The Knockout

There was this woman
at the fight.  You can’t see
her in photographs or in
that famous painting of
Dempsey falling
through the ring either --
but she was there.
It wasn’t his wife.
She wore a little fox
stole that he’d bought her
and a pink cloche hat
over her white blonde hair,
what a knockout.
When he fell, she played
it real cool, didn’t cry
out or gasp or anything
Just murmured Jack, Jack
in her low sweet voice.
Yes, he was a brute --
but she loved him anyway.

Tricia Marcella Cimera

This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge.

Tricia Marcella Cimera will forever be an obsessed reader and lover of words. Look for her work in these diverse places: Buddhist Poetry Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Foliate Oak, Fox Adoption, Hedgerow, I Am Not A Silent Poet, Mad Swirl, Silver Birch Press, Stepping Stones, Yellow Chair Review, and elsewhere.  She has a micro collection of water-themed poems called THE SEA AND A RIVER on the Origami Poems Project website.  Tricia believes there’s no place like her own backyard and has traveled the world (including Graceland).  She lives with her husband and family of animals in Illinois / in a town called St. Charles / by a river named Fox.

​

No Bird Flies in a Storm

Try to hold still in a downpour, to stop shoulders and sternum from scrunching into your spine. The pelting spittle of cold anger gets to make everyone shorter, smaller. Never asks for permission. Each drop an icy NO over and over until blued skin screams its own shivering retreat. 

Birds are smart; birds know to fly for cover, they hide in meshed tree limbs, under eaves and leaves. They’ve the sense to listen to their little brains and hunker down, await the storm’s passage. Avoid the rain.

How I wish for the sense of a bird. Perhaps I’d not be here again in emerge, waiting for the x-rays of my bruised and battered face, deflecting the kind nurse who sighs while slipping a hand around my back, asking ‘How did it happen?’, while I shrink and complain how steep my stairs, how Tony found me, brought me in. He waits, perched in the car. He’ll drive home quickly, not saying a word, and I’ll watch, listening for the next storm to roll in.

Crystal Snoddon
​
Crystal Snoddon is addicted to words, and enjoys both reading and writing to make some sense of the world. Previous and forthcoming publications of poetry can be found at SickLit Magazine, Rat's Ass Review, The Quarterday Review, Poetry Breakfast among others. 

Girl

Once a girl, barely more.
Upon finding that boys like her better when she kisses them, she loans out her lips.
A museum of photos, mostly of herself, wither on her mirror.
Time to lock the door.

Maddison Scott
​
Maddison Scott lives on a big island and is the author of numerous unwritten novels. Her work has appeared in The Molotov Cocktail, Subterranean Quarterly, SpeckLit and Eunoia Review. You can find more of her writing at: https://maddisonscott.wordpress.com/

Untitled

​the metal scent
of sweat and blood
spot lights blind


the smack
of glove to jaw
rope burns


the bell rings
as the last blow lands
groans of loss

Deborah Guzzi
​
This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge.

Deborah Guzzi is a healing facilitator specializing in Shiatsu and Reiki. She writes for Massage and Aromatherapy publications. She travels the world seeking writing inspiration. She has walked the Great Wall of China and visited Nepal (during the civil war), Japan, Egypt (two weeks before “The Arab Spring”), Peru, and France (during December’s terrorist attacks).
 
Her poetry appears in Magazines: here/there: poetry in the UK, Existere - Journal of Arts and Literature in Canada, Tincture in Australia, Cha: Asian Literary Review, Hong Kong, China, Eunoia in Singapore, Latchkey Tales in New Zealand, Vine Leaves Literary Journal in Greece, mgv2>publishing in France, RedLeaf Poetry, India and Travel by the Book, Ribbons: Tanka Society of America Journal, Sounding Review, Kyso Flash, The Aurorean, Crack the Spine Literary Magazine, Liquid Imagination, Poetry Quarterly, Page & Spine and others in the USA. Her new book The Hurricane is available now through Prolific Press.

Ernst Neuschul : Messiah 1919

The war is over
I am one who lived to tell
Trapped in time
In the continuity of tradition
To have felt the finality of no more
On our collective skeletal flesh
Back to the beginning
We are resigned
But with the imprint in our sleeping and our waking
I jump up aware in the darkness
Gasping for air
Of an evil imp on my chest
I am mad with guilt and memories
I was so afraid to be afraid
My eyes are wild
I come from nothing
And go back to nowhere
I have been stripped of my pride
All has changed in one dark long night
I wrap my ragged uniform around me
Put my feet on the path
The sun’s rays illuminate the day
And my way
The iron mountains rise in the distance
I am one man
Survivor of all that
Now I can only trudge onward and endure

Miriam Gampel

​Miriam Gampel writes from Toronto, Ontario.

Glove Model
​
The photo shows the kind of hand a film star 
might have draped across the chaise, 
garbed in its splendid sheath of skin,
taupe to the tips of ten unvarnished nails.
Sinuous and shapely, no glove adorns it,
only a ring and golden cuff set just above the wrist,
a cigarette in its long holder burning low,
about to loose an avalanche of ash.

​Robbi Nester

​This poem was written for the 20 Poem Challenge.

Robbi Nester is the author of an ekphrastic chapbook titled Balance (White Violet, 2012) and other poetry collections. Her work has been published widely in journals and anthologies, including Cimarron Review, Broadsided, Silver Birch Press, Poemeleon, and Inlandia.

Truth Be Told
 
I am Venus, the goddess most desired and bold.
Without shame, men seek my likeness in flesh not stone.
There is no truth in any myth which shows me cold.
 
What storm, what wood or evil would not lose control
when into Terra’s sight my light has overshown?
I am Venus, the goddess most desired and bold.
 
Deny the slick of oil upon brittle board, behold,
my hair, rays of the sun, my child, I’d not bemoan;  
There is no truth in any myth which shows me cold.
 
Hired, paid to paint, this artist who the crown extolled
fought with his faith, paints me sinful Eve, skin and bone.
I am Venus, the goddess most desired and bold.
 
Many lovers I have had, Gods get left my folds,
Goddess of creation, I rose from sea fathers foam.
There is no truth in any myth which shows me cold.
 
Of man’s heart and hand, of his mortal frightened soul
this one paints, his own fears, he fears to be alone.
I am Venus, the goddess most desired and bold.
There is no truth in any myth which shows me cold.

Deborah Guzzi

This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge.

Deborah Guzzi is a healing facilitator specializing in Shiatsu and Reiki. She writes for Massage and Aromatherapy publications. She travels the world seeking writing inspiration. She has walked the Great Wall of China and visited Nepal (during the civil war), Japan, Egypt (two weeks before “The Arab Spring”), Peru, and France (during December’s terrorist attacks).
 
Her poetry appears in Magazines: here/there: poetry in the UK, Existere - Journal of Arts and Literature in Canada, Tincture in Australia, Cha: Asian Literary Review, Hong Kong, China, Eunoia in Singapore, Latchkey Tales in New Zealand, Vine Leaves Literary Journal in Greece, mgv2>publishing in France, RedLeaf Poetry, India and Travel by the Book, Ribbons: Tanka Society of America Journal, Sounding Review, Kyso Flash, The Aurorean, Crack the Spine Literary Magazine, Liquid Imagination, Poetry Quarterly, Page & Spine and others in the USA. Her new book The Hurricane is available now through Prolific Press.