Some say her nocturnal appearance
Is only for amorists upon days close
Many a romantic still wander here
And hope for a glimpse of the roadside rose
About Teresa Ann Frazee
From Florida, Teresa Ann Frazee has been a visual artist for over twenty years, with juried and international exhibitions including solo shows in galleries, museums and other venues, receiving many awards and honors. At the same time, Teresa has been perusing her other love, writing.
She is a published poet, and her works have been displayed in Skyline Magazine, Hudson Review and Poetry Shelter. Inside her world of make-believe, she paints and writes what she knows to be true. Within her creative force, she leaves reality entirely up to you.
SEVENTY YEARS LATER
by John Grey
Spanish moss drips from trees.
House sheds shingles.
Old rusty knocker clanks
against rotting doors.
Cracked windows rattle.
Floor-boards groan.
Pipes clatter.
Two bent and withered sisters crouch together
in one threadbare satin chair
amid the dust and webs
of the ancient family sitting room.
Older brother Tom, in tattered bloody gray uniform,
is slumped into the shabby sofa,
eye-sockets blank, flesh green as moss,
but skeletal fingers still tight around his rifle.
"Quiet out there," whispers Amanda.
"Maybe the war is over at last," rasps Esther.
Amanda shakes her weary head.
"Sad. So sad. A million of our boys dead."
"A million and one if you count Tom," adds Esther.
CONSEQUENCE
by John Grey
I ask myself,
heart and head,
is someone there?
There is someone.
A shape
like a flower
blooming under snow.
A wisp
like the last draught of sun
between the trees.
A presence
like the mist
on a cold lake's surface.
But then I wonder
what does this visitor
want of me.
Memory,
a wildflower spark
in the thick forest
of my forgetfulness?
Feeling,
a mote of tenderness
toward all that's
passed before?
Revenge,
for my living,
its threadbare substitute
for existence?
So I'm sorrowful,
sympathetic,
and terribly afraid.
I'm not alone
this chilly midnight.
Oh I have lived a dark
and shameful life
these past few years.
I'm here with my consequences.
SECOND FLOOR
by John Grey
I arrive by night
as moon gilds honey
on dark, unbuttoned wind,
the sky in the oblivion
of its fetal stars,
my hunger passionate but still enraged,
up wall, through window,
to bedroom,
parting the golden curls
of your throat with my tongue,
pressing home my bleak horizon
with long white fangs,
your face, a startled deer
fetching its own end
from the unreal thunder shake
of my eyes,
immense night of exalted blood,
as ancient world inhales life,
exhales a luscious mirror
of my face,
pale, feminine,
and dripping crimson.
HANGING TREE
by John Grey
Its outer limbs
Reverberated
against the shake
of its dead leaves
as if a body had
just been cut down
and it wasn't until
late May that
the reluctant sun
finally burnt off
the thick chunks of ice
that shrouded
its vein-like roots.
About John Grey
John Grey is an Australian-born poet, but moved to the United States in the late 1970s. During the day, John works as a financial systems analyst.
John has been recently published in Connecticut Review, Kestrel and Writer's Bloc, and has more poetry upcoming in Pennsylvania English, Alimentum and the Great American Poetry Show.
THE RULES OF THE ABYSS
by Christopher Hivner
In the tunnel
leading from the abyss,
I climb,
dragging myself
over jagged rock
leaving trails of blood behind.
Like teeth, the stone
rips apart my body.
I keep reaching,
stretching for the next foothold,
searching for the light.
The darkness has existed so long
it owns my veins
and pumps through my fractured heart.
I pull harder,
inching forward over fangs of stone
incising through my cold skin.
The pain shuts my eyes
and inside my own world, I see light.
I believe in light.
Every tunnel has a beginning,
a source,
and the light bursts from it.
It must exist.
So I re-open my eyes
to find shards of black
piercing my temples,
driving through my brain
and telling me,
whispering to me sweet blessings
about the easy embrace of the chasm.
In the lull of sing-song voices
I see a pinprick of light,
maybe only in my world
but maybe in the real one.
So I reach and pull and struggle
and the darkness recedes,
cheated.
LITTLE RED THE HOOD
by Christopher Hivner
On the way to grandma's house
with her basket full of goodies;
eyeballs that saw too much and
tongues from those who can't keep their mouth shut.
I WILL MEET YOU
by Christopher Hivner
I am the gathering thunder
feel me deep in your belly
I am the coming flood
run, it excites me
I will lurk in the aftermath
to pick up your scent
I am the voice you hear
in the decaying midnight air
I am the presence you feel
at the foot of your bed, hovering, watching
I am the light that soothes you
I am the eyes of your lover
I am the threads of the sheets you wrap yourself in
Crawl to your dreams
my sickly pet
I will meet you there
About Christopher Hivner
Christopher Hivner has work published in Black October, DecomP, and Niteblade among others, and was nominated for a Rhysling Award in 2008. A collection of short horror stories, The Spaces Between Your Screams, was published in 2008.
http://www.chrishivner.com
WHAT IS IT?
by Jean Jones
When Orpheus asked his critics what they
wanted from him, they all said, "Astonish us!"
Can you do that? Astonish your critics?
Robert Frost claimed that it "got lost in
"of invisible keepsakes." What is it to you?
I w
ould claim that the key lay "In the hands,
something in the hands, surely it must be that."
My friend, Andrea Young, asks me,
"Are you reaching toward being a true poet?"
What is it, Andrea? What is it?
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, regarding
the true poet the following:
"The true philosopher and the true poet
are one, and a beauty, which is truth,
and a truth, which is beauty, is the aim of both.
"My friend, Howard McCord, wrote to me and said,
"Poetry is whisky. Prose is mash. DISTILL!"
I still wish to be astonished.
EVERYONE ALWAYS LEAVES THINGS BEHIND
by Jean Jones
Everyone always leaves things behind,
scraps of it, for miles and miles.
A friend once told me
that Hell is the place
where everyone goes
to find the things
they've left behind,
scraps of it, for miles and miles.
LAST MOMENTS
by Jean Jones
Have you ever seen a picture that haunted you
of someone just
before she was murdered,
like those photos
of those women and children
at My Lai
before they were shot to death
their crying voices
screaming for help
to you
in the land of the living?
Yet there's nothing you can
do about it,
for in minutes
photos reveal
the dead bodies
where the women and children stood,
like that famous photo
of the dead girl
running with her murderer
beside her
her haunted eyes say to the camera,
"I'm trapped,
yet there's nothing I can do about it,
help me," and her body
is found days later,
brutally raped and murdered.
What are we to do
with such images?
Like the man from the Tet Offensive,
the mayor of Saigon
pulling out this revolver
and executing him on the spot,
blood spurting from his head the whole time,
or those films of that man
who gets his head cut off
courtesy of the Taliban
in Iraq or Pakistan
butchered like pigs before
our eyes,
some screaming for their lives
as the knife slits their throat...
What are we to do with such images?
Go back to church
and pray for God's will?
Rorschach, the madman vigilante
from the graphic novel
and movie Watchmen,
reveals to a prison psychologist why
he was known as Rorschach.
After discovering a missing girl's
bones being ripped up by the killer's dogs,
Rorschach proceeds to butcher the dogs
and the killer himself.
"God was not responsible," Rorschach mumbles,
"the killer was," and God didn't mind
if Rorschach killed the killer as well.
To come to the realization, as murderers do,
that no one stops you from killing
but yourself and some lucky breaks
by the police is weighty stuff indeed.
Is there truly no God?
Maybe. Maybe not.
But if there is a God,
in the killing of one human being by another,
this same God who lifts no finger to save a fish
from a hawk, a mouse from an owl,
or me moving in to kill you right now.
About Jean Jones
Originally from Bandung, Indonesia, Jean Jones received a BA in English in 1986 from UNC-Wilmington, and an MFA in Creative Writing: Poetry in 1988 from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. Jean currently teaches Basic Skills at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, North Carolina.
He has had two books of poetry published by St. Andrews Press from St. Andrews College, North Carolina; the most recent, Birds of Djakarta, was released in 2008. Together with his friend and fellow poet Scott Urban, Jean Jones has had a brand new book of poems published by a brand new Wilmington, North Carolina, publisher called "Shaking Outta My Heart Press." Jean's book from that publisher is titled Tornado.
Jean is also co-editor of the online poetry magazine Word Salad.
http://wordsaladpoetrymagazine.com/drupal7
TWILIGHT WINE
by Ron Koppelberger
An arcane substance appreciated by the stone in bloody wombs
Of birth, the cry of the child in Wolf's Bane and sharp edged
Spears of moonlight applause, a cunning thirst enthralled by the wont
Of an errant wolf, a tattered dilemma of knowing
Revelation and wild haunts in gray gallop and
Padding purchase, the gnarled oaken taboo
Of wolves in abeyance unto the
Magic prayers of those who imagine
The gift of what's given throughout and the
Bursting promise of a midnight run, a cascade in velvet smoke and
Starving affections in rapt fluster, in blissful darkness and frayed
Conditions of patience in chaste flourishes of remedy, for the cares of an ancient angst in spirit, a melody in twilight wine.
ABERRANT FEAST
by Ron Koppelberger
The strange gaudy orange twilight
In evenings of snakeskin sheen and
Lizard grace. The speckled chew in chaws
And maws, in grinding ghosts
And wise faerie flight. An aberrant feast,
A cornucopia inside and out of stray
Sated character and
Vague, tingling horror.
IN COMPANY WITH GHOSTS
by Ron Koppelberger
Thorns and passage unto the unspeakable breadths of eager
Affair in dark reflections of ethereal ascendancy, the artifice
In eloquent agreement with illusionary suns and dreams of reason,
A footfall amongst the morass, between the theaters of delirium
And sane horizons, by weary eyed ambiance, given trampled
Petals in moss laden soils of desire, the infinite in ceaseless airs
Of birth, by want and shadow upon shadow upon outlines in candent auras
Of secret revelation, by the grim need for eternity and precious undoing's
In indigo and pausing firelight, drawn unto the
Edge of another drama, by torn twilight bidden distant at journeys end and near the faded enticements of yesteryear, a way to conclaves of shadow and
Dusty tears of blood, valued upon the pilgrim in bonded company with ghosts and stray meandering dogs in conveyed hunger.
STARRY-EYED DREAMS
by Ron Koppelberger
The promise of ash and smoke,
Charcoal assay and cauldrons of
Human stew. A hag in honor of the torment
That Father Redemption predicts. The
Convocation and the provocation
In lead to the ravens of ancient feather.
The stories of transfer, likened to the
Wine of witches and starry-eyed dreams.
About Ron Koppelberger
Ron Koppelberger has published 217 poems and 52 short stories in a variety of periodicals. He has been published in The Storyteller, Ceremony, Write On!!! (Poetry Magazette), Freshly Baked Fiction and Necrology Shorts.
Ron has recently won the People's Choice Award for poetry in The Storyteller for a poem titled "Secret Sash." He is a member of
The American Poets' Society, as well as The Isles Poetry Association.
Ron has had poetry accepted in England, Australia and Thailand. He loves to write and is always seeking to offer an experience for his readers. http://www.wolffray.blogspot.com
LIGHTHOUSE
by Alec B. Kowalczyk
In the solitude
of an abandoned lighthouse
an unsound homeless person
finds a journal of an unstable man
fearing for his sanity
fearing the compromised structural integrity
of the crumbling lighthouse he inhabits
fearing the gales and diverse elements
beating upon the standing straw-like shaft
fearing the torsional stresses
twisting the lighthouse barrel
fearing the bending moments
on this vertical edifice of masonry
fearing the shearing strains
slicing through the mortared joints
fearing the overturning
of the entire brick-laid structure
fearing the underpinning of his very mind...
this man in the journal
who also finds a journal of an unhinged man...
CALIGINOUS
by Alec B. Kowalczyk
Hotel/predawn hours...
looking down from the fourth floor
a doorway illuminated below
one minor beacon in the urban gloom