A screen glows then is silent.
The mystical mind, a garden…
‘You will be safe, you will be warm.’
Shadows multiply behind
 
dancers. A voice with an accent,
as an alarm goes off, says don’t
get up, someone will be in there shortly,
don’t get up. —Then a face
 
like a rubber mask, snarls.
A gold shade whips across,
moves as if through vertical space
with strength and ease and grace
 
as in electronic textures and
no persistent beat: you will be safe.
In a dance of perfect stillness.
The world is full of images,
 
some of them will be transparent.
The neighbors see everything.
The neighbors are (always) watching.
Be careful, it might dry like that.
 
 
Author Bio:
David Wyman's first collection Proletariat Sunrise has just been published by Kelsay Books. He has also published poems in The Aurorean, imagazine (renamed A Certain Slant), The Wallace Stevens Journal, Old Crow Review, Spout and Green Hills Literary Lantern, among others.

She goes about her business
never suspecting
what the end
means to me

Sixteen years of school
First days
Last days
The rhythm never broken

'Til now
When our paths split
Our clocks tick tock
In new, unfamiliar time zones
No longer in sync

They say we raise them 
to let them go. 
So off you go, little one
Wander life's roads
Greet its challenges 
And call home
Often


Author Bio:
Ellen Baglien has lived in Seattle for past 32 years. She has been jotting down poems on random pieces of paper for years, but this is her first submission. Ellen enjoys baking, bike riding, craft fairs and, most importantly, spending time with her family. 

Dearest Barak Nkem Ife,
Have my golden heart to yourself
Weaved with undiluted emotional affection
From the workshop of the craftsman of words
 
Sleep couldn't embarce my sight
Since your ineffable beauty encapsulates me
No mystery behind the oedipus of your attraction
A jewel of inestimable value
 
A terrific body of a terrestial goddess
Inaccessible by humanity's assessment program
A prolific heart robber, any sane man would naturally fall for.
The most elegant work of arts from the heavens
 
As fresh as the tropical tamarind
Of glowing eyes like the globe's fluorescence
Illuminates the universe with radiant smiles
Behind lips as smooth as olive oil
 
Your look is more than finest of wine
Having a taste of your luscious lips is bliss eternal
Your long lissom hair is dashing to the core
With breath-taking round leather bosom
 
Life with you; an endless streak of timeless fun
As that fortress; taking captive of the scorching sun
Extracting sweet honey from the quiescent moon
And compete, in your glamorous sparkles with shinning stars
 
Dearest glowing diamond of Barak,
You bestow unbridled pleasure to the eyes
As raindrops give rainbow to the sky
Let me take you always, side by side
 
Why on earth must I be your Romeo?
'Cos you need not be Juliet
Let’s write our own love story
And keep the blazing affection ravaging
 
Cast your chunk of fears upon me
Like the lonely night to its moon
Be it that you one is my sole confidant
To whom I envelope my golden thoughts
 
Sweet Nkem, your blissful beauty makes my heart palpitate
While my emotional temperature undulates
With penetrating eyes like dreamy tangerines
Am lost amidst amorous fantasies
 
I kept drowning in love of you; daily
Like the endless sea without its depth
For your gorgeous poise is so profound
With your charming gaze so deep and alluring
 
I marvel as your seething sight tells,
Wordless story of boundless love
A cluster of virtues you are...
A desert of vices and mirage
 
Who dares compete with my Ife?
Laden with luscious fruits of fresh proportions
The crispy pumpkin in the market of excellence
More radiant than the glowing yellow sun
 
My satisfied heart is hungry to paint you whole
With aesthetic colourful words of the world
As I now let loose-less my bleeding pen
Have my golden heart to yourself.


Author Bio:
Adesoro Segun is a Nigerian who has a Bachelor's degree in Linguistics & Communication Studies. He won his first poetry prize in 2014.

She nests on the world's white pillow
a knitted lavender cap
hugs her ears
her mind
snug as a box of
sweetened cranberries
 
She floats wings in the white drift
her arms sweep up
then down
warm now
dark eyes glowing 
like sweet candles
 
She sings a hymn to the heavenly snow
angel arms resting now
on the pillow
her pink lips
offer a kiss
to the sugared winter
 

Author Bio:
Susan DuMond is a Poet, short story writer and memoirist living in the Pacific Northwest with a Degree in Theatre and PhD in Educational Policy and Management. Writing is my love, my life. Poems appeared in The Smith, Epos, Journal, Prism International, Chelsea, and others. Memoir story selected as a finalist to appear in Fish Anthology. I offer A Child in Winter in recognition of our dramatic season and with a hopeful eye on spring.

For Felicia, who almost became my girlfriend
that night…
 
For spun records
in dark basements.
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
 
while I held you for three minutes…
a sweaty wedding with
my Blye Shop knit on.
 
Your hands digging into my sides
or holding onto my scarred basketball back,
before we went to the roof top
where you had been before.
 
I did not want to lay you down
on granite and stones
so you could lose your virginity again

​
Author Bio:
Dennis Reed is a native New Yorker and has taught writing courses at Morehouse College, William and Mary and Richmond Community High School. His work has appeared in Essence, Style and CLA. 

New York, 02/20/15

It took a ride uptown on the 1 train to dyckman st
to land me in what is called washington heights,
about 80% dominican, spanish hovering in air
with snow, ground a sheet of ice i tread perilously
in dilapidated rockports. Bean smell mixes
with smelly boot foot smell which mixes
with old trash smell as pervasive as
halal in new york, as pervasive as
rapid ambience change in the span of two blocks,
as happened with me.

SW on hillside, right on sickles,
left on sherman, left on broadway,
left into the cloisters.

I climb a serene snowy hill of a park,
reach the museum, dodge the $10 entrance fee
with my brother’s i-d and a spot-on impersonation,
and sit and write and look at unicorn tapestries
in a realm of medieval stones.
The tapestries depict attempts
to capture and domesticate a unicorn,
humans hoping to profit off the unicorn's
many magical abilities.
Alex Rodriguez was once my favorite baseball player.
I wonder what it must have been like for him,
once a wild unicorn,
then domesticated and now being who he is.


Author Bio:
Jameson is a poet and writer based out of Seattle, WA. He graduated from Bates College in 2015 with a BA in English and Creative Writing, for which he wrote a year long creative poetry thesis focusing on sexuality, queerness, and ex-Mormonhood. In his free time, Jameson likes to go for long walks, blog about social justice and music, and make feeble attempts at whistling. He has previously been published in SEED Magazine.

There’s a gun range in the distance,
and from up here it appears
as if the shooters wear ear muffs 
and fly dead-bird kites.
Arms pointed to the sky, brutes 
with toys that they really only want 
for bragging rights. 

No wonder they’re all deaf hot-heads. 
Shots kill brain cells, like vodka.


Author Bio:
Tamara Drazic is an Australian writer of poetry and fiction. She is passionate about travelling, and finds that her best work often begins on the plane flight home. Her poetry can be found in Into the Void Magazine.

They found you
crawling along the floor
looking for your lost dog.
He died years ago and
pet resurrections don’t usually 
occur in aisle two among the olives 
and jarred pickles.
You tried to explain with sputtering words
that he was only a pup, you want
to take him home.
The police took you away from your search,
laughing and shaking their heads
thru the fumes of paint thinner
hazing your head.
Lost in the afternoon rain,
a dark alley echoes
with a dog’s barking.


Author Bio:
Dan has been writing for a while. When you found he could not write in complete sentences, he stuck with poetry. His work has appeared in several journals and anthologies. He lives quietly in Pontiac, Illinois tending to home and garden.

Pop, pop, pop
She hears the pops
Snaps. Like cracking gum
drops a chipped Mikasa plate from Goodwill 
onto the floor below the sink 
where she’s been washing dishes in grey soup 
swirling with scraps of food
soggy noodles and skins of onions.

It ricochets off the dirty tan linoleum
hits her in the shin, but she doesn’t feel it.
She shrieks.
No, no, No.
She wails
staring out the dirty window
at the patch of brown grass
turning rust with blood

One less mouth to feed.


Author Bio:
Colleen Wells lives in Bloomington, Indiana, with her family. Her publishing credits include Adoptive Families Magazine, NUVO, ORION, Ryder Magazine, and The Potomac Review. Her poem, “Morning Pills” was included in Veils, Halos, and Shackles, an International Poetry Anthology on the Oppression and Empowerment of Women which was published in 2016. In 2002 she earned an Indiana Chapter of The Society of Professional Journalist's Award. She has worked as an activity assistant for assisted living, a preschool teacher and as an adjunct instructor. She is a certified Community Health Worker / Recovery Specialist. She is taking courses through the Center for Journal Therapy toward becoming a Certified Journal Facilitator. Her memoir, Dinner With Doppelgangers – A True Story of Madness and Recovery, was published in 2015 through Wordpool Press. Her greatest joys are her family and pets, being outdoors, writing and crafting, and filling her flea market booths with odd and fun things. You can read about her work at www.ColleenWells.com and www.dinnerwithdoppelgangers.com.

Driving home from work (10 pm, 11 pm) is usually visceral. A heavy release. Loud music in the stereo/ my heart. This is when the moon is spotted overhead. Flickering through tree branches, hanging strong. 

I don't know, man. 

I pick into my scalp. Dig into dead skin and grease. I don’t wash my hair for many, 2, 3, 4, days.
It is calming to press my fingernails into a soft, dirty head. In the pauses I am picking. 

S tells me she forgets, is forgetting. When I walk by her bedroom, she is cross-legged on the bed with
a dictionary laid open. She is reading it. Writing the words. Remembering. “Sometimes I feel so dumb.”
It’s when she says to me that she forgot the whole school day, asked when lunch was only to find that it
had already passed, that I realize she has been dissociating. I recognize it. Familiar. S wants to know
if this makes her crazy, if there is some diagnosable explanation for these racing thoughts, this loss of
​time, the panic. Her therapist has said it is because of the “trauma,” so I say to her that I am no professional
and am not one to diagnose, but that sometimes when we go through tough stuff our bodies
respond in funny ways. “This does not mean there is anything wrong with you. It is not your fault,”
I say. But now it is lights out. S helps me get through my shift; I hope I help her.
“Try not to be so hard on yourself. Goodnight.”

Maybe you can tell by the way people look at nothing. Especially during pauses of the day, the wind,
in sound. When there is silence, where is her mouth, and where are her eyes? 

Dear mama,
We have been sick. 

I just want to help. I return to scalp picking and thinking. 


Author Bio:
Alice Russell lives in Providence, RI. She writes about her life. Lots and lots of love.