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The Stepmother~ By Skaidrite Stelzer 

11/10/2014

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Wrapped in practical furs,
she waits.
The flat black cap
makes her face severe.
She stands by herself
in the old photo
with a dog at her feet.
It's winter,
Latvia,
a land she's losing.
She doesn't wave.


I dream of a witch
who has captured me,
forcing me to drink
pure lemon juice.
It's too sour,
but I get used to it.
I drink it all.
She disappears.

In class we watch the movie
seen before so much
that no one notices--
Dorothy trapped,
the green-faced witch,
with only red dust to offer.
The men sneer at this story
as I glance around,
this stepmother too silly
in her over-crafty power.

For years she kept a cow for us,
when the wagons left her behind.

"I'll stay and watch things until you get back."
Already a widow,
the second wife,
my grandmother's stepmother,
was the only one left at
Kanapeni, the family farm,
or as I later learned the
translation, Marijuana Patch.

She tried to keep the houses,
but neighbors carried one away
for firewood one cold winter.

She wrote to us regularly
until the cow died.
Then the letters were fewer,
finally none.
Then news of her death.

In the photo
she is villainess--
the one without children,
taller than the first wife,
the one alone finally
keeping the place.


Author Bio:
Skaidrite Stelzer spent the first four years of her life in a refuge camp in the foothills of the Alp mountains.  After immigrating with her family to Kalamazoo, Michigan, she spent her formative years as a displaced person, literally a woman without a country.  Poetry always seemed the most natural language to her, since it allows the freedom to cross many linguistic and cultural barriers.  Her work has appeared in many literary journals including, Eclipse, Baltimore Review, Glass, Fourth River, Georgetown Review, and The Third Coast.  She currently lives in Toledo, Ohio and teaches writing at The University of Toledo.
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How many special people change~ By Shayna Klee

11/6/2014

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Ashley says I can
borrow her
dress if I shave my
legs
I am glad she is only my
sister and not the boss
of me
she would fire me if
she could
a no call no show
to the job of womanhood
A failure with cuts
up to my knee
hoped she would see
warm colors on cool skin
scream "Enough!"
I'd go back to
never wearing make up
climb trees
kiss a picture of
Jonathon Taylor Thomas
in overalls
but she just throws me
a towel for the blood
says don’t spill on
the rug
change into shoes
that go with it


Author Bio:
Shayna Klee is a rookie at most things. She believes in creating art that is raw and honest. Her poetry is best described as a reflection of that.
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One-Armed Fannie~ By Sheryl L. Nelms

11/5/2014

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“It was like
Las Vegas
back there
on The Flats
across the tracks
you could get anything
you wanted


and more


she ran some girls and was a
big bootlegger back in the ‘50’s
when Lubbock, Texas was still dry


who shot
the bird
one


too many times
at the wrong
person


and got
her  


arm chopped off

for that

finger


never would tell
who axed it.”


Author Bio:

Sheryl L. Nelms is from Marysville, Kansas and graduated from South Dakota State University. She has had over 5,000 articles, stories and poems published, including fourteen individual collections of her poems.  She is the fiction/nonfiction editor of The Pen Woman Magazine, the National League of American Pen Women publication, a contributing editor for Time Of Singing, A Magazine Of Christian Poetry and a three time Pushcart Prize nominee.
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Monk’d be Blue, so I’ll be Satin~ By Alexandra Honaker

11/4/2014

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Blue carried away Somethings
of spit and sex and pluck.
only a curve so jigged
would milk the nights’ dew
            send honey-tongued swingers swinging
It could only be jazz.
mortally, anyway, called it
and mad to all but the madmen
and those who paint with oil,
for players the same
‘s an insatiable want
to keep thick things
off the ground.


Author Bio:

Alexandra Honaker is the literary enigma of musicians and gourmands. The singularity of musical expression, its divinity and the dedication of those who live for craft, has greatly influenced her creative process. She strives to write toward the condition of music—close to truth and God. She is an autodidact of literature and feminist theory, concentrating on erotic feminism. A very old twenty, she is coasting in Hometown, MT working on her first novel
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Echoing~ By Carly Larkin

11/3/2014

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It's upon these moments-
that I bear in mind-thought-
the walls of my mind are echoing,
and I know not which thought they've sought.


If this is me,
then I must not remember what me feels like.


Love should never simply suffice-
it's for this, that we pay the repetitive price; night after night-
we have sought for that which felt right,
and in love-again-lost our sight;
hung on an idea of perfection, perhaps too tight. 



Author Bio:
Carly Larkin is a senior in high school and takes classes at SFCC through the running start program. Her Passion resides in poetry, through which she finds tranquility through her search for truth. She has been writing poetry since she was 13, and is just now deciding she is ready to put it out there in hopes that others may gain from it as she has. 
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