Writing builds a genuine rapport,
Wild and different, how interesting
Topics can feel, how lovely and
Beautiful, thinking. The mind is
Stunning when writing takes over.
The imagination, the voice, when
Put down on paper, so selfless, so
Opposite to the evil that
Overwhelms into stupidity and
Backstage backwardness. Writing
Is celebration. The fiction is
Awesome and real. Writing
Encourages the silent good to
Croon out loud, turning worthless
Fools into noble Bards. Little
Children, when they appear,
Troubled and unnamed, writing
Sweeps down to free their bodies
Of visibly thieving, of evil
Ignorance performed by deceiving
Lying Sports made up in glamour,
And costume. The goodness of
Writing demands absolutely
Nothing but movement and
Yearning, for revelation, for
Survival. Death beckons the
Unspoken. Death befriends the
Mute.

Writing is clever, sophisticated,
Marvelous, always a creation,
Always giving more, and
More, and more. Writing is
Different, writing is good. Up here
There is no lack, no lurking, no
Interesting evil to bedevil the
Writing word. The Word cannot be
Seduced or tricked, it is always a
Safe haven, a space of reserve,
Lacking nothing, seeking truth.
Humble, reaching for,
Entering and reckoning
For home – hard, won & free –
Never giving up, never crushed –
To write is hard, a long hard time,
But the writer, the writing voice
The moral imagination saves, sick
Or not, quiet or weak. Art, skill
Confidence, this we can rely on,
This we can bestow. The gesture
Begins in a moment. Open up to
Right, open up to free. It is
Exquisite and true, our only human
Capacity, a form most divine. The
Sign is in your words. Choose it,
Use it, define it, live it, right now.
You are not your name. Begin
Anew. Once upon, again…



Author Bio:
The writer holds a Ph.D. in English from SUNY Stony Brook University. She is an Essayist and a Poet. She resides in Brooklyn, New York. 

I wish you were writing this poem
about those two days you hid in the woods,
partially scalped, your legs broken, your two kids
with you, hiding from the man who promised
to kill you when he came home.

I wish you were writing this poem
about the places you go in your mind
when the men mount you and start
their furious pumping. 

I wish you were writing this poem
about the day you knew for sure
that you were not beautiful.

I wish you were writing this poem
about the look on your child’s face
the moment you slapped her
for calling you Bitch. And another
poem about the moment after.

I wish you were writing this poem
to the woman who slept with your husband,
asking her everything you know
you will never understand.

I wish you were writing this poem
about the way the light hit the empty room
just after you packed all your things to leave,
and how in that light for a moment
you thought you could stay,
loving in that moment the room, the potential,
and still you knew you would go.

It would not comfort you, this poem
that you are not writing, would not make
one thing better. Would not fix, not heal,
not redeem nor transform.

But something would happen,
something unnamable and mysterious--
and from that broken, torn,
shredded place, you might create,
surprising yourself, a little more space. 


Author Bio:
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poetry has appeared in O Magazine, in back alleys, on A Prairie Home Companion and in her children’s lunch boxes. He most recent collection is “The Less I Hold.” She is a parent educator for Parents as Teachers. Favorite one-word mantra: Adjust.

She flew down from nowhere
from above the clouds
wings and head of an eagle
tail of a devil
vaguely human, naked, skin metallic bronze
and screeching from her beak
She tore my arm with her dagger claws
Struggling to stay calm, I asked her: what do you want?

She scratched my chest
her yellow eyes never blinking
She could only caw, yet I understood
Don’t you recognize me? 

She raked ribbons of flesh from my thighs
her tail whipping, slicing the air
feathers scattering in a dervish wind
She lifted me into the sky
flew me over the smoldering volcano
and I knew that she would drop me in

But she didn’t
We rose higher, spiraling up until
the atmosphere darkened and thinned
until I saw stars
the moon no longer a flat disk
but a huge, craggy orb
My arms flapped like wings


Author Bio:
Lytton Bell has published five books: A Path before Winter (1998), The Book of Chaps (2002), Nectar (2011), Poetica Erotica, Volume One (2012), and Body Image (2013), won seven poetry contests and has been the featured reader at many California literary venues. Her work has appeared in over five dozen publications. As a teenager, Lytton won a scholarship to the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts, where she studied with Deb Burnham and the late Len Roberts. Lytton graduated magna cum laude from Bryn Mawr College. Email her at [email protected].

She did not know when she agreed to work for them. All the old man’s medals had long been hidden away, no one knew where. It didn’t matter. The condor was circling overhead.

She took the damp rag in her rough hands and lifted the tiny soldier. The tip of his rifle had a chip of missing paint. She set him down next to his comrades, 38 in all. Antiques, said the old man.

“It was inevitable,” she sighed to the lone gladiator.  But after 32 years of cleaning and sanitizing their lives, she was less willing. Also less afraid. Except when the wife stumbled about in a fog of gin. Then the accusations would begin. Videla was never your friend! He was! He used you.

She picked up the miniature cannon and wiped it clean. It had taken her 10 years to believe her boy was gone. How many nights the women in the plaza had screamed at her in her sleep, but her father screamed louder. They’ll come for you too! So she never went. But last week, when he missed breakfast, she wandered into his room and found his sweet face contorted in death. Now there was no one.

Pleased with how she had rearranged the little army, she folded her rag and called the general to inspect his troops. (Such a silly game.) Eh, Senor, what do you think? But she did not wait for an answer. Instead, her long brown arm swung out with a fury she barely knew, sending the tiny men and their weapons somersaulting through the air, smashing into windows, objets d’art, and, overall, upsetting the peace.

“I am going to the plaza now,” she said.


Author Bio:
Betty Kropf is an editor and writer who lives in Denver, Colorado. She was born in Louisiana and, from 1980-1986, resided in Lima, Peru, during the time of the Dirty War. She believes in the power of art to change the world.

Crying loud, but never hearing me, these silent screams, my desecrated dreams…

My tears I tuck away, while to the music my hips sway… The music becomes my
mind control… my memories dreams- I’ve sold…

The money erases- my dignity disgraces…

Self-medicated so I don’t feel their faces…

Becoming lost in the mirror, defaulting on everything I hold dear…

Wrapped in a masked identity- hiding what’s left of me…

My memory constantly escaping me…

Who want to remember? I’ve spent years trying to forget!

Living with these regrets… feels like walking death…

Trying to numb myself to forget the pain… the music controlling my brain-
feeling insane…

Because sanity screams a constant reminder of where you really are…

But for tonight- this is where I am…

Trying to put some money in my hand, and what I don’t make, by this shake…

I will allow him to – take…

Basically rape me…

For a certain price, it’s a roll of the dice…

Hope he don’t want it – twice…

Praying silently we have no strife…

Because I just realized, tonight I’m not carrying my knife!


Author Bio:
Matthew 12:34 "Out of the abundance of the Heart, the mouth will speak." The poet, HeartFlow, is 42-years-old, divorced with 6 children and grew up in Gary, Indiana. "I became a product of my enviroment after i was raped at the age of 14. Spent years in and out of drug addiction, people addiction and found freedom in writing, and a spiritual renewal with my higher power. I currently perform spoken word poetry and write. Performing at various venue's/ radio talk shows in Indianapolis and abroad, speaking to teens about; identity and self-esteem, and also sharing my story of recovery."

waning riots know of the moon,
a manner of revolving
like silhouettes of remembered weather

further down in years
she inoculates medicine
in the rachis of feathered sleep

always setting the bone like the book-
straight and closed, her hands
the color of calendula

her youth
a bitter swath of myopia lacking.
I want everything

to begin with returning.
I pray for the riots to rain or for at least
the herbs to grow
wider than my harvest arms can hold.

she talked to a client today 
walked him through the agenda, 
made that call to the new 
head of the board of directors 
became that single spoken voice 
that split the shadow 

wide 


wide


open 

because there was 
a prayer and a purple 
candle and send us forth 
as messengers, truth-tellers 
and witnesses on their page 

how could she not find words how 

could she not help that client, 
a man in a feminine field 
who wants to care for 
the caregivers who 
wants to empower 
happiness 

she 
wondered how 
many soft, small words 
came into being 

A blue-black sky is breeding more bruises,
The light begins to die inside
Her world of fresh excuses

The first is for laughter
The craic of a good time
The second forever after, the promises of wine

She watches the rest, from inside a tin can
The way home cobbled again
With the pain of her old man.


Author Bio:
Maj Ikle is a performing poet, living in a women's community in West Wales UK. She is proud that her work is all created and produced using solar power. 

Knowing which truths to sharpen
is a skill.
Like throwing knives,
one must measure
distance
speed
trajectory
to thunk blades into
the softest, most crucial parts.    


Author Bio:
Valentina Cano is a student of classical singing who spends whatever free time either writing or reading. Her works have appeared in Exercise Bowler, Blinking Cursor, Theory Train, Cartier Street Press, Berg Gasse 19, Precious Metals, A Handful of Dust, The Scarlet Sound, The Adroit Journal, Perceptions Literary Magazine, Welcome to Wherever, The Corner Club Press, Death Rattle, Danse Macabre, Subliminal Interiors, Generations Literary Journal, A Narrow Fellow, Super Poetry Highway, Stream Press, Stone Telling, Popshot, Golden Sparrow Literary Review, Rem Magazine, Structo, The 22 Magazine, The Black Fox Literary Magazine, Niteblade, Tuck Magazine, Ontologica, Congruent Spaces Magazine, Pipe Dream, Decades Review, Anatomy, Lowestof Chronicle, Muddy River Poetry Review, Lady Ink Magazine, Spark Anthology, Awaken Consciousness Magazine, Vine Leaves Literary Magazine, Avalon Literary Review, Caduceus,White Masquerade Anthology and Perhaps I'm Wrong About the World. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Web and the Pushcart Prize.You can find her here: http://carabosseslibrary.blogspot.com

My soul hurts so much that
I awake the stones under the earth