Two Poems by Michael H. Brownstein

Dreams and Bed Covers

When we wake
I'll need your help
to build a wooden structure
around our hearts.


Texture

bad teeth and the soft lure of sand

Michael H. Brownstein has been widely published.  His latest works, Firestorm:  A Rendering of Torah (http://booksonblog35.blogspot.com/) (Camel Saloon Books on Blogs) and The Katy Trail, Mid-Missouri, 100F Outside and other poems (http://barometricpressures.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-katy-trail-mid-missouri-100f.html) (Barometric Pressures -- A Kind of a Hurricane Press).  His work has appeared in The Cafe Review, American Letters and Commentary, Xavier Review, Hotel Amerika, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review, and others.  In addition, he has nine poetry chapbooks including The Shooting Gallery (Samidat Press, 1987), Poems from the Body Bag (Ommation Press, 1988), A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004), What Stone Is (Fractal Edge Press, 2005), and I Was a Teacher Once (Ten Page Press, 2011:  http://tenpagespress.wordpress.com/2011/03/27/i-was-a-teacher-once-by-michael-h-brownstein/.  He is the editor of First Poems from Viet Nam (2011).

Two Poems by Ken L. Jones

For the Duchess of Stardust

Why must I store all that I remember in refrigerators
While I still dream shaking like a harp?
Until I wind up weeping Silent Night every Christmas
And New Year's Ever finds me making resolutions in the dark
And there are ashes of a dirge
In all these moaned memories
A total eclipse of my nightmare's surf
Whose neon has arrived far too late
And now there's nothing left
Just lonely cliffs made of yard sale Teletubbies
Too sad to comprehend or to try to explain
And a television that tells me to get my ass to Mars
And I will do it because I'm aging and damaged
And still devouring old comic books
From the last bloodsucker century that was ago
And what is all this about anyway?
As I listen to Bob Dylan sing Lady Lady Lay
Nothing lasts forever not even the identity of my first kiss
That was given to me by what's her name way back
Before I could ever take up pen and write down poems such as this.


A Walk Through a Thousand Kinds of Birds

There is wood smoke in the frost that creeps across this afternoon
And in the shadow of every word that trampolines off
Of the devoured blacktop is a silhouette of light
As askew I awaken and go down red stairs that lead me to a magic show
Where music only others can hear turns the street
In front of my house into a snifter of brandy
That smells like the nitrous oxide of Gertrude Stein and it
Briefly dismounts the transience upon which we all ride
And have long ridden since stillborn childhood first slumbered drunk in the park
And awoke to find itself an old white bearded Walt Whitman
Watching the rain from a tavern in the dark

Ken L. Jones has written everything from Donald Duck comic books to dialogue for the Freddy Krueger movies for the past thirty plus years. In the last three years he has gained great notice for his vast publication of horror poetry which has appeared in many anthology books, blogs, magazines and websites and especially in his first solo book of poetry Bad Harvest and Other poems.  He is also publishing recently in the many fine anthology poetry books that Kind of a Hurricane Press is putting out.

A Poem by Deborah L. Wymbs

Spooning

Dog hairs and lover's laundry lint,
Two things not easily gotten rid of,
And a third, images of love making.

He is the words brick and testosterone;
I am the word confused --
He makes me take vacations from myself.

Two Poems by J.J. Campbell

i see the doctor tomorrow

i'd like to die
laughing in
my chair while
dressed in the
only suit i have
ever owned

freshly bathed
and shaved

a new tattoo on
my left arm with
the directions to
a key for a safe
deposit box that
isn't mine

maybe a riddle
on my right calf
for shits and
giggles

and a little heart
on each testicle
just because

all in body paint

an ode to the artist
i never became

my last poem
tucked inside
my suit

the perfect poem

the one only meant
for the worms in
the ground

right about then
you remember you
are being cremated



entirely too much bass

tripping into a
neon afterworld

drinking on a cloud
that bounces to the
beat of a demon that
enjoys entirely too
much bass in his
house music

i never thought i'd
enjoy wearing pink
pants and smoking
joints made of
crayola wrappers

kissing the lips
of the latest suicide
girl to get lost on
this side of the
world

this one is the one

i'm sure this time

can't you just see
us holding hands
on this yellow
brick road to
nowhere

someone has
mistaken bliss
for reality

i was certain this
generation didn't
want to know
about sadness

J.J. Campbell (1976 - soon) lives and writes on a farm in Ohio.  He's been widely published over the years, most recently at This is Poetry Project, The Blind Vigil Revue, The Camel Saloon, ZYX, and Dead Snakes. His latest book, Sofisticated White Trash (Interior Noise Press, 2013) is available wherever people buy books these days.  You can find him most days bitching about something on his highly entertaining blog, evil delights (http://evildelights.blogspot.com).  

Three Poems by Diane Webster

Wedding Vision

Blue jay and robins
march us down
the evergreen tree aisle way
in sister-woman-sister love.
We hold hands on the edge of a mountain
with our valley future in panoramic views.
Should we jump?
Leap away from marriage,
pretend
we don't pledge
soul mates till death,
welded by wedding bands
for all to see or not to see,
love in the eye of the beholder?


Dream

Stand on the balcony with my love
and greet the crowd like a coronation
of a new royal spouse.
Stroll hand in hand in the park,
giggle in an elm tree's shade
and kiss so old couples pass
with "remember when" glances.
Receive parents' blessings
and have friends angry
because we can't see beyond
each other's eyes.
A consummation, an approval, joined
to share and meet the world
as one.


Soul Mates

On this crisp morning we walk
like children pretending to exhale
great plumes of cigarette smoke
or dragons blowing flames
to envelop the tiny knight
struggling to inject us with
the poisoned sword.
But this cold, oppressive day
your soul breathes momentarily
reaching for the clouds above . . .
when failing I feel
the whisper of your breath
like lilac in May.
We stop.
Breath, soul, fragrance
mingle, vaporize
in ever shortening gasps
until only a breath separates
our lips.
I inhale your exhale
you inhale my exhale
we breathe in visible
unison.

Diane Webster, like a cat, enjoys gazing out a window to watch squirrels spiral up and down weeping willow branches, to watch sparrows and finches push and shove for the choicest eating spot on the bird feeders while junco ground feeders peck at the spillage, and to watch nothing while she daydreams.  Diane's work has appeared in Conceit Magazine, Laughing Dog, Ken*Again and other literary magazines.

A Poem by Paul Tristram

She Has A Body Like My Spirit

She has a body like my spirit
and a heart Welsh mountain sized.
Calm with a smiling tenderness
to quell the ferocity of my storm.
A tender nature ripe with giving.
A contented, caring gentle soul
Our emotions fit like puzzle pieces
the North and South sides of a whole.



Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems, short stories, sketches and photography published in many publications around the world.  He yearns to tattoo porcelain bridesmaids instead of digging empty graves for innocence at midnight.  This too may pass, yet.

Two Poems by Steve Klepetar

The Winter Shadow

on the wall
has no eyes but it sees
every grain of grit
pushed and anguished
by snow

it has hands like dark
webs shooting out
from thin wrists
it has legs like stilts
stalking a cold land

Tonight the shadow will shrink
to a frozen
spot

which cold night
will swallow
the shadow is
not lost
but wandering far
in the moon's restless dream



Staff Meeting

The girl to my right is wearing three shirts,
gray over black over white.  Her nails are clear;
her friend's are painted black.  Each has driven

a thin spike through the flesh of her ear.
This room is cold.  Some people are eating
banana cake; white icing clings to yellow plates.

Wall clock lurches forward, one minute at a time.
Somewhere, green snakes wind their twisting way
beneath the blasts, deep through undulating earth.



Steve Klepetar's work has received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.  Recent collections include Speaking to the Field Mice (Sweatshoppe Publications) and My Son Writes a Report on the Warsaw Ghetto (Flutter Press).  His e-chapbook, Return of the Bride of Frankenstein, is forthcoming from Kind of a Hurricane Press.