Dontcha just hate when Thanksgiving is latebecause Friday the First means the calendar’s cursedbut you’re so hurly-burly you start a week earlythen sit at the table and wait, wait, wait, wait! Ken Gosse usually writes short, rhymed verse using whimsy and humor with traditional meters. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, his … Continue reading November “The Thursdays” Contest: Silver Winner: “The Long November” by Ken Gosse
Feathery Hope
By Manoela Torres This silly little heartBeats and breaks for youNever learning when to stop Forever figuring what to doWhether you go Whether you stay This heart will grow wideDay after dayLoving and losing Was never the gameA heart doesn't survive on loveIt's feathery hopeThat has us jump off the cliff Flying then fallingAgain and … Continue reading Feathery Hope
“Dear Imposter”
By Luisa Mays I blame youFor the dreams that always sleptAnd for the story never told.I blame you. For the lesson never learned,And the space never filledYouI blame.For the busted something that I never fixed.The memories I never switched.The cobwebs I never cleaned And the hours of sleep I missed.I blame youFor the plans that … Continue reading “Dear Imposter”
Blue Heron Lake
By John Ziegler I woke at dawn.Still beneath the musty quiltI cranked the tall window open,smelled the moist air coming off the lake.I stretched and stepped from the bed,put on sneakers and jeans,the green flannel shirt over his white tee shirtand crept down the stairs to avoid waking the adults.I grabbed a muffin and an … Continue reading Blue Heron Lake
Surrealist Woman
By Brenda Mox Surrealist woman in a serious room,a long bodied, emaciatedModiglianiwatched with great wonder.No tennis playing, surf riding dollof the west was she.Just a bag of bones,a floppy broken stick,a maniac.Her sweet smile glowed in neon rednessyet grew solemn among the flushedfaced fools drunkenness.Tears of sorrow in her brown eyesabsorbed his soul into her … Continue reading Surrealist Woman
Bridge Lessons
By Ben Macnair The inscription reads,To Laura, may the lessons of this bookstand you in good stead, love Dad, Christmas 1985.It is a book of bridge lessons,written before the internet,when mistakes had to be learnt,in the singular.No-one offering advice on a you-tube video,no forums saying what needs to be done, and in what order.The book … Continue reading Bridge Lessons
Visit Rita’s Winery
By Daniel de Culla Isabel’s photo By the legitimacy of my epistolary friendshipWith Moradilleva EjidhovaAnd Votijova Cotarronova21-year-old students at the Facultyof Philology and Artsof Urgench State UniversityIn Uzbekistan, in Central AsiaOn the Silk RoadI wanted to show myself generous and nobleInviting them to my town for gazing in loveMoradillo de Roa, in BurgosWith all expenses … Continue reading Visit Rita’s Winery
I Have Some Questions for God
By Hossein Hakim (An Abecedarian Poem) Another day starts in this town of minebeautiful tall trees are all around chasing each other, two baby squirrelsdogs running around, joy in their eyesEverybody seems so happy in this townfeather of a bird is on the ground, passage of timegirls are in the playgroundhugging the colorful butterfliesIn the … Continue reading I Have Some Questions for God
As a Kite
By Mike Turner Lift me as a kiteInto a cobalt skyThat I may waft with the breezeFloating with spun-sugar cloudsGazing upon the receding Earth belowPassing from a smidge to a blur to a moteClimbing higher and higher‘Til I pass the azure fringe of day to nightBecoming one with the starsDusted diamonds against obsidian heavensShining reflected … Continue reading As a Kite
For Therapy, I Mix Metaphors
By D. R. James From a frozen wedge of machine-split pine,tossed on this settling fire, one frayed, martyredfiber curls back and away like a wire, thenflares, a flame racing the length of a fuse.Imagine this an innermost strand, a barely-dirttwo-track off Frost’s road less traveled, a thin, trembling thread of desire, the uncharted blue veinof … Continue reading For Therapy, I Mix Metaphors
Academy of the Heart And Mind 