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Fear Is The Question, But Not The Answer~ By Shayne Holzman

4/13/2015

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If every day I walked along the streets
Feeling this alien inside me
Would you say it was fear?
Is that the question, or the answer?
Is it a fact that when I get scared
It is because I am made that way?
Is the question because I haven’t grown up?
Or have a grown up to figure out that the truth wasn’t fear?
Is that the question or the answer?
Fear happens when you think things would appear by magic
Fear is magic if it’s in your head

Detached From The World

Here is me, a lonely person
Never going places, hiding from the dark side
Or is it the bright side, with the world out there
Amongst the wilderness
And not signaled around me
I’m detached from the world

Everyone around me, and everything is distant
No one cares how we walk or talk
Speak or listen, or greet people
Life is all a blur to me

You don’t see the person in his or her normal actions
You see people differently
You take control of how the person acts
And what people say, but only in slow motion

The slower life gets, the scarier reactions seem
Deranged people alienate me
It’s true; I am detached from the world


Author Bio:
Shayne Holzman has 10 years of writing experience. At the age of 19, she published an article "Overload" in the LA Magazine. At age 16, she won a contest for best young fiction writer for Tacu Short Stories "Color My Face" which was part of a short story collection from 2009. Currently, at age 23, she writes psychology articles. Holzman is an aspiring writer because she admires self expression, and she hopes to write professionally. Aside from writing, she enjoys learning about psychology.

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The Fading Riches of Words~ By Dylan Manning

4/9/2015

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I am Royalty.
rich in language.
words are my footmen,
my handmaids,
my suitors
overflowing and unchecked,
verbose, garrulous, pretentious;
pages upon pages

I am Noble.
I cannot see the end of my treasure
but I know it is there. 
words are the roses in the garden
that I walk amongst every morning
enjoying, solely for my own pleasure
comfortable in my stability;
a life of well kept paragraphs

I am Common.
simple pleasures,simple words.
words are the neighing of my horse,
the callouses on my hands,
the hard work
the rewards of my harvest,
carefully spent, never wasted;
a few well chosen sentences

Then in a whisper...

I am Poor.
Language is a forgotten dream.
the emptiness felt,
even the flavor of what I'm missing gone
I catch a glimpse of the horizon
the castle, a speck on the landscape
words are a fading fantasy
not a word
not a letter
to my name


Author Bio:
Dylan Manning is a 10th grader at The Green Meadow Waldorf School in Chestnut Ridge, New York. She has just returned from a four month exchange in Argentina and is enjoying her first month of poetry class. She is 16, plays the violin and piano, and recently competed in her first Olympic distance triathlon.


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The City Man, His Lecture Notes, That Flesh Menagerie~ By KJ Hannah Greenberg

4/8/2015

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The city man, his lecture notes, besides that flesh menagerie,
Chickweed’s chartreuse little disks inclosing towpaths latterly.
Plus, librarian trustees’ names, as well as footnotes, readily,
Even as small monkeys hug big hippos, tigers, reticulated snakes,
Learn death by cassowary, eat unripe fruit, fail from bad mistakes.

When acting justly, profits croon quite high for lesser recompense.
Concierges collect coupon mounds, but gather little common sense.
Doctoral students pose to sting captured rodents, for mere cents.
Dull effigies, left from lab time, such critters denote ephemera,
As taken from jolly birds’ poop on deans, also on other poo-bahs. 

Propitiation functions as to void certain fossa demographics,
What's more, cancels chimpanzees, wallabies, penguins guiding traffic,
Resemble worse case goings on, remind us texts might ring epigraphic.
Persuasion’s inoculation fails applied to most drugged adolescents;
Inscribed circles, Chaucer’s work, proceed irrelevant to malcontents.

Accordingly, vellum gets locked up ‘fore it turns into dull pulque,
Reflect; rebellious youths storm once they’ve read from Nikkei.
Demanding oleaster insights, small trulos, and oddly stirred play.  
Reduced mentions of child abuse, likewise, go astray, catches under
Projects concerned with wars, lords, beasts, fiefdoms, maybe numbers.

Intrepid teachers, nonetheless, sally forth, rouse referentially,
Swim in untenured tides, hum, work pigeonholes stalwartly,
On balance, school bureaucrats, old buffalos, esteem industry,
Not stylistic ideations, truth, or solenodons dancing fairy rings;
Officials seek white powder, trysts, somewhat “happy things.”


Author Bio:
KJ Hannah Greenberg writes with attitude since she's old enough to wear purple. Hannah's newest books are: The Little Temple of My Sleeping Bag (Dancing Girl Press, 2014), The Immediacy of Emotional Kerfuffles (Bards and Sages Publishing, 2013), and Citrus-Inspired Ceramics (Aldrich Press, 2013). 
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Is it You or a Season?~ By Ashley Williams

4/7/2015

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Spring is always the worst; it’s then that your memory burns the brightest, like a candle in the bleak blackness of my mind. The way the rain suddenly falls around me is a reminder of those ever constant shifts in mood that never failed to keep me on the very tips of my toes. There’s also the way the sun touches the spots of my skin that I wish your lips were touching instead. Every single color relates to every single aspect of you, and that kills me with every second that I choose to stare. That soft yellow of your hair simulates the early morning light that blankets me during those lonely walks by the lake; the lake that I can’t look at without peering into those pretty blue eyes that were once the definition of home. I find myself cursing at the newborn flowers day after day, and it seems that the pink ones always receive the worst end of my abuses. Really though, that’s terribly unfair of me. After all, it isn’t their fault that the hue of their petals mimic the permanent, rosy tint of your cheeks. So yes, spring is always the worst.


Author Bio:
Ashley Williams is a high school student who focuses on creative writing at Harrison School for the Arts. Her poetry has been published in several compilations, she's had fiction featured in numerous literary magazines, and she's won awards such as "Best Teen Poet of 2012." 

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Summer Days~ By Pamela Huf

4/6/2015

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High, golden rays 
warm and bright
tender, but mighty
the sun
smiling so friendly
while beating down
on the white grains of sand.
The sand
Stretching out welcoming
The heat rays
As the cool blue water 
Splashes up on the shore
In little white waves.
The grains of sand
Trickling through fingertips
As wet grains
Oozed through, out-stretched toes.
The moist warm air
Cooling the skin
Soothing the mind
Making time fly by
Such a lovely way to spend 
Beautiful 
Summer days.



Author Bio:
Pamela has one published book, Promises with the sequels to be released soon through Amazon.com. Pamela is also completing a series of short stories and poems. Pamela Huf is a middle school ELA teacher. She’s married, with three daughters and one precious grandson. She has lived most of her adult life in Arizona, though travels as often as possible. She comes from a military family and served, herself, in the Army. 

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Fragility~ By Paolo Borsoni

4/2/2015

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Only a spark of fragility
can free from this dance of darkness,
from the frenzy of a world
of engines and wars,
which gets excited and proud
of grief and tears.
Only fragility can give us hope
in this night of the soul
where peace is rest
(after the slaughter),
awful is death
(but only of one’s mates),
enticing the looks of those
who with intoxicating persuasiveness
reassure us, soothe us leading us,
survivors,
along the last stretch of the road
(to our final ruin).


Author Bio:
Born in Ancona, graduated in Mathematics and in Political Sciences at the Padua University, Paolo Borsoni has published books and essays on the magazines including: "Sapere," "L'Elaborazione Automatica," "La Critica Sociologica, "Trimestre," and "Critica del Diritto." He also published three books of poetry and a collection of short stories.

He has won the following literary prizes including: "Garcia Lorca," "Raymond Carver," “Rocco Scotellaro,” “Alpi Apuane,” "Creativa," “Roberto Fertonani,” “Terziere di Cittavecchia,” "Cosmo d'Oro," "Città Di Pinerolo," "Città di Pescia," “Il Sabato del Villaggio," “Villa d’Agri,”  “Dante Boschi,” "Un Solo Mondo," “Liberali,” “Premio Letterario Campagnola,”  “Parole in Poesia,” “Versi per L’Anima,” “Nino Ferri,” “Il Rifugio dei Sogni,” “Mario Ferrario,” "AGO,"  “Due Torri," “Poesie a Lappano,” “Alba,” and "L'Uomo dopo Darwin."

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Unbelong~ By Shobhana Kumar

4/1/2015

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no memories of this,
my birthplace,
save the faded stamp
of bureaucracy,
that confirms my be-
longing.

in my wanderings,
i seek familiar sights—
the marketplace abounds
with produce from small-acred
plots.

it’s like watching a
sepia-toned film
come alive.
time must have
stopped
for a long siesta here.

crowds throng the streets,
but stop as they pass me--
this curious creature from
someplace else.

in my faded jeans and sunglass-
hid looks
i am instantly
outcast.
discarded from
the mould.

and all this time,
i thought
i had travelled a mere
thousand miles…


Author Bio:
Shobhana Kumar's first collection of poetry, 'The Voices Never Stop' was published by Writers Workshop, Calcutta, in 2012. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in several journals and publications including Origami Poems Project, The Buddhist Poetry Review, ReadLeaf Poetry, Kritya, The Poetry Society of India, among others. She has also authored five books of nonfiction.

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