy Ellis slices of pizza and offer to lend him their dirt bikes. August squats in the dirt and smiles and doesn’t hear what people whisper in his right ear.

            “Shut up, August,” I say. “Cormack Beaver’s dead.”

            The sun is almost down but the heat is smothering. Crickets are popping in and out of the dry yellow grass along the road. The sound they make is like a high-pitched whine.

            Cormack Beaver’s farmhouse is a long walk outside of town. Ellis wanted to shoot out the windows instead of getting his high school diploma. He brought me along because he knows I’m a good shot and I don’t talk much. I have my dad’s hunting rifle with me. The weight of it feels powerful, the butt of the gun bumping against my thighs as I walk. Once Ellis said that he’d want me on his team for the zombie apocalypse. I grinned like an idiot for the rest of the day.

            “People say that if you shoot out the windows on Beaver’s house then he’ll haunt you in your sleep.” August walks with his head down, his glasses nearly sliding off his face. The tips of his ears are sunburnt.

            “Then go home, August.” Ellis doesn’t turn when he speaks.

            An old pick-up truck grumbles along the road towards us. It is shiny silver and reflects the late evening sun in white flashes. We all stand and squint at it as it approaches.

            “There’s no hunting here, boys,” says an old man’s voice from the window.

            I stand with August as Ellis goes to speak with the driver. August points out a wasp nest a few feet away, nestled in the gnarled branches of a magnolia.

            “That’s a nice spot,” he says.

            Ellis walks back to us and the truck drives off, leaving behind a cloud of yellow dust.

            “Old asshole,” Ellis says. He spits a wad of black grime and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

            “He’s reporting us?” I ask.

            “He bought the property beside Beaver’s place. He said he’ll call the cops if we don’t leave.”

            “What the hell are we gonna do?” I dig my shoe into the dirt. This was supposed to be a good time. The old man has ruined everything.

            August is staring off at the magnolia tree, hypnotized by the lazy hum of wasps.

            Ellis raises his BB gun and aims in one fluid motion. He fires ten times at the wasp nest and smiles when it hits the ground. 


Issie Patterson is a writer from Toronto. Her fiction and reviews have been featured and are forthcoming in untethered, Prism, Gargoyle Magazine, and Vancouver Weekly. Her stage plays have been performed on both coasts of Canada. She is a recent graduate of the University of British Columbia’s MFA creative writing program. She lives in Nova Scotia.

“Pannin’ fer Rhymes (an old miner’s tale)” by Kevin Taylor


Well, now– It was in the spring of ‘49 just ‘round
Memorial Day in the Land O’ Freedom… or so they
call it. Anyways, I was sittin’ up behind them hills…
Y’know, nexta where God ‘n’ Hell musta had some
sorta fuss or ‘nother. Sorta desert. Sorta not.
And I was pannin’ fer rhymes– I kept comin’ up dry–
when alluvasudden straight outta the ground there’s
this tinklin’, twinklin’ musical sound. So I grabbed me
a panful and gave it a twitch. Some verbs and an adjective
peppered the dish. Good stuff, I s’pose. Fer a yarn they’d
bin fine, but not fer perfessional-lookers-fer-rhymes.
I swished ‘em a little and shook ‘em again to see if that
tinklin’ mightn’t be kin to the one that I found in the gully
that night. It’d had to be good, or it wouldn’t fit right.
Them poets won’t shell-out fer less than a pair cuz one
by itself leaves ‘em pullin’ their hair. So ya gotta find more
than a couple that fit or poets ‘ll fake it and some ‘ll just quit
and some ‘ll just hope no one says that it’s… Y’ know…
Call ‘emselves “nou-veau” and claim it’s legit.

‘Nuffa that, I s’pose.

I looks fer them twinklin’ musical words that rhymes like
the first time they’s ever been heard. I sure ain’t the first one
that’s panned in them hills. My pappy before me turned up
a few thrills and somewhere or ‘nother done found a whole line.
But me, I ain’t happy unless it’ll rhyme. They’re there, I can
hear ‘em– they tickle the breeze! I’ll stick it out long as there’s
poets to please. If y’ expected a yarn, or to hear miners cuss–
I’s pannin’ fer rhymes and not dirt in the dust!

Hmph, what’s that ya got there?


Kevin Taylor is a Western Canadian poet, storyteller and accidental lexicographer. First published in 1974. Several chapbooks slouch on his bookshelf where they mark “the sudden grey of decades passing.”

“I was an idiot at 14” by Kelly Lynn

I was an idiot at 14.

            I mean, I’m sure a lot of teenagers were idiots. But I’m sure not every teenager is an idiot in the way where they trust a two ton animal won’t throw them off and step on them. Except the whole point was so the two ton animal does throw you off. The getting stepped on it what you actually want to avoid.

Surprise surprise, this stupidity was at a Christian summer camp. We all signed releases, and our parents did too, promising not to sue. It’s a good thing they had us do that, on their behalf, since that week a boy broke his arm real bad. He did the same thing I did. Except his hurt more. Except mine was more long term.

We rode bulls.

I’m not entirely sure why both this camp and all of our collective parents decided it was a good idea to send preteens and idiot teens to a camp where we could seriously maim ourselves in the process but oh well. They said it was okay and we all spent a week getting muddy and injured. Bull riding wasn’t all we did. We learned to wrestle steer too. Most of our stuff was on horseback though. That was the main appeal to all of us. Barrel racing, pole bending, keyhole nonsense, and team penning. Even some basics of trick riding which the guys were all frustratingly good at without even trying. How dare they.

Bull riding was not on my list to do. Not once. But the two girls I connected with that week decided that I had to. They decided that it was now on my list. I told them I’d rather drink hot sauce. So they dared me to and I did. It wasn’t that hot. And they still made me ride the bull.

The chute was red and rusty. Rather than the gates used in the fence lines, these had real thick and flat metal bars to hold the bull in and keep his horns or hooves from getting stuck. The spacing was just big enough for me to get one of my Ariats into so I could slither my way down onto the back of a six foot six inch tall animal. That’s a rough estimate. It was the biggest bull they had, that’s for sure. I had ridden draft horses before but this sucker was bigger and broader. The cowboy waddle was an exaggeration of riding horses for a long time, but it definitely wasn’t wide enough to get around this thing.

He wa white and covered in brown stains. Whether they were dirt or feces, I’ll never know. I grabbed the rope tied around his barrel, just behind his front legs. There was a leather piece on his back and the rope arched over it. That piece of leather was well worn and had obviously seen better days. The rope was fraying too. I couldn’t feel the rope through the thick gloves they gave me to stop my palms and fingers from getting burned.

“You ready yet?” I don’t remember the sound of the voice, but it came from the guy who was in charge of the bulls and steers.

Nope.

“What about now?”

Not even close.

My heart was full of helium and trying to fly up my esophagus and out through my mouth. Except my jaw was clenched so tight that it’d be never able to escape.

“Now?”

No. I pulled on the rope and tried to get my backwards hand more into my crotch. That’s where it should be and I wanted it as close to me as possible. I figured it’d help me stay on.

“C’mon, you should be ready.”

You’d think but nah. I’d rather just sit here on this big white bull that had horns that curved upwards. If the horse had been straight, they would’ve been longer than my arm.

“You’re ready.”

No I’m-

Well.

I’m screwed.

The chute opened and the bull jumped sideways. You know how people say that everything went into slow motion? Nope. I don’t remember the 6.8 seconds between the gate opening and my face on his left shoulder as I somersaulted over him.

Technically, I volunteered to ride a two thousand pound animal. But I never volunteered to have one of his cloven hooves catch my knee as my upper back collided with the ring’s sandy flooring. No one believes this part of the story and I’m not sure why. I had a centimeter thick set of parallel lines on my right knee for almost a decade after that. And that mark sure didn’t exist before that week.

Those two girls and I became the three musketeers of pain. They rode bulls that day too. We all hurt different parts of our body. One had her shoulder, another her hip, and I hurt the entirety up my upper back. We walked around with ice packs attached to us every day until the end of the week. The one girl who hurt her hip had a hard time getting on and off her horse the next couple of times. Me? I got nauseous. Really badly nauseous.

We were standing around on horseback the day after I was an idiot, and I got really dizzy. I had to hop off of the horse and put my head between my knees. The world was spinning and my throat felt full of mud and molasses. It was hard to breath. The rest of the week was the same. Every so often, I’d have to dismount in order to see and breath.

While nausea and a lack of sight didn’t follow me after that week, the back pain did. Thanks to the idiot that was 14 year old me, I have a slightly curved spine and can’t sit still for more than an hour and a half without excruciating pain. Thanks, past me. Bitch.


Kelly Lynn is a northern Maryland native and graduate of Susquehanna University. She grew up around horses and loves her 30-year-old mare, Terminator, very deeply. She plans on owning her own piece of land one day if only so she can buy her dream pet: a cow.

“Apple Poem” by Heather Sager


In the autumn light
poplars line the boulevard
they stand
crisp as apples
in their leafy shimmer

the sky glows
electric blue
amid the dancing
white clouds

the blue
continues blazing
over trees
crisp as apples


Heather Sager grew up in rural Minnesota and lives in Illinois. Her poetry has most recently appeared in Sandpiper, The Wild Word, Remington Review, Third Wednesday, CircleShow, Cacti Fur, Ariel Chart, and Northwest Indiana Literary Journal. Heather also writes short fiction.