By Dianne Elizabeth Casey Air hits like a freezer door opened,that sudden solid cold.Light catches the valleys :pearls dropped from the timber.Branches scatteredlike a child let loose with glitter :too much, everywhere,gloriously wrong.A stillness that travels back,shadow and frostolder than the street.The breath held.Overnight, frost reads the world back to us :the structures always there,invisible … Continue reading Frost
Forged in Solitude and Shadows
By Charles C. (Charlie) Gaines Just a boy in ragged blue jean shorts barefooted, sharp witted, and fearless,I roamed the shadows of cedar covered hills and waded mossy creek-beds from dawn to dusk in solitude.Tarzan or Hercules, Roy Rogers or Daniel Boone, depending on the day and where my imagination took me.Built waist high forts … Continue reading Forged in Solitude and Shadows
On What Becomes
By Louie Rivers Not a cruel place,only a place that does not explain itself.A door left open in weatherthat never decides to enter or leave.Wanting exists herewithout promise of arrival—a current that keeps directionbut refuses destination.A glass left out overnightcollecting the shape of air.Known and unknownmove through each otheruntil the boundary forgets its duty.Young and … Continue reading On What Becomes
Check Out
By Edward Johnson The girl in the Plaid Pantry is the only therapy I’ll get tonight. Can she see that I’m careening? Past the point of purchase shrines to batteries, energy drinks, Nicorette, past the temple of various jerkies. Can she see I’ve crossed a line? That I’ve let go of the kite string? I … Continue reading Check Out
Breakfast
By Luchang Zhu Morning in Houston or Hong Kong,or somewhere in my dream.I found a narrow alleywhere I could smellhalf of Southeast Asia.A diner called “Ding How,”a name stranded in 1945.The table was sticky.The menu was sticky.A bowl of Vietnamese beef pho.A cup of Malaysian white coffee.The steam and fragrance riselike incense smokesearching for heaven.In … Continue reading Breakfast
The House That Kept Time
By Sadie McSpadden My grandma's rickety old white house sat miles away from her one stoplight town. That grey-haired, country grandma was always found peeking through the small kitchen window as I weaved my way down the long gravel driveway under a tunnel of overgrown green. The thick trees opened up to a big bare … Continue reading The House That Kept Time
The Neighbor
By Lewis Brett Smiler Carlos was feeling ecstatic as everyone was calling him a hero. The teen scored the winning goal for his hockey team, and now they would be competing in their first-ever state final. Carlos was trying to get the puck close to the goal, to pass it on to a teammate, and … Continue reading The Neighbor
Chinese Doll, Russian Doll And a Mathematician
By Marvel Chukwudi Pephel Every day is not just another assignment, it is a small but contained voyage of discovery. ~ David Doubilet "Dig in!" Hector instructed, placing his cowboy hat firmly on his head. "We must find the elephant skull. We are going nowhere without that skull. Do you understand?" "But sir..." "No buts." … Continue reading Chinese Doll, Russian Doll And a Mathematician
Pink Pillows
By Isabelle Autumn it’s a warm pei evening and i am seven every pine that lines the road drips with honey yellow, the last shreds of sunlight spilling off their branches before the sun is swallowed whole my lungs flood with red gasps of dust as the car flys down the dirt path, and i … Continue reading Pink Pillows
Memoirs of a Rhodesian Bush War
By Temba Magorimbo Excerpts from a fiction novel, Off The Eagle’s Claws by Temba Magorimbo © Jack Von Sidels always remembered a fellow pilot he had been jostling and jockeying with at New Serum Airbase in Salisbury. They had flown out in formation, two Dakotas and two Canberra aircraft. Troops and equipment had been lined … Continue reading Memoirs of a Rhodesian Bush War
