Night. I am doused in darkness it ignites a black suffocation from within me… but yet… I am able to see an ethereal light?

With apparent reticence dawn arrives shackled to an impenetrable fog. With the most deliberate of intents Mother Nature has silently woven a blanket of blindness… but yet… I am able to see threads of an ethereal light?

Stubbornly the fog dissipates and the cloudiest of skies emerge cloaked in shades of burnt charcoal gray…but yet… I am able to see an ethereal light?

Dusk arrives formally announced by the heaviest of rains. Tree limbs majestically bow to furious downpours, their leaves rhythmically detach, swirling in chaos… but yet… I am able to see an ethereal light?
The composite of this ethereal light… a bluish hue that beckons me to a place overflowing with love, compassion, kindness… peace.

The bluish hue?  For certain it is my mother’s eyes, glistening, shining down upon me enabling me to weather life’s storms, accept adversity and continue on. 


Author Bio:
Patricia Rossi is an attorney, freelance artist and writer. Her poetry and prose have been featured in Long Island magazines, Poetry Haiku and the Boston Literary. Her personal essays have been published in major New York newspapers. One of her academic papers was selected for publication and will appear in print in the fall of 2015. Patricia leads a variety of creative writing workshops including workshops specifically
for cancer survivors and workshops for individuals coping with their own illness and/or the illness of a family member. 

Patricia is the proud recipient of a number of New York State funded individual artist grants. Patricia has utilized the grant monies to create and implement writing empowerment workshops exclusively for women in underserved communities in Nassau County, New York.
She also serves on the board of a number of Long Island based not for profits. Patricia lives on Long Island with her husband Ed and their adorable pup, Flanagan.

I have tales to tell
and tales I’ve been told
of women captured by a pirate ship
under the Ben Franklin Bridge.
Blue and tragic, it could have been,
but these women had magic coming through their fingertips.

The story goes on.
They were placed in the ship’s hull,
their hands were bound in burlap and rope.
Separated from each other,
they started to talk:
“tap, tap, bang, bang, shuffle, shuffle.”
A language and a force began to be forged between them.

Under a blue moon, the ship threatened more destruction.
It steamed ahead towards the North.
The women seemed to have been forgotten.
The energy of their bond, caused the ship
to take on water.
There, then, was among them a strong power.

These women had razor, sharp tongues
Speaking Speaking Howling,
they sliced that ship in two.

I have tales to tell,
and tales I have been told
of women bound and cast,
large stakes forced into the ground.
These women had powers,
that like swords,
held their executioners at bay.

Fear began in the people who came to watch.
With ascendancy, the women dismantled those stakes.
They spelled witchcraft over the bodies of their captors.
Freeing themselves, hexing the crowd,
they grabbed hold of the flames and carried them forth.

I have tales to tell,
and tales I have been told,
of women tortured under the knife of ritual.
Held down by the circumciser.
As the women waited on the inevitability,
they stoked embers into flames.

When the mutilator came,
the women were safely ensconced
in a ring of high fire.
They could not be reached.
The fire moved away from them
and burned down the village,
taking the huts of torture and knives and razors with them.
The women calmly raised themselves up,
and began to travel forward,
whole and intact.

I have tales to tell,
and tales I’ve been told
of women hiding in their own homes.
Walking on broken glass, 
Bleeding. Violence freezing them in place. 
until finally the light shown down,
so strongly, and offered a hand,
beckoning them out.
Nightmares and day terrors almost crushed them,
the light continued to shine brightly.
And a voice said, “Amen, you are blessed. Amen.”
These women followed the light, proclaiming blessings
and strength from above.

I have another tale to tell.
It’s of a woman in rags,
sitting motionless on a Philly street.
She holds her head in her arms;
she looks up as I pass,
eyes on fire, laughing at my perception.
Her laughter echoes off the buildings.
For she has been imprisoned by a ship,
faced with the stake, threatened
by mutilation, beaten in her own home.
She laughs because she is free and powerful,
and knows where she has been.


Author Bio:
Marie Turco is currently living in a cottage filled with animals in Tennessee after relocating from Philadelphia. Hard to imagine what pen placed her in TN, but she is learning to speak Southern and writing everyday. If she could have her wish, she would write poems on horseback. A brown and white Paint horse would carry her through the fields, as she scribbled phrases and lines. 

Marie is a psychotherapist and writer. Writing fuels her life, particularly now, and she writes every chance she can. ​

She was pressed down
by life, wandering
into the river with pockets
full of stones,
but there was no sweep
of water, no tide to take
her away, only an empty
basin and the eyes of others
seeing her, judging her,
pressing her further down
until she would empty pockets
and rise again.


Author Bio:
Joshua Ford is a student of life and literature.  His poems have appeared at Dark Blooms Literary Zine, Gossamer Poetry Page, and Write Our Loud.  Joshua hopes to publish in many other places in the future.

I do not know my assailant's
name, I do not even see him
coming.
He is somewhere, concealed,
to the side, silent and invisible,
but able to eat up my life
with a simple diagnosis.


Author Bio:
Canyon Bates is a new, young poet eager to share his work with the world. He just starting out on the journey of writing because he had a teacher really encouraged him to do so.  When he's not writing, he enjoys reading books and mixing drinks.

​When you sway an opinion
you tilt humanity
wind and water teach us
that irreversible progress
can be achieved
realized
through whispers
by trickles
tornadoes and floods will dissipate
or recede
but a stream of persistence
that flows
without diversion
will wear down the rock
the rigor mortis mentality
of those
most in need
of progressive persuasion


Author Bio:
Bekah Steimel is a poet aspiring to be a better poet. She lives in St. Louis, MO and can be found online at www.bekahsteimel.com and followed @BekahSteimel.

as we talk to each other
we come to realize we
love each other more
than a word can string
together and we see
each other more than
a verb can do justice

Author Bio:
Izzy Noon is a writer and mother. Her favorite author is Sylvia Plath.

There is a bird singing a song inside my heart
that no one must hear. 
Each night I try to drown it. 
Each morning I wake up coughing
feathers feathers feathers
as blue as blood in veins.

There is a bird singing a song inside my heart
and if it is allowed to nest
I am afraid of what will be born. 
Inside I am all broken yolk
shards of shell, twigs snapped
into kindling between my bones ready to burn. 

There is a bird singing a song inside my heart
and the notes are hooks in my throat
that I can’t swallow and dare not spit out.
It’s beak opens like a sore
and scrapes me raw
punctures my lungs with every breath.

There is a bird singing a song inside my heart 
that I cannot bare. I would 
twist its neck between my hands. 
I would swallow coal and roast it
to ash. I would carry it dead 
within the cage of my ribs but
that too would also
hurt. 


Author Bio:
Couri Johnson is a graduate of the NeoMFA, and a native of Youngstown, Ohio. She recently relocated to Japan where she is working on a book of poetry and a collection of fairy tales. Her work can be found in both print and web, including forthcoming anthology produced by Weird City. She has a chapbook coming out with Dancing Girl Press in Spring 2016, and can be found on twitter at a_couri.

we're the fortunate few, my grandmother told 
me, but something about her voice

told me she didn't believe it

we're the ones that can make a change, she
said, but something about the way her old

fingers steepled said to me,

we will do what we can while we can
while we're here.


Author Bio:
Camille Clark has been described as too perky for her own good. She teaches kids how to read.

they told me to toughen
up but I was loose skin
and fibers unstrung,
they told me to toughen
up but I was gentle 
music until I realized
I would have to deepen
my voice and become
steel and girders

​
Author Bio:
J. “Ash” Gamble is a late-in-life poet from Florida.