A body is a body.
She will never know
what it’s like to look,
see bare skin, suffer 
a sensation—the urge
men feel to give love 
as they interpret. No
time for romance, need 
for connection, just action.

A cry is a cry.
He will never notice
her dead blank stare
while pressing his body--
his aching body--
inside her lying passively,
thinking he is sharing
a reward she has earned
for just being beautiful. 


Author Bio:
Rebecca Rodriguez is a young writer from South Jersey currently working on an MA in Writing Arts and working as a graduate instructor teaching Composition 1 at my university. Although she has published a few fiction prose pieces, this is her first attempt at poetry. 

The universe I carry on my back
is a lot lighter,

hunch and move
past reality,

decades ago
flailing my arms

like a boxer
inside the ring

tearing rib cages
to shreds.

I have learned
hear the voice first,

ask for help
admitting

there is a dawn
perceive it

above the cities of destruction
crumbling in your mind


without sound,
all you need do

is reach beyond
boundaries created

something
untouchable

impossible to describe.


Author Bio:
Dennis Reed is a National Endowment Fellow and author of the poetry collection DEFINITIONS recently published by OPUS press. His work has appeared in STYLE, ESSENCE, CLA, BLACK SCHOLAR and many other magazines and journals. His memoir, MIGRATION MEMORIES, was a semi-finalist in the NCTE/NORMAN MAILER writer of non-fiction award for high school teachers.

He has taught writing courses at Morehouse College, William and Mary and Virginia Commonwealth University. 

I heard the drops
Knocking at the glass plane 
Above my bed, 
They are begging for
Attention,
Screaming out to me -
pleading -
That I show pity on them.

They are persistent
And married to their 
Hope of one day breaking in -
Into my home.

I do not fear their intrusion,
I fear their character.
What ever have I done to deserve
the attention
Of such noble creations?
Their will is admirable,
Evident in every 
thump-thump.

At night I stare indifferently 
As armies come and fall.
Their strength commendable
But still no match 
For my ironclad fortress.

I pray silently each night
In memory of the slain.

~eshasmoky
​

Author Bio:
Esha Radhaykissoon is a seventeen-year-old girl who grew up in the Caribbean. She enjoys crafting stories and poems based on her perception of life and the emotions she associates with the world. She does not consider herself her a writer, merely a spinner of words. To her writing is and always will be therapeutic. 

​We live in the age of panic
Yet it is not felt
It is not touched
And it is not materially measured
 
Regardless
There it tis
Having perhaps more hold over some
Then the seen, palpated and touched
 
Are the worst types of pressure
From the observable
Or are they rather
From the intangible?
 
The observable we can quantify
Hence focus on
With all our wrath and venom
And desire for vengeance
 
But the intangible unexplainable
Can be a whole other matter
For how do we hold accountable
That which we cannot see, hear or explain?
 
Boundaries become blurred
Personal integrity becomes compromised
We feel violated
Let alone vulnerable
 
Is that not
What the panic wants
It has won
Before the battle has been joined
 
Our deepest fears
Have been realized
The unseen enemy
A victor of the battle let alone the war.
 

Author Bio:
David I. Mayerhoff is an emerging writer while being a practicing physician and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry. His areas of specialty are in Graduate Medical Education, the chronic mentally ill, and academic research with a focus on the heterogeneity of schizophrenia disorders. 

Selected poetry of his can be found at drsyke.wordpress.com, allpoetry.com, poetry.com, as well as published selections at PoetryBay/ Long Island Quarterly, The Paragon Journal and elsewhere. 

​Collar bones
I see them even through your sweatshirt.
What happened to your soft edges? 
Jagged, broken
Every square inch of your neck covered
In blue, in purple
Those bruises on your wrists
Those holes in your ankles
Who put them there?
Was it your dad? Those dreams you couldn't quite spin into realities? 
Or was it your mother you took so much from
I saw her here, too
But you don’t live
You survive 


Author Bio:
Svetlana Lefevre is an International Studies major and a freshman in college. She writes for fun. 

*** For my mother

At 92 she stares
Out the window
At the outside world 
The mens’ Brooks Brothers strident
Conquering stride
Andriods in the laps
Of their hands.

She remembers his--
Palms stained with ink
Clasping a Daily News
The bellicose headline of
The New York Post
Crying for Brezhnev 
“Big Red is Dead”
The smell of
Martinis on his breath.

She was one of those harried women
In the black SUVs
Work, children
Managing her life
A litany of baggage
Waiting to be
Delivered
On time.

She watches
The construction crews
Rip the street apart
Their clumsy reinvention
Of her town.

She sits with a tight grey bun
Her hands like angry crabs
Claw her cup.
Steam from her coffee
Just adds to her mist
Behind this frame
Of time.


Author Bio:
Doug Holder's latest collection of poetry is "Last Night at the Wursthaus" (Grey Sparrow Press). Holder teaches writing at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston and Endicott College in Beverly, MA. He recently retired from McLean Hospital, where he ran poetry groups for psychiatric patients for almost 30 years.

As the immigrant came to our city
Our girls hide and crawl
Our boys wear their guards
Almost suffocating the breath of freedom

Our girls hide and crawl 
Didn't the immigrant seek asylum
Our boys wear their guards
Our girls are violated at the hill tops

Didn't the immigrant seek asylum
Our boys wear their guards
Our girls are violated at the hill tops
As the immigrant came to our city


Author Bio:
Molicienna Emeks studied English Literature at the University of Lagos in Nigeria. She enjoys traveling and reading.

I do not think of you lying in the wet clay
of an Athenry graveyard; I see
your fiddle fingers flying as you navigate
whistle, banjo, or playing
 
our piano, Whispering Hope-
And you briskly brush by me and say:
'I'm leaving you my Mandolin'.
 
And I think of you so full of song, 
so lush with life. And I see us crossing town
chanting about big and bright stars
Deep in the heart of Texas.
 
I do not think of you as playing
second violin; I see 
your maidenly warmth flow 
through my blind umbilical grip.
 
You are not lying in that wet clay,
for it is a starry night now and we
are walking hand in hand under the Arch
and you are shining harmoniously down on me.


Author Bio:
Sally McHugh lives in Galway, Ireland. She likes Art and all kinds of creative pursuits. She started attending a weekly poetry workshop in Galway in 2017 and had her first poetry publication, ‘Dunmore East’ published in ROPES Literary Magazine later that year. In her day job she is a PhD researcher at the National University of Ireland, Galway. She is looking forward to coming to San Francisco in the U.S. in 2019 as a Fulbright Creative-Ireland Museum Fellow. 

How deep it goes, I will never know.
The bravery of seeking its depth remains my foe.
Be strong, like a mother protecting her young, I wish only one thing - 
​that I will never run. 


Author Bio:
Clint is a middle-aged professional who writes poetry as an outlet. 

She was writing on her kitchen window 
with strong, sweeping strokes inscribed 
in the steamy fug 
of something savory simmering 
on the stove for supper. 
Invisible words in a visible world 
of high-rise towers.
Her scarf hooding eyes 
scanning the horizon 
for a danger that would come 
from outside 
that stuffy kitchen. 
Writing, writing – writing what?
A heart-felt plea,
a cri de coeur ? 
helpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelpme 
cursive colère...
I’ve had enoughenoughenoughenoughenough!
Or maybe she was urging
a child to recite his lessons, 
lessening the confusion of living 
between two worlds, two cultures.
Or maybe she was writing… 
poetry, proving Fermat’s theorem, putting
the finishing touches 
on the closing arguments of a case...
In any case, 
she erased the inscription 
with a swipe of the diaphanous 
sleeve of her dress, her forearm arcing 
across the window, wiping 
away the evidence 
before the danger 
came home, came in
from the cold to scold her.


Author Bio:
Andrea Dejean writes poetry to try to understand why cymbals clang in her ears when she witnesses certain scenes of everyday life. Sometimes the writing brings understanding; sometimes it doesn’t. Although that has always been her reaction to such scenes, the clanging cymbals have had a cross-cultural note for much of the past three decades as, after having left the United States for the first time just after graduating from college, she has lived in the former Zaïre (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Cameroon and the French overseas department of French Guiana. A native of Detroit, she is permanently based in southwestern France. She is the translator of a book on biodiversity and has published her own poetry and creative fiction and non-fiction in both independent and university-affiliated literary journals.