The streets of this podunk town smelled of hot garbage and broken dreams. Beer cans and cigarette butts befriended one another amongst Snickers wrappers and potato chip bags. The sweltering Kansas air made a ham-handed effort to cop a feel up my black skirt. The sight of the hearse and the blubbering that followed inspired a roll of my eyes heavenward, where the preacher had assured me Granny P was now. Doubt clouded my mind. In Granny P’s life, heaven was a place she visited after passing out on the floor of her double-wide. She muttered her prayers to a Lord named Jim Beam. Her monthly tithe was paid to the town liquor mart. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, maybe heaven is that way, too. I used the funeral program to fan my face and marched to my car, leaving the clumsy wind and sobs behind. Air conditioning caressed me with experienced fingertips. Jazz music spilled from the speakers, quenching my thirst to leave this wretched place behind. I pulled onto the only street in and out of town. The highway crooked its finger, beckoning me back to my real home. Maybe I would stop at the next town over and get a sandwich. Maybe it would fill the void where love for Granny P was supposed to be.


Author Bio:
Jessica was born in Dodge City, Kansas to a rural farming family. Although she spent many seasons in Kansas, she moved to Colorado in the 90s and has remained there ever since. She has been passionate about books and the craft of storytelling ever since she first learned how to read. Her future plans are to travel and gain life experiences she can use for story fodder. 

I accidentally looked up was the other day, 
a typo of the first order, a question of being
in an online search for a newspaper article.
breaking too early, thinking how the past 
will append to my biography someday, 
which tragedy I’ll be remembered for most 

This is naked curiosity.

The column illustrated how frequently words
become redundancies to our time, excess 
voicing of what we’ve seen, felt, know to be 
true. For every hundred parrots, stationary
flocks, life lacerates someone’s tongue for 
speaking out, spilling secrets of who did what.

Because there are names to taste.

And titles to learn. Of course countries are among
the first, and cities and county lines, authority 
figures—yes, officer, he was thirsty—most of 
all two parents, which is often more than enough.

Mommy carries her own set of keys in case 
Daddy forgets his, or is too angry to drive, too 
tired, too drunk, can’t find the house under these 
conditions, doesn’t need to be hounded anymore.

Eventually we struggle to remember how fast 
our car was going, the black writing on the dial.

The doctors tell you where the brain has atrophied,
terms that mean nothing beyond another temporary 
state, a last stop before leaving the map, hunting 
for anything with greater definition than snipe, 
conjecture, where birds lift and have no place to 
alight, a partial world of cavities instead of walls, 
the parietal breakdown that causes visitors to offer 
corrections when you explain who you have seen 
recently, street names, who was really driving that night.


Author Bio:
Matt Kolbet teaches and writes in Oregon.

​Taste the honest words
tingling your tongue.
Divine relief is dulcified
by the flavorful release.
A sigh, no, a smile,
coated with honey
or sweet, sticky caramel
for a dulcet mask .
Carefully prepared,
each bite is saccharine
so as to rest heavy on the stomach.
The aftertaste so dry and bitter
that the rancid words fill you whole,
sickening the body and trapped.
Honesty is ambrosia
no mere mortal can swallow.

​
Author Bio:
Marina is a Hispanic-American gender-neutral writer living in New York City. Born with a love for storytelling, Marina attended Seton Hall University as a creative writing major.

Marina's writing has appeared in Pif Magazine, Teen Art Out, Oddball Magazine, and Aegis Publishing House. Currently, ne works in the voice over industry as well as maintaining Writing the Words blog.

Aside from writing, Marina enjoys reading, cooking, and playing quidditch. Marina lives in New York City with her boyfriend Nick, and cat, Juliet.

Loneliness is when you are a bar, sober when all your friends are drunk..
Loneliness is when stop trying to talk to women.
Loneliness is when your friends leave you to watch their stuff. 
Loneliness is when you are a night, think of how thing would of been. 
Loneliness is when you are writing a poem about it in a full bar. 

In my seat
The lights dimmed
The show is about to start

Just like last years
And the years before that
The show starts yet again

The same acts
The same hacks
The show never changes

Every year’s the same
Every year’s the same monotony
The show really needs to change

Always there’s an occasional spectacle
But even that’s a thin cream over the stank 
The show has become vomit inducing 

Every word uttered by the acts
Every stupid feat fumbled 
The show is an embarrassment 

Always the familiar faces in the show
Occasionally someone new emerges
The show needs more variety

The show really needs an update
The show desperately needs to change
The circus owes me for this tripe


Author Bio:
Barrett is currently working as a grocery store cashier in Chicago following his recent graduation from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). While at UIC, he submitted two poems to The Red Shoes Review (the school's literary magazine) entitled "Africa" and "Victor's Pen." Currently, he plans to go to grad school in order to receive his teaching degree in either Primary Education or Secondary Teaching of History. He has also written science fiction and is experimenting with Jewish-themed poetry to incorporate his Jewish identity into his writing.

As they say, everything can be earned, but a moment once gone is gone forever. 
 
Few souls are born fortunate, but a few just sit and wait for the good times to come. 
 
We don't value the moment when it is there, we have a lot of time but we let it fly away. 
 
The moment once gone, will never come back, life once moved on a wrong path is astray. 
 
There is no going back, we lose the track and then we do not know the the pattern to sway. 
 
The present is right here, merit it, until it become the irreversible past! 
 
 
Author Bio:
Preeti Singh, French Interpreter, writer, artist is based in Mumbai-India. Currently Ms.Singh is member of: Film Writers Association (FWA), association for television and ciné writers, under-process blogger/contributer at The Huffington Post and Brown Girl Magazine. She has assisted in film pre-production and script writing for the Indian film fraternity. Preeti is multi-linguist and can communicate in English, French, Hindi and other regional languages with adequate fluency. You can get in touch with her at:
Website: http://amazon.com/author/preeti
Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/PreetiWrites

Yes I’ll keep going to the dentist every 6 months
but decide not to have my rotator cuff fixed at least yet.
 
No more colonoscopies twice a decade but count me in
for 90 pills to get rid of some yucky toenail fungus.
 
Yes I’ll keep visiting my 101 1/2 year-old mother
each week but decide not to become nearer a sibling.
 
No more shaving daily except doing it just when I choose --
& then only with Gillette Foamy which reminds us of Dad.
 
Yes I’ll keep momentary poetic licenses plus get a permit
for a gun soas we can all stalk unpresidented Trump.
 
No more weekend dinners with the wife’s newest friend
or her husband unless they wanna smoke marijuana.
 
Yes I’ll keep maintaining bad habits since back from Nam
but decide this isn’t quite the right time for Methadone.
 
 
Author Bio:
Gerard Sarnat has been nominated for a 2016 Pushcart Prize and is the late-career author of four critically-acclaimed collections: HOMELESS CHRONICLES from Abraham to Burning Man (2010), Disputes (2012), 17s (2014) and Melting The Ice King (2016). Work from Ice King was accepted by over seventy magazines, including Gargoyle and Lowestoft Chronicle and The American Journal of Poetry, and featured in Songs of Eretz Poetry Review, Avocet: A Journal of Nature Poems, LEVELER, tNY, StepAway, Bywords and Floor Plan. Since then new work has been featured in Dark Run and Scarlet Leaf.  For Huffington Post and other reviews, reading dates, publications, interviews and more, visit GerardSarnat.com. Go to Amazon to find Gerry’s books plus Editorial and Customer Reviews.
 
Harvard and Stanford educated, Gerry’s spent time in jails as a physician and social justice protestor, built and staffed clinics for the marginalized, been a CEO of healthcare organizations and Stanford Medical School professor. Sarnat's spent decades working for Middle East peace, including being a member of the US’s longest-running Jewish-Palestinian dialogue group and serving on the New Israel Fund international board. Married since 1969, he and his wife have three children and four grandkids.

Early in the morning, light fog enveloped the hills
Brewing a poem
Go deep into the original home of the earth
Surrounded by dense foliage
The juice of Chinaberry without melting the dried up ink
Take off a hypnotized Chrysanthemum, Lake Tanganyika
Reluctantly sleep so deep

Midnight, the silent bee, the nest on the branch
Want to write a song
But take the wrong drawing board without musical notes
Draw it, no choice, no hesitation
Choose a corner to listen to the music from ant-loving cricket’s wings
Looking to the volcano alarm flower, dyed red Jawa Island
Reluctantly outbreak so wild

The road home, vines tripped feet
Dance like a lemur on the island of Madagascar
Kick injury one singing lotus, rhythm on the Congo River
The weeping cry melting snow has not stopped for a long time
With a trace of regret, make a secret decision
With that dance, was hidden in the forest for a long, long time
Write a dialogue with the biological poetry


Author Bio:
Tzemin Ition Tsai was born in 1957 in Taiwan and holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and a Master of Science in Applied Mathematics. He is an Associate Professor at Asia University, Taiwan and also a columnist for several poetry journals. He is the editor of Reading, Writing and Teaching academic text of the National Changhua Normal University, Taiwan. He is the director of Writers' Capital International Foundation, director of Soflay International Asia, board member of Pjetër Bogdani International Writers' Association, and English writer of BABELMATRIX International Multilingual Literature Portal. His literary works include novels, proses, and poems. Referred to as a “green poet,” he specializes in describing nature’s beauty, humanity's love and affection through literary works. A number of his works have been published in domestic and foreign literature publications and have been translated into more than 12 languages.

You never did quell these
storm clouds with your speech,
tempest crash of waves
with time that throw us upon
rough shores still, as bodies nameless
to each other, carrying mask shrouds
around in patchwork star craft
that we had before been;

but, then, what had changed?

It wasn’t that the echo noise
had drowned in cascade wave
of sweet sayings, of clasping
symphonies that won out above
this din of pen clanks that made
the best of sour times,
the best of winsome heart skips;

no, far from it, they remained.

But, it felt freer, shedding
husk-shell of normal,
half-lies we had
to speak for ourselves to
be found, the wounded searches
we took on ice flows between
seas of blessed belief
and fearful-minding of ever-closer
clock ticks of empty altar bells;

that was all gone, with you.


Author Bio:
Carter Vance is a student and aspiring poet originally from Cobourg, Ontario, currently studying at Carleton University in Ottawa. His work has appeared in such publications as The Vehicle, (parenthetical) and F(r)iction, amongst others. He received an Honourable Mention from Contemporary Verse 2's Young Buck Poetry Awards in 2015. His work also appears on his personal blog Comment is Welcome.

Down it poured,
Like the heat of a desert city
that would never find its way
to the national news channel.
Her shadow cast down
onto the scolding pavement.
The heated gravel evaporated the past,
and off it drifted into the future.
There I sat in a distant mind state,
in her shade, in a moment.
Our conversations—raging, cooling, pulsating.
Teardrops shuddered from the raging thunder above.


Author Bio:
Ian Mark Macfarland lives in the city of Tucson, Arizona, where he attends school in pursuit of a masters in creative writing. He has recently been published in the 2016 Mochila Review as well as Tucson's own SandScript Magazine.