“Daylight” and “Reflections” by Jessica Sommerfeldt

Jessica Sommerfeldt recently completed her degree in history and creative writing at SUNY New Paltz. Her work has previously appeared in Chronogram Magazine and Stonesthrow Review.


Daylight

When daylight first seeps between
The faded white blinds
I rise like a sun
boundless in joy and energy and
for these few moments I revel in
this taste of invincibility
even while deep down I know
that by the time the clock strikes noon
I’ll have fallen back asleep


Reflections

Why must everything hurt,
I asked
She chuckled,
The world is nothing but pain, child
Only then did I realize
I was speaking to a mirror

Narcissus Bulbs by Jo Longley

Jo Longley is an alumna of Kingston University’s Creative Writing MFA Program and past Editor of ‘Ripple Magazine.’ Her poetry has been published by ‘Cattywampus,’ ‘Confingo,’ The Enemies Project, and ‘Anapest’ among others.


Narcissus Bulbs

My brain is a daffodil.
I like the crisp line of your trousers,
pressed divinely; an employable skill that is.
I’m scared most every day,

like all things that happen everyday—meh.
A sustained lightning flash of terror looks just like
a plain white wall. Who’d have known? Besides
the terrified and soldiering on. A daffodil? Yes.

I couldn’t begin to explain why, save the soles
of my feet ache, you seem suitable to employ,
and I press this upon you: for a while you
crave color—a splash, a dot—and

when that does not come,
you swear to every aphid that crawls over you:
some black would be suitable, actually, a wall of black
would really do.

Skin Memory by Rose Fairfield

Rose lives with her family in the Appalachian Mountains where she serves her community as a behavioral health professional. By night she enjoys reading, writing, and spoiling her cat.


Skin Memory

Uncanny how the skin remembers
At your mere suggestion it warms
And flits like summer water
How simple it is to
Open memory’s
Window and feel
The night air
Speak of
You

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