David Huddle
David Huddle teaches at the Bread Loaf School of English and in the Rainier Writing Workshop. His fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in The American Scholar, Esquire, The New Yorker, Harper’s, Poetry, Shenandoah, Agni, Plume, The Hollins Critic, and The Georgia Review. His most recent books are Dream Sender, a poetry collection, and My Immaculate Assassin, a novel. With Meighan Sharp, Huddle has co-authored a book of poems, Effusive Greetings to Friends, forthcoming from Groundhog Poetry Press in the fall of 2017, and his new novel, Hazel, is forthcoming from Tupelo Press in 2018.
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Three Farmers on the Way to a Dance
They look as if they were characters of a Beckett play stuck in some no man’s land between one of those places where people are buried up to their necks in refuse or worse, and another, where all the dwellings have been burned out and partially rebuilt, then abandoned once the will to go on flagged and couldn’t be revived. The ill-fitting suits they wear convey a message: we’re here at the wake for the food and drink and we’ll gladly sneak out behind the seen-better-days cottages for a snog with a lass or maybe dance a jig if music should happen in between toasts for the dearly departed,:“May he go in peace and always have the wind at his back.” None of them do bereavement or real joy either, but they will take a drink, if offered, maybe two or three and then, whatever chaos ensues will make what remains of the night a memorable one. They have no clue what any of this means or whether they are in it for the long haul or just passing through. It’s a long walk from where they are now to wherever it is they are going. Alan Catlin Alan Catlin has been publishing for parts of five decades. His work derives from many interests from Art, music and literature to the bars he lived and worked in. His many full length books and chapbooks include the ekphrastic collection "Effects of Sunlight on Fog" from Bright Hill Press and, more recently from Future Cycle Press, "American Odyssey" largely derived from photos by Mary Ellen Mark and photos by photographers killed in Vietnam. Forthcoming is "Wild Beauty", also largely ekphrastic, from Future Cycle Press. His chapbook, "Blue Velvet" (poems inspired by movies) won the 2017 Slipstream Chapbook Award. Jackie No longer First Lady in Chanel and a pill box hat, she’s Jackie O. in jeans and a Henley, striding the Upper East Side, wind at her back, still graced with the good fortune that carried the debutante from a prominent, but declining family, farther than anyone dreamed possible. Windswept tresses frame her famous face in a three-quarter art-nouveau shot as she turns toward a whistle. Women always turn toward a whistle, whether they welcome it, or not. They want to believe they warrant a whistle, inspire a whistle, that men draw breath for them. Lisa McMonagle Lisa McMonagle grew up on the Allegheny Front of Central Pennsylvania. Currently Ms. McMonagle works as the Coordinator of English as a Second Language for an Adult Education program in State College, PA. Her work has appeared in The Women’s Review of Books and West Branch. Summer Haibun
The colours of the garden are impossible. The bee on the coneflower, yellow, pink, and orange, a scream. Summer Gayfeather in the background, and fantasy of milkweed now gone to fluff. Monarchs light and leave. Continual harvest: berries, bramble. A humid breeze of Morning Glory, blue on the white picket fence; West to the setting sun, East to the rising. A silence that’s never been said. A sentence that’s never been read. A bee knows one thing: gather pollen for honey. Honey for the young. Carol H. Jewell Carol H. Jewell is a musician, teacher, librarian, and poet living in Upstate New York with her wife and eight cats. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from The College of Saint Rose in 2016. A Sharpshooter's Last Sleep
He lays on a mattress of hard earth as if he has fallen asleep, one knee bent, arms resting comfortably by his side the way he might have lain at home in his own bed. Leaves of a mulberry stir in the morning breeze. The sounds of battle have faded but traces of black powder smoke sour the air. If I could kneel down with my ear close to his, I might hear his mother's voice calling him to morning chores before breakfast, a call that will not rouse him today. David Jibson David Jibson grew up in western Michigan near the dunes and shores of Lake Michigan and now lives in Ann Arbor. He is retired from a 35-year career in Social Work, most recently with a Hospice agency. He is a member of the Crazy Wisdom Poetry Circle and co-editor of the literary and visual arts magazine, Third Wednesday. The Lord Taketh Away
The sun a feral dog grown tired of the fight turns tail and runs as we survey the sere fields at dusk. I stand by your side, see sweat droplets clean as tears adorning the hollows below your eyes. With blistered fingers you swab your brow. I know your skin tastes of iron and salt. My tongue is useless, flesh held between teeth. I do not tell you I have ceased praying. God himself placed a heavy palm upon our land. Forty days with no rain-- that palm is now a fist. M. Stone M. Stone is a bookworm, birdwatcher, and stargazer who writes poetry and fiction while living in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. She can be reached at writermstone.wordpress.com. Little Fires
My mother learned it from her mother. I don’t remember when she thought I was ready. One day, I was a girl, watching her mother eating impossible things. I never asked how she became. The next day, it was my turn. My mother said lie back like an offering. A sacrifice for tin and fire. The wind stirred my skirt, and I opened my mouth, combustible now. My mother told me the first one is mine to keep. It rusts inside you, flaking off. A garden of little fires. Sarah Nichols Sarah Nichols is a co-editor of Thank You for Swallowing, an online journal of feminist protest poetry. She is the author of three chapbooks, including She May Be a Saint (Hermeneutic Chaos Press, 2016), and Edie (Whispering): Poems from Grey Gardens (Dancing Girl Press, 2015). Her work has also appeared in Yellow Chair Review, Rogue Agent, and Noble/Gas Qtrly. Alabama Cotton Tenant Farmer’s Wife
This is no silk merchant’s wife slim shoulders leaning against dry clapboard her eyes direct her head slightly turned left ear exposed ebony hair parted right an enigmatic smile revealing no lower lip, bones of her neck protruding from the V in her checkered blouse in this black and white photo she is centered and she knows something we don’t Amy Phimister After a long corporate career, Amy Phimister has returned to writing full time. She graduated from St. Mary's College in Notre Dame with a B.A. in Creative Writing. A member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, she is currently working on a chapbook of her poems. The Oil Well Let the bull wheel wind around my legs and thighs further tightening the loveless line. Derrick-poised, arid figure of luck and charm, I grew scales and wide-eyes. For love of country, progress, mankind. Bringing calm to elements enraged, no man knew me to be anything other than wooden, flesh-coloured, sacred and divine. Decades-bound by the corroding drilling line, I could’ve gone on like this forever. Perfect skin now burnt and dry from desert winds, solitude and time. Steel cable fraying scales turning delicate toes into five bent, rusted nails. It was then, I felt your talons bound by the same pulling line. In our self-imposed restraint, we wrapped the cable tight around us For once, not working against the wheel. Rebeca Ladrón de Guevara Rebeca Ladrón de Guevara lives in Los Angeles, California. She received an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Chapman University. Her fiction has previously appeared in Chicago Literati, Genre, Sonora Review and Badlands Literary Journal. In 2008, she was the recipient of the Elizabeth George Foundation grant for emerging writers. Dillon H Fuller is a musician and photographer. He lives in Santa Ana, California. The Family in the Red House
While walking through woods Near a rambling river I came upon a paint peeled red house barn like in appearance, ` broken window panes, tall grasses covering old cement steps unattended for years. Who inhabited this red house and where are they now? I entered cautiously through the front door, looked around the open space. Dishes with cobwebs adorned the wooden kitchen table. Shriveled food occupied the old refrigerator. The scene appeared as though a family simply disappeared. Bedroom quilts covered most beds, one bed remained unmade. As I walked around floorboards creaked like soft screams. I slipped on a small throw rug; moving the rug with my feet, I discovered a trap door located in the floor. Slowly, I lifted the rusty hinge. There in the hollow space were skeleton bodies. The family stayed behind in the paint peeled red house. Pat St. Pierre Pat St. Pierre is a freelance writer for adults and children in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Her third poetry book, Full Circle, was published by Kelsay Books. Some of her work can be viewed at: Black Poppy Road, A Long Story Short, Fiction 365, 50 words, Friday Flash Fiction, Kids Imagination Train, The Kids Ark, Silver Boomer Books, The Camel Saloon, etc. She is also a freelance photographer whose photos have been on the covers and included in such places: Gravel, Sediments, Our Day’s Encounter, Peacock Journal, Pacific Poetry, etc. www.pstpierre.wordpress.com. |
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