​They stood on the porch,
Eyes over the land.
The young and old man,
Making their plans.
 
The old man spoke out
Between his long spits.
Tobacco and words
Spilt from his lips.
 
“I reckon I’ll cut
Those trees over there.
They’re blocking the view
From Grandmother’s chair.
 
Cut them by the fence
A year before last.
That summer was hot;
And burnt all my grass.”
 
The young man chirped in,
His eyes all aglow.
He looked on the field,
And wanted to sow.
 
“How bout a garden
In place of those trees?
There’s plenty of sun
And plenty of breeze.
 
We’ll grow tomatoes
The size of a shoe.
Taters and carrots
We’ll put in a stew.
 
We’ll build us a cabin,
Right sturdy and nice.
Drink lemonade that’s
Heavy with ice.”
 
The old man exhaled
And shuffled his feet.
He pulled off his hat,
And moved to his seat.
 
He said with a grin,
“My bones are too sore.
The view will do fine;
I’ve gardened before.”


Author Bio:
Carter Davis Johnson is an English major and cadet at the Virginia Military Institute. He grew up in Roanoke, Virginia where he developed a great passion for literature and began writing. Mr. Johnson has been published several times in The Society of Classical Poets, and writes both poetry and prose. 

…you are so beautiful, yet so unaware of it. ---The 1975

She, in a room bristled
with bodies, cried.
In the first few minutes,
a downpour over-dewed 
rose petals,

Lids: an arrhythmia unmonitored,

those were her eyes
when she learned of a dog
misdiagnosed with pink eye;
it was actually glaucoma.

Sclerae blushed
as she cried for a dog
and not for humans.
Eyes excised
from their sockets,
from their suffering.


Author Bio:
Sarah Kersey's beginnings as a poet was slow. It began at 12 with a poem about her parents' divorce. At 15, she competed in her first poetry slam. At 18, she tied for third place in a different poetry slam. At 20, her poetry was published for the first time in Columbia University's literary blog Catch & Release.

Though she wanted to become an English teacher, she had to readjust due to changed circumstances. Sarah went to x-ray school instead, and she fell in love with it. Being an x-ray tech has informed her poetry. In 2018, she became an associate editor for South Florida Poetry Journal, and for The Fictional Café. Kersey is hard at work on her first chapbook, which hopefully be completed by the end of this calendar year. Her blog can be found at sarahkerseypoetry.wordpress.com. A list of her publication credits can be found there, as well as announcements and reviews of poetry collections she has read. Sarah tweets @sk__poet.

Virtual narrative places the firmament, the blue crystal ceiling, 
As protecting rabbits, dolphins, people, manufacturing hope, 
Inspiring our reworking for skep-like security, above, beyond.

Moral drogues, built by “important” societies, never referenced 
During elections, coup d'états, provide no understandings, give
Over many significant, mass marketed containers, longueurs.

Unless folks employ binoculars, kites, perambulation at picnics,
Big “champions” continue yielding sops, until values plummet
Like fidelity or fresh means of opposing skeptics’ hypergolics.

When gobbling up best treats, those yokels count to seventy-two,
Remain didactic in their sameness, spout all manner of universal
Epitaphs, whether quaggy, salacious, or otherwise objectionable.

Only handfuls of compassion service providers, well past teen 
Years, ever supply constructive feedback when stuck on topics 
Such as: architectural refinements, binturong tail lengths, truth.

Contemporary culture’s tropes, designated by leopards, monkeys,
Longhorns, don’t become news darlings since taboo, racist, sexist, 
Narrow-minded words only sell well if writers play as therapists. 

See, media pups hang back, enjoy, without “pleases,” “thank-yous” 
Much anaphor, at the same time as most of their littermates wean;
Worrying about intruders is no longer the demesne of diminutives.

Simultaneously, skilled word players mix emotive with scientific
Language, send prolepses of doom, creates more jumble, attempt
Bettering society toward achieving redemption, reaching heaven.


Author Bio:
Life is precious. Our words need to reflect this verity. Accordingly, KJ Hannah Greenberg tilts at social ills and personal evolutions via poetry, prose and other forms of creative expression. Her books and short works evidence these values. Her newest poetry collection is Mothers Ought to Utter Only Niceties (Unbound CONTENT, 2017).

Do you know Genesis One?
The creation story where everything’s great?
Where God created humankind in God’s own image,
perfect and divine,
female and male,
male and female,
equal and entwined,
two beings of superior design.
 
To have dominion over the Earth
and all its flora and fauna.
But with each other,
love and tenderness,
sex and fruitfulness,
respect and oneness,
with each other and their creator.
 
But no one remembers Genesis One,
Adam and Eve are the famous ones.
Adam comes first,
then the Garden,
Next comes Eve,
taken from Adam,
a bit, a part, an afterthought,
or conceived of as inferior from the start?
Then along comes the Serpent,
and it all goes to hell.
 
Weak Eve eats the fruit,
and Wicked Eve gets Adam to eat it as well.
 
Banished from the Eden,
Eve gets the blame,
Original Sin and childbirth pain.
 
But what to do with Genesis One?
 
If Eve gets the blame in Genesis Two and Three,
Why not blame a woman for Genesis One?
 
So Lilith was born;
Lilith won’t subordinate herself to her mate.
And the keepers of stories turn Lilith into a monster
who lies with demons
because
a woman who won’t submit to her male
is a deviant whore.
 
And what better way to damn her to hell
than make her a nymphomaniac slut
who’d lie with demons
and be punished for such sin
with children who die upon being born?
 
So Lilith, the monster, the unfertile whore,
roams the night,
stealing children’s souls and men’s semen
in demonic revenge.
 
Guard yourselves against Lilith,
the story tellers warn: 
The Female from Genesis One is the ultimate
Femme Fatale
because the story tellers were male.


Author Bio:
Kathleen Murphey teaches English Department courses at Community College of Philadelphia. She has been reading and writing non-fiction about women's issues for years and has now discovered the joys of incorporating those ideas into fiction (both poetry and short stories).

Bears, Bears
brown, black, polar white like the whooshing blinding snow
that is almost gone.
The bears too, they, are almost done.

Grizzly bear paws cut for ashtrays
to display on your ivory table.
Snub your smoke into his palms,
he could wipe out your eyes with one claw.

Black bears in Asia
killed for gall bladders
Pestle and mortar.
Ancient medicine, ancient Money.

Bears changing range
moving north,
searching for their northernmost
Star
so they can breathe, eat, mate.

Bears displayed behind cold steel
where lions and tigers already weep
and gorillas draw sad faces
in their own shit.

Here today, gone tomorrow.

In Churchill, Manitoba,
polar bears lumber through during migration.
They walk in silence,
hungry,
owning the town.

No one locks up their houses
so they can scramble straight into the nearest home,
even barricade the door
if they’re quick enough--

Light’s out!


Author Bio:
Colleen Wells’ writes from Bloomington, Indiana. Her work has appeared in Potomac Review, Ravensperch and Workzine. She is the author of "Dinner With Doppelgangers – A True Story of Madness & Recovery and editor of One in Four," an anthology of student mental illness narratives. 

I keep my head down, hand around the glass of orange juice, 
watching the condensation sink into my fingers.
I hear your mother moving, the sounds quick and hesitant at once, 
frying pan in the sink half scrubbed as she says, water in her voice,
hurry now, we can’t be late, a pleading that makes me look up, 
the red around her throat in the shape of your father’s fingers flaming out.
hand wet, I pass my palm once, twice, over my jeans and you’re gone, backpack hitched,
door slamming and it is me and your mother.
I can’t remember ever being alone with her.
it’s okay, she says, the lie big and wide. nothing you need to tell.
she waits. I wait. my chin nods, hers follows as the distance between us slips.
after school, when I go home to parents who kiss each other’s foreheads, 
embarrassingly hold hands and never make secrets, 
I’ll nod my chin yes when they ask, is everything okay? 
and someday, maybe before, maybe after I become your mother’s age, 
I will feel the wear of guilt sink into my fingers.
it tastes like oranges.


Author Bio:
Kate LaDew is a graduate from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a BA in Studio Art. She resides in Graham, NC with her cats, Charlie Chaplin and Janis Joplin.

Not there but there so mighty,
We gaze into nothing but yet everything,
The invisible that becomes the incarnate,
The powerless but yet the powerful,
The obscure but yet the obvious,
The calm but yet the riled,
The passive but yet the aggressive,
The feeble but yet the mighty air,
As you rise through the ranks,
From the lowest to the highest authority.

You run through the pipes
And turn yourself into sweet music.
You let in the fragrance of a rose
And emit it into the stillness of the moment.
You launch the planes into the skies
And bring the travelers to their destination.
You bring life to the lifeless
And determine the destiny of man.
You have the powers of a God. 

But yet you lie still with the glassy lakes,
And your stillness breathes deception.
Your heart pumps fire through your veins
As you call to the wilds for the wind.
You sneer at the sagging of the leaves,
As you fill your cheeks with ammunition.
You laugh with the bending of the trees
And the ravaging of the forests.
You show off your muscles
As you become the mighty air,
Born into obscurity
And becoming the mad tempest.
You are the giver of life and
The taker away of it.
Yet without you,
There would be nothing.



Author Bio:
Robert Martin's writings have been published in Mature Years, Alive Now, Terror House Magazine, Wilderness House Literary Journal, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, and Literary Juice. Robert has won two Faith & Hope awards, and published two chapbooks. His main writing influence is Kahlil Gibran. 

This is a challenge
You see
For me
There’s a smile
Without a grin
A slight possibility
I can
Win
I look ahead
There’s a bottom
You see
I am going
Ahead
Slower then faster
Every day
Before
I explode
There’s a mountain
Ahead
For me
Climbing harder
And harder
To reach
The top
A winning streak
For me


Author Bio:
Jean Ann Owens has had poetry accepted and published in Triveni Journal, Phree Write Magazine, The Squawk Back, The Hans India Newspaper, and Boston University Press. Learn more at: queenjeanann.com