A Poem by Carol Alena Aronoff

Of Demons and Darkening

Welcome the dark horse looming,
his mane of Moros tossed about
like stars on unknown winds.
If you have courage and surrender.
Let him carry you to nether worlds
where philosophers chew on
pomegranate seeds, convers
with queens.  Guard your limbs;
the unlit road will strip away
the very things--symbols, signs--
you've counted on to recognize
yourself.

If you do not make the journey,
lay an extra setting at your oval
walnut table with your finest silver
goblets and gold-rimmed porcelain
dishes; let the demon take his place,
take his fill. Serve him honeyed
barley cakes, ambrosia on jewel-
encrusted platters; top his cup
with nectar and listen with naked
heart.  You'll discover you're related
but never ask his name.
The gift is in the recognition.

Carol Alena Aronoff, PhD is a psychologist, teacher and writer who co-founded SAGE, a psycho-spiritual program for elders, helped guide a Tibetan Buddhist Meditation center, taught Eastern spirituality and healing practices; imagery, meditation, and women's health at San Francisco State University.  She guided Heeling in Nature retreats in Hawaii and the southwest, and had a counseling practice in Marin County for many years.  She co-authored "Practical Buddhism:  The Kagyu Path" with Ole Nydahl in 1989 and edited five books and four meditation booklets on Tibetan Buddhism.  Dr. Aronoff published a textbook:  "Compassionate Healing:  Eastern Perspectives" in 1992.  Her poetry has been published in Comstock Review, Potpourri, Poetic Realm, Poetica, Mindprints, Dream Fantasy International, Beginnings, Hawaii Island Journal, In Our Own Words, Theater of the Mind, Animals in Poetry, From the Web, HeartLodge, Out of Line, Sendero, Buckle&, Iodine, Asphodel, Tiger's Eye, Nomad's Choir, Cyclamens & Swords, The New Verse News and Avocet.  She received a prize in the 1999/2000 Common Ground spiritual poetry contest, judged by Jane Hirshfield, and is a Pushcart Prize nominee.  She won the Tiger's eye contest on the writing life and has participated a number of times in Braided Lives, a collaboration of artists and poets as well as in SKEA's Art and Nature event, Ekphrasis:  Sacred Stories of the Southwest, and (A) Muses Poster Retrospective for the 2014 Taos Fall Arts Festival. She was judge for the 2008 Tiger's Eye Poetry contest.  A chapbook of Native American/Hawaiian poems, Cornsilk, was published by Indian Heritage Council in 2004, and her illustrated poetry book, The Nature of Music, was published by Pelican Pond in 2005.  An expanded, illustrated Cornsilk waas published in 2006, Her Soup Made the Moon Weep, in 2007 and Blessings from an Unseen World in 2013.  Currently, Dr. Aronoff resides in a rural area of Hawaii--working her land, meditating on nature and writing.

A Poem by Laura Dennis

Thirteen

The Man Who Did Not Smile
touched me
where I was told
no one was supposed to

Death whispered my name
as the blood dripped back into my arm
he slipped away

Curled up in the hospital bed
teddy bear clutched tight
we listened to nighttime hospital noises

After there will be silence
this will not be discussed
I am 13 but I feel so old

Laura Dennis has been published in the anthologies Petals in the Pan from Kind of a Hurricane Press, Home and Away from House of Blue Skies and Love Notes from Vagabond Press.  She also has two self-published chapbooks entitled Wheels on the Bus and The Bookshelf.  She has been published in a number of online magazines.  She is one of the 2014 winners of Friends and the University Hospitals poetry contest and is a part of the Sidewalk Poetry  in Callingwood Park, both in her home of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

A Poem by Sarah Bloom

Leaning into a Phone Call

the plug of sound
the hiss
when oxygen leaves the body
in a white smoke visible
to the operator who asks
what is your emergency do you have
an emergency

if you live in the south your sister
will go on dates
your sister's going-on-dates
will pull air from your lower leg

if you live in the south
your mother is a nurse or a filer
of lawsuits
your mother has a broken hip
she does not visit you except to say

do you like the way my hip grinds your teeth

Sarah Bloom is a dreamer and a lover of dreaming.  She lives with her wife on a farm in southeast Arkansas; she teaches English at the University of Arkansas at Monticello.  Her poems have appeared in Phoebe and Dark Sky Magazine.

Three Poems by Erren Geraud Kelly

Coffeehouse Poem #85

she's back again
the girl who sat with me yesterday
whose hair screamed a
murder of crows
she was jazz in high
heels
her skin was the cream in
my coffee
the rocket fuel i needed
to own the
day
she was here only a
moment
and in a flash, she was
gone

but a moment can last
for an
eternity



Route 40, Freemont Bus, Seattle

There is power in a woman's legs
The way they stretch long and
Lean like unscented candles
The way she crosses them
Like two roads, intersecting
She pulls a white cotton
Dress over them and it
Makes them more noticeable
To me, the way she
Sips her coffee ever so
Innocently
She has the face of an
Angel
But her legs make me
Want to fall down at
Her feet
And gladly do her bidding
Her legs are searchlights
They are pathways to god
Sleek and delicate as
A sigh



A Catholic Girl

Dreams of her linger like whiskey in coffee
Ever lovely as the dawn, she rises like the
Sun, holding a son; her hair, the kind of fire, you never get
Inside a bottle, nor her spirit; she
Rocks her hips and you're glad she's not missing any meals
Equally at home, behind a desk or on a Harley

Give her a drink, she'll take it like a rose
Unless its diamonds and she becomes your new best friend
Ever lovely, the translucent light of her buttocks
Nudges the sun aside, rightfully, its all about her
Sundays, she prays forgiveness for Saturday's sins; given the
Chance, she'd commit them all over again, I'll
Hold her like the sun and the moon

Erren Geraud Kelly is a pushcart nominated poet based in Los Angeles, has been writing for 25 years and has over 100 publication in print and online in such publications as Hiram Poetry Review, Mudfish, Poetry Magazine (online), Ceremony, Cactus Heart, Similar Peaks, Gloom Cupboard, Poetry Salzburg and other publications.  Most recently, Erren was in "In Our Own Words," a Generation X poetry anthology, and has also been published in other anthologies such as "Fertile Ground," "Beyond the Frontier," and others.  Erren's work can also be seen on YouTube under the "Gallery Cabaret" links.

Three Poems by J.J. Campbell

no reason to walk on egg shells

there are no
words that do
any amount of
justice for
devastation

ugly always has
a way of finding
a home in the
hearts of anyone
caught in the
disturbing
underbelly
of life

cancer eats away
at everyone at
some point

and there is no
reason to walk
on egg shells

we are all going
to end up broken
one day

broken more than
once

by more than one
person

by hook or by crook

death always finds
a way to win



nothing but dirty water ahead

when life
gave me
lemons

i looked
for another
fruit to pick

then there
was a
drought

i told life to
fuck off and
decided to go
swimming in
the river

one of these
days i'll come
ashore



his time in the war

a thousand yard
stare and screams
that haunt any
chance you get
to close your eyes

my father would
never talk to me
about his time in
the war

i figured he saw
enough misery
that he only knew
to take it out on
me

my mother once
told me that my
father hoped to
die over there

i can still picture
his hands around
my neck

i almost take the
time to wonder
what life could
have been like
if his wish would
have come true

there's no point
to it now

he's busy taking
up space in the
ground

but the demons . . .

J.J. Campbell is old enough to know better.  He has been widely published over the years, most recently at Horror Sleaze Trash, Misfit Magazine, Mad Swirl, Dead Snakes and Your One Phone Call.  You can find J.J. most days waxing poetic about some nonsense at his highly entertaining blog, evil delights.  http://evildelights.blogspot.com

Three Poems by Milt Montague

life in the slow lane

weeks flow past in peaceful anonymity
no thoughts to disturb the serenity
I sit alone amidst my greenery
life pulses in the slow lane

surrounded by my green friends
the philodendrons and pothos
need but water and sunlight
in front of a large window

to wait and vegetate
slowly very slowly

one day an idle thought
intrudes most gently
becomes insistent
sound the alarm

a great new idea to explore
quick, to the computer
see if this evolves
into a poem
of worth



never yield**

the light dims slowly
but we all must fight on
continue our daily struggle
we cannot throw in the towel

our senses dulled
keep going forward
retreat not an option

continue the battle
until the I is no more
rage as we go forward

never yield to old age
the inevitable conqueror
when the sun drops below
the horizon the very last time



**with thanks to the master, Dylan Thomas



roses are red

bright red roses
with a whit of pink
to heighten the color

grown and groomed
for a brief appearance
buds ready for their debut

on the altar of love
smiling up at me
for a full week

now
standing
heads bowed
in mournful silence

their service completed
they are a lovely memory
waiting . . . fate in the dustbin

how fleeting is this life
but a blink in eternal time
to bloom and be merry today
because tomorrow will never be

Milt Montague was raised in New York City, survived The Great Depression, the school system, and World War II.  after 20 years back at college he discovered poetry at 85.  Now at 90 plus he has 65 poems published in 20 different magazines.

Three Poems by Steve Klepetar

Last Time I Checked

you had flown away over the rooftops,
said goodbye to wind and trees.

I remember seeing a note somewhere,
half written, half printed, with hollow

balls dancing over the lowercase i's.
The ink burned red and I left it under

the sink.  Maybe it was a song you wrote
for me, or was it your will?  Your grandma

called seven times and I told her you
had driven out to Reno, to Fort Worth,

up to Montreal.  It was cold and I don't
remember what I said.  She sent me

a thank you note with five dollars
folded in the card.  I have it here with me,

carefully ironed and spread out on the table
where we ate peanut butter sandwiches for lunch

which left our throats dry and raw.  If I
pour a glass of milk, maybe you'll come back

with new stories to tell, with a torn coat,
with your soul throbbing, your beautiful hair aflame.



Li Bo Speaks to His Father's Ghost

Everything either is
or is not, Aristotle says
but what of your white-haired ghost
waiting at the road's dark mouth?
I see you
everywhere, shadow
bowed in moonlight.
Your hands speak, bobbing
like the heads
of birds.  Your eyes
take in all things, black holes
at whose edges time expands, spreads, slows and stops.

I beat my path towards you, burrowing
everwhen down
inside my own spacetime.
We have stopped rushing apart
from the point of my birth.
No longer galaxies spiraling ferocious
centers of rage, we stop spitting
gamma rays across the light years.
We curve toward one another.
My face has become your face.  I squint with your eyes,
sure of one sound alone: your blood pulsing loud in my veins.



Storm Warning

Thunder and rain, wild horses crashing through
black fists of cloud in terrified stampede.  Oceans

of wind, tunnels of air sweeping against bending
trees, houses hunched and braced beneath storm.

And you're home again with your glass of wine, handful
of salted nuts.  Last week you saw a whale breach in a leap

beyond the bay.  Your hands were delicate and calm.
While you watched that wonder, a strange appetite arose

as if your mother had come to call you in with sausages
and bread and a basket of white radishes to bring your

thirst to the edge of joy.  She was wrapped in plastic,
her mouth distorted as light danced through that transparent

veil.  Her dexterous fingers moved in little drumbeats,
typing out a message whose vibrations you could clearly read--

"Keep your head above the water, Schatz, and when great
waves break, say what you must to shrimp and shells and sand."

Steve Klepetar's work has appeared worldwide, in such journals as Boston Literary Magazine, Deep Water, Expound, The Muse:  India, Red River Review, Snakeskin, Voices Israel, Ygdrasil, and many others.  Several of his poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize (including three in 2015).  Recent collections include Speaking to the Field Mice (Sweatshoppe Publications, 2013, My Son Writes a Report on the Warsaw Ghetto (Flutter Press, 2013), and Return of the Bride of Frankenstein (Kind of a Hurricane Press).