Dust and Ash by William R. Soldan

William R. Soldan is a writer from the Ohio Rust Belt and the author of the story collection In Just the Right Light. His work has appeared is such publications as Neologism Poetry Journal, Jelly Bucket, Bending Genres, Gordon Square Review, and many others. You can find him at williamrsoldan.com if you’d like to connect.


Dust and Ash

Had there ever been a time, she wondered, when her shoulders weren’t bowed beneath a great weight, a thing pressing her into the dust that had come and would be coming? What wide spaces we scavenge, she thought, like gulls in the sand. The sky burns and here we are, pecking through shards for something to sustain us. How the dream of rain carries, etches the world, then rips into strips when we reach out our hands. What are trees are not trees, but these upright bones and gashed knees sunk in the ashes.

Hank Williams and the Whipperwills by Reid Mitchell

REID MITCHELL is a New Orleanian teaching in China. More specifically, he is a Scholar in Jiangsu Province’s 100 Foreign Talents Program, and a Professor of English at Yancheng Teachers University. He is also Consulting Editor of CHA: AN ASIAN LITERARY JOURNAL. His poems have been published by CHA, ASIA LITERARY REVIEW, IN POSSE, and elsewhere. His first collection, SELL YOUR BONES, was published by Berlin’s PalmArtPress. Way back in the 20th century, he published the novel A MAN UNDER AUTHORITY. He also had a separate career as an historian of the American Civil War.


Hank Williams
And The Whipperwills
Whisper “Sweet Darlin’,
Go To Sleep,
Good Night”

I know those painted black steel
stairs you ascend, high heels
dangling in your weary hand

I have seen the noir seams
of your laddered stockings
gone crooked

the swelling of your calves
the tilt of your razor-edged skirt
the way your left hand lifts

your bob cut black hair
from where it kisses the nape
of your muscular, tango neck

the naked, screwed-in bulb
flickering yellow messages
into Morse Code for ghosts

trying to try not to give up, at least
not this particular whipperwill night
not with Hank Williams watching

from heaven

The Chicken Goggle Solution by James Barr

For decades, Jim wrote TV commercials for many well known products and brands while working as a creative director at two national ad agencies. But in his early days, he had to come up with features and benefits for chicken goggles. Yes, chicken goggles.


The Chicken Goggle Solution

I can’t think of a better conversation starter than this: “I used to write copy about chicken goggles.”

As a copywriter for the Montgomery Ward Farm and Garden Catalog, I really did write about chicken goggles. While the catalog was brimming with other products like tractors, tillers and hydraulic scoop claws, nothing came close to writing about those goggles. Not a frivolous fashion accessory, these beak-borne devices helped prevent bloodshed in the barnyard. You see, chickens are serious peckers and even engage in cannibalism. Two things I suggest you forget about the next time you walk into KFC.

If there’s any good news here, it’s that chickens usually only attack only the bird that’s directly in front of their faces. So if you ever come back to earth as a chicken, that’s a good thing to know. The goggles hinder the chicken’s view so it won’t go into full attack mode.

I learned all this in Chicago’s Montgomery Ward building, now an architectural landmark. Built before central air conditioning, the building had rotating fans mounted high on concrete columns. Seated before my typewriter, I learned to type with one hand while the other hand held down my papers as the fan rotated past my desk. Then as the fan began its return rotation, my other hand covered my papers while the other hand typed. And so it went for 8 hours a day during the summer. 

Working in my open office area, the writers’ desks were arranged side-by-side. Over in a corner, my boss sat in his own cubicle. He was a chain cigar smoker and I rarely saw his face. A cloud of smoke perpetually encircled his head. Only by watching the red end of the cigar could I at least aim my conversation toward his mouth.

Sitting atop one of the file cabinets, we had a bowl of peanuts in the shell. One day, I took an X-acto knife and carefully opened a peanut. I then trimmed a long, narrow strip of paper and wrote a note from “Rabu,” a worker being held prisoner on a peanut farm in Cameroon. He was clearly pleading for rescue. Rolling the note tightly, I squeezed it into the shell, carefully sealed the shell’s edges with rubber cement and placed the special goober deep down in the bowl where it sat for months.

One quiet afternoon, there was a shriek loud enough to crack crystal. A secretary had opened the peanut and became near faint. To this day, she thinks a much older Rabu is still being held hostage on the peanut farm.

So forget about using a life coach to teach you how to get your associates to “Lean in” to what you’re about to say. Forget about going to seminars teaching you how to get your voice heard. All you really need to know are two little words and you’re on your way.

“Chicken goggles” works for me every time.

James Croal Jackson

James Croal Jackson has a chapbook, The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017), and poems in MORIA, off the coast, and Oyster River Pages. He edits The Mantle. Currently, he works in the film industry in Pittsburgh, PA. jimjakk.com


Red Bricks, Gray Sky

I wear
another hungry
headache from
waking

drool dribbling out
into blue pool
on pillow
having shaken

off another night
of tigers’ teeth
and bent bones
grateful at least

inside a home
to pour
yesterday’s coffee
drank black then

to the bridge
to watch
yachts fade
into mist

oh how the rich
don’t know
what they’re missing

Service by Anthony Palma

Anthony Palma’s work attempts to bridge the gap between poetry, music, and other forms. He teaches writing at several universities in the Greater Philadelphia area. He resides in West Chester PA with his wife and family.


Service

James slept better than he had in weeks, which was probably why he overslept. With the train leaving in 20 minutes, he’d have to move. He grabbed a protein bar and a banana, washed his face, threw on gym clothes, hid the mess of his hair under the first hat he could grab, and 12 minutes later he was out the door.

            The train that he took was a later one than usual, and the car was already full of commuters from the suburbs. However, his seat was still empty. It was turned sideways near the front of the car and had a clear view of both exits. He settled in and embraced his anonymity. The woman sitting in the row next to his seat didn’t even look up. Her attire told him she was on her way to an office. Someday, he’d get there.

            Two stops later, it was standing room only. It was then he noticed the man staring at him. He was about 4 rows towards the back of the car on the aisle, facing James. The man’s travel partner, maybe his daughter, played on her phone in the window seat. Every time James looked over, the man looked away. The man made James uncomfortable. He was, after all, sitting in a seat reserved for the physically disabled. Would the man confront him? James tensed. The train suddenly felt crowded, and he felt exposed. His eyes darted from exit to exit. The train slowed, and the man got up.

            “Sir…”

            James leapt into the current of people, spilling him out onto the platform. In his anxiety, he headed towards the wrong escalator. When he realized his mistake, he turned around and there the man was, girl beside him. The man reached out his hand.

            “Sir, I just wanted to say thank you for your service.”

            How…?

The hat. His friend had gotten it for him when they were discharged.

            The man stood there, hand outstretched. Everyone around the two men stopped. They, too, were waiting. Without a word, James pushed past the man. He went through the doors and rushed up the escalator, up the stairs, and into the street.

            Back on the platform, the man stood bewildered, his hand still outstretched. Passersby apologized for James, said he had been rude to the man, and scurried on their way. The man’s daughter sighed and looked at her phone.

James didn’t stop until he reached the gym. According to his self-appointed schedule, he was four minutes late. He passed the desk and the treadmills. Amidst the exercise bikes he came to a stop. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to become lost and forgotten among the whirring machines, and the sound of the weights that dropped to the ground like bombs.

My Crows by Yuan Changming

Yuan Changming published monographs on translation before leaving China. Currently, Yuan edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver. Credits include Pushcart nominations, Best of the Best Canadian Poetry and BestNewPoemsOnline, among others.


My Crows

1/

Still, still hidden
Behind old shirts and pants
Like an inflated sock
Hung on a slanting coat hanger

With a prophecy stuck in its throat
Probably too dark or ominous
To yaw, even to breathe

No one knows when or how
It will fly out of the closet, and call

2/

Like billions of dark butterflies
Beating their wings
Against nightmares, rather
Like myriads of
Spirited coal-flakes
Spread from the sky
Of another world
A heavy black snow
Falls, falling, fallen
Down towards the horizon
Of my mind, where a little crow
White as a lost patch
Of autumn fog
Is trying to fly, flapping
From bough to bough

Crossing Over by Dixon Hearne

Dixon Hearne is the editor-in-chief of Delta Poetry Review. He writes in Louisiana, where he grew up along the quiet bayous and river traces. He is a recently retired academic and writer–assisted by his clever bichon Junie. His work has been nominated for the PEN/Hemingway award and several times for the Pushcart.


Crossing Over

The downtowns were joined
by a narrow brick-and-steel bridge
across the darkly beautiful Ouachita–
river of life, river of death
sauntering south like a summer stroll,
then raging and brimming
with spring thaw,
completely indifferent
to human affairs on either side.

Crowds the mind with memories,
sense memories of time and place
now all but obliterated by fickle
tastes and whim change.
From Western Union,
which hugged the bridge,
to the crisscross tracks at Five Points—
reminder of days when streetcars
carried shoppers and workers
on their daily routes.

Along the wide sidewalks on either side,
tacky items fill showroom windows
where once the finest to be found
was vainly displayed—dreams and wishes.
Now Swept aside and relocated
to suburban hubs
of the beehive variety
in the name of progress.
the fate of most large towns
now rediscovering the value,
the wisdom of town centers.
malls now inverting,
store entries on the outside,
reclaiming the village model
where shoppers stroll
in fresh, open air.
A new idea, many say
whose knowledge
has not yet ripened
into wisdom.

Rule Number One by Lacey Mercer

Lacey Mercer lives in Buckeye, AZ.


Rule Number One

I looked through the branches of the Mesquite and could see him sitting on his horse just outside of the thicket of trees. I stayed perfectly still while he searched for me, his eyes shielded from the sun by his black, dusty hat. He had been chasing me since the flat top hill and his horse’s sides where heaving from the effort. At the base of the hill, he had managed to get close to me when I hesitated before jumping the wash. The rope I drug from my horns was the result of that hesitation. He had tried to dally around the horn of his saddle once he saw the rope tighten around my head, but I jumped the second I felt the bite of honda, jerking the rope out of his hands. So now, I waited. Nestled under a tree just inside a Mesquite thicket, shaded and mostly hidden by the sharp, low hanging branches.

His horse grew impatient, chomping at the bit and pawing the ground stirring up more dust, adding to what was already being whipped up off the sun baked floor courtesy of the desert wind.  The thorns from the tree where digging into the hide on my back, but still I did not move. My hide was tough, much tougher than this man’s skin, and I knew he wouldn’t come into the tangle of branches and thorns that was the thicket.

A spiked lizard appeared from under a bush and scurried across the ground before it shot out from beneath the tree I was hiding under. This brought the man’s attention in my direction and we locked eyes. We both stood silent, still for a moment, looking at each other and then he did the oddest thing. He got off his horse and started inching towards me. Why would he get off his horse? Was he stupid? Did he think he could catch me on foot? Then I saw what he was after. He was not moving towards me but towards the end of the fifty-foot rope that was jetting out from under the tree. He lead his palomino behind him as he kept one eye on the ground and one eye on me, making his way slowly towards the end of the long stretch of rope attached to my horns.

As much as I wanted to lunge forward, I did not move. I let him get closer and closer. Just as he began to bend down and pick up the rope, I exploded out from the stand of trees, head down, tail up. The man fell back and to the left while his horse reared, spinning to the right. He lost grip of the reins and the spooked palomino took off running in the direction of home. The man scrambled, back peddling, barely avoiding a barrel cactus as he fell. I stopped half way between the trees and the man, shaking my head at him while he got to his feet.

I knew this was my chance. I bolted to the south, past the thicket of trees and in the direction of the herd, that I knew should be at the water tank this late in the day. The man was far behind me now but I could still see him in the distance standing there, picking up his hat and watching me run away across the rocky ground. Maybe on his long walk back he can think about rule number one of working on the open range alone. Never lose your horse.

Freak Show Saga by Patricia Walsh

Patricia Walsh was born and raised in the parish of Mourneabbey, Co Cork, Ireland. To date, she has published one novel, titled The Quest for Lost Eire, in 2014, and has published one collection of poetry, titled Continuity Errors, with Lapwing Publications in 2010. She has since been published in a variety of print and online journals. These include: The Lake; Seventh Quarry Press; Marble Journal; New Binary Press; Stanzas; Crossways; Ygdrasil; Seventh Quarry; The Fractured Nuance; Revival Magazine; Ink Sweat and Tears; Drunk Monkeys; Hesterglock Press; Linnet’s Wing, Narrator International, The Galway Review; Poethead and The Evening Echo.


Freak show Saga

Being quiet on delicate matters, love permitting
white flowers cascade on the windowsill
the designated day off calls the blink missed
this artisan audience knows better than that
watered and fed under cover of critical mass.

Fearing ruin over breakfast, newspapers as well,
coffee sunk slowly, more lukewarm the better,
sharpening appetite on a watery diet
purchasing freedom on back of a blood test
loving, like a rock, caring little for decorum.

Called by the wrong name, invited to a table
apologised to, the dark veins of a friend,
cracking down on entitlement, this allowing
producing books only the select will read
that is enough, as is said, for another day.

Being looked after is all that truly matters,
seethed though Facebook, awaiting the train,
inexistent crises rummaging in losing handbags
conserving food in face of disastrous teeth
looking pregnant, unproductive, in an age’s heart.

Typing up bygones, the better for wear, again
startled out of time, being the more mature
accepting oneself as per se, free travel abound
as much on the one page, constraints being
destroying all knowledge of previous incarnations.